Summary: The Prisoner’s Dilemma: Winning isn’t everything… Episode 22 by John Rennie (Click here to directly access the MP3) (Access the full text transcript) You’re under arrest. You and your criminal partner have just been apprehended, and the police are holding you in separate cells. Do you stay loyal? Rat your partner out (and get a reduced sentence) before he can rat on you? Or do you manipulate the situation, extorting additional benefits for yourself at the expense of your former friend? New insights into the “Prisoner’s Dilemma” explain why crime (or extortion, anyway) doesn’t pay in evolution. Listen to learn more… For more information: Press, W.H. and Dyson, F.J. “Iterated Prisoner’s Dilemma contains strategies that dominate any evolutionary opponent.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 109:26, pp. 10409-10413. (26 June 2012) DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1206569109 Adami, C. and Hintze, A. “Winning isn’t everything: Evolutionary stability of Zero Determinant strategies.” arXiv:1208.2666v1. (13 Aug. 2012) John Rennie (www.johnrennie.net, @tvjrennie) is a science writer, editor and lecturer based in New York City. For 15 years he served as editor in chief of Scientific American. Currently, he writes “The Gleaming Retort” for the PLoS Blogs science blogging network and “The Savvy Scientist” column for SmartPlanet.com, among other projects. He is on the faculty of the Banff Centre Science Communications Program and of the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute of New York University.
