Adaptive behaviors can improve the system consilience of a network system

As a recently reported network property, consilience degree (CSD) indicates how well a network system integrates its topology and node activities together to serve a specific systemic goal. As is well known, many natural and man-made systems are complex networks where, besides network topology, node activity states also play an important role in determining system performance. For example, a collaborative project involving friends is more likely to succeed than one involving enemies, even though the topology of network organization is the same. The concept of CSD can quantitatively distinguish the difference between the involvement of friends and the involvement of enemies. This article reports a simulation study on the adaptive behaviors of nodes based on the selfish rule and the following-others rule, and the simulation results show that based on such adaptive behaviors of nodes, a network system will automatically evolve to a high level of system consilience. The simulation study also demonstrates that a high level of system consilience resulting from adaptive behaviors will contribute to increased system resistance to external disturbances. The generality of adaptive behaviors in reality implies that CSD is an inherent attribute of real-world network systems, and therefore, the concept of CSD has significant application potential in the study of adaptive behaviors in network systems

Extended Inclusive Fitness Theory bridges Economics and Biology through a common understanding of Social Synergy

Inclusive Fitness Theory (IFT) was proposed half a century ago by W.D. Hamilton to explain the emergence and maintenance of cooperation between individuals that allows the existence of society. Contemporary evolutionary ecology identified several factors that increase inclusive fitness, in addition to kin-selection, such as assortation or homophily, and social synergies triggered by cooperation. Here we propose an Extend Inclusive Fitness Theory (EIFT) that includes in the fitness calculation all direct and indirect benefits an agent obtains by its own actions, and through interactions with kin and with genetically unrelated individuals. This formulation focuses on the sustainable cost/benefit threshold ratio of cooperation and on the probability of agents sharing mutually compatible memes or genes. This broader description of the nature of social dynamics allows to compare the evolution of cooperation among kin and non-kin, intra- and inter-specific cooperation, co-evolution, the emergence of symbioses, of social synergies, and the emergence of division of labor. EIFT promotes interdisciplinary cross fertilization of ideas by allowing to describe the role for division of labor in the emergence of social synergies, providing an integrated framework for the study of both, biological evolution of social behavior and economic market dynamics.Comment: Bioeconomics, Synergy, Complexit

Literature Meets Biology: An Evolutionary Approach to Literary Studies

The following thesis engages with the relatively young development in literary studies, called evocriticism, which uses scientific perspectives to look at literature. It first gives an overview of the current state of English departments and their decline in numbers, budgets, and cultural relevancy, mostly due to outdated modes of literary criticism and theory. It then introduces evocriticism as a new paradigm for studying literature. Literature and the arts are studied as human behaviors with possible adaptive benefits. Individual texts are interpreted through a scientific lens, using the theory of evolution to find cultural and biological human universals that can help explain characters and readers’ behaviors. The thesis then briefly outlines the areas of evolutionary theory most relevant to this discussion. Finally, it gives two critical readings to demonstrate evocriticism’s usefulness for examining literature from a broad range of genres, styles, time periods, and content. The first reading looks at the contemporary American poet Lyn Hejinian’s autobiographical prose poem My Life to compare the poem’s form with the evolved structure of the brain and memory. The second reading gives an evocritical interpretation of William Shakespeare’s tragic play King Lear using biological theories of unequal parental investment, sibling rivalry, and generational conflict to explain the motivations of the characters. This thesis enters the critical conversation started by Joseph Carroll, E.O. Wilson, Stephen Pinker, Brian Boyd, and others about the relationship between literature and science. It is based on the idea that literary criticism should negotiate between scientific evidence and literary imagination to explore what it means to be human. Astronomer and popular scientist Carl Sagan writes in The Dragons of Eden, “Curiosity and the urge to solve problems are the emotional hallmarks of our species; and the most characteristically human activities are mathematics, science, technology, music and the arts—a somewhat broader range of subjects than is usually included under the “humanities” (82)

Report of the ACBS Task Force on the Strategies and Tactics of Contextual Behavioral Science Research

Throughout its history the strategy and tactics of contextual behavioral science (CBS) research have had distinctive features as compared to traditional behavioral science approaches. Continued progress in CBS research can be facilitated by greater clarity about how its strategy and tactics can be brought to bear on current challenges. The present white paper is the result of a 2 1/2-year long process designed to foster consensus among representative producers and consumers of CBS research about the best strategic pathway forward. The Task Force agreed that CBS research should be multilevel, process-based, multidimensional, prosocial, and pragmatic, and provided 33 recommendations to the CBS community arranged across these characteristics. In effect, this report provides a detailed research agenda designed to maximize the impact of CBS as a field. Scientists and practitioners are encouraged to mount this ambitious agenda