A little more than kind and less than kin: the unwarranted use of kin selection in spatial models of communication

摘要

It has become increasingly apparent that spatial and other forms of ecological situatedness can introduce radical differences in the evolutionary outcome of models of conflictive soical behavior. Cooperative interactions are othen found to have an increased vability in spatially situated models. One possible explanation for this phenomenon makes use of kin-selective arguments according to which high relatedness between neighbors stabilizes cooperation. Unfortunately, in some cases the argument does not go beyond the merely verbal. This paper shows that an explanation in terms of kin selection can easily be tested in a computer simulation and that, in the particular case treated here, the result of such verification is negative thus strengthening previous conclusions regarding the relevance of other factors such as discreteness, stochasticity and ecological organization.