"To be believable, an optimism must first acknowledge fundamental reality, including the reality of human nature, but also the nature of all life. Life as we know it, and probably throughout the universe if there is life elsewhere, means Darwinian life. In a Darwinian world, that which survives survives, and the world becomes full of whatever qualities it takes to survive. As Darwinians, we start pessimistically by assuming deep selfishness at the level of natural selection, pitiless indifference to suffering, ruthless attention to individual success at the expense of others. And yet from such warped beginnings, something can come that is in effect, if not necessarily in intention, dose to amicable brotherhood and sisterhood. This is the uplifting message of Robert Axelrod's remarkable book."
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Academics from the United StatesPolitical scientists from the United StatesPeople from ChicagoYale University alumniNational Medal of Science laureates
Original Language: English
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Sources
Richard Dawkins, Foreword to the New Edition of The Evolution of Cooperation (2006)
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Robert_Axelrod
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Robert Axelrod
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