Robert Trivers

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Robert Trivers

Robert L. Trivers (born February 19, 1943, ) is an American

United States

The United States of America is a Federal government constitutional republic comprising U.S. state and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its Contiguous United States and Washington, D.C., the Capital districts and territories, lie between the Pacific Ocean and Atlantic Oceans, Borders of the U...
evolutionary biologist and sociobiologist, most noted for proposing the theories of reciprocal altruism

Reciprocal altruism

In evolutionary biology and evolutionary psychology, reciprocal altruism is a form of altruism in which one organism provides a benefit to another without expecting any immediate payment or compensation....
(1971), parental investment

Parental investment

In evolutionary biology, parental investment is any parental expenditure that benefits one offspring at a cost to parents' ability to invest in other components of fitness ....
(1972), and parent-offspring conflict

Parent-offspring conflict

Parent-offspring conflict is a term used to signify the evolutionary conflict arising from differences in optimal fitness of parents and their offspring....
(1974). Other areas in which he has made influential contributions include an adaptive view of self-deception

Self-deception

Self-deception is a process of denial or Rationalization away the relevance, significance, or importance of opposing evidence and logical argument....
(first described in 1976) and intragenomic conflict

Intragenomic conflict

The selfish gene theory postulates that natural selection will increase the frequency of those genes whose phenotypic effects ensure their successful DNA replication....
. Along with George C. Williams

George C. Williams

Professor George Christopher Williams is an United States evolutionary biologist.Williams is a professor of biology at the State University of New York at Stony Brook....
, Trivers is arguably one of the most influential evolutionary theorists alive today.

A 1961 graduate of Phillips Academy, Andover, Trivers went to Harvard

Harvard University

Harvard University is a private university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Massachusetts, United States, and a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1636 by the colonial Massachusetts legislature, Harvard is the Colonial Colleges institution of higher learning in the United States....
to study mathematics, but wound up studying U.S.

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Encyclopedia

Robert L. Trivers (born February 19, 1943, ) is an American

United States

Reciprocal altruism

Parental investment

Parent-offspring conflict

Self-deception

Intragenomic conflict

George C. Williams

Harvard University

HIStory

HIStory: Past, Present and Future, Book I is a double album by Michael Jackson, released on June 20, 1995, and is Jackson's ninth. The first disc, named "HIStory Begins" consists of a selection of Jackson's greatest hits from the singer's past fifteen years, while the second, named "HIStory Continues" features new songs, with the...
on June 16, 1965 from Harvard University

University

A university is an institution of higher education and research, which grants academic degrees in a variety of subjects. A university provides both undergraduate education and postgraduate education....
. He took a psychology

Psychology

Psychology is an academic and applied science discipline involving the science study of human mental functions and behavior. Occasionally it also relies on symbolic hermeneutics and critical theory, although these traditions are less pronounced than in other social sciences such as sociology....
class after suffering a breakdown, and was very unimpressed with the state of psychology. He was prevented from getting into Yale law school by his breakdown, and wound up with a job writing social science textbooks for children (never published, due in part to presenting evolution by natural selection as fact). This exposure to evolutionary theory led him to do graduate work with Ernst Mayr at Harvard 1968–1972. He earned his Ph.D.

Ph.D.

Ph.D. or PHD may stand for:* Doctor of Philosophy, an academic degree* Ph.D. , a 1980s British group* Piled Higher and Deeper, a web comic strip...
in Biology

Biology

Biology is a branch of the natural sciences concerned with the study of living organisms and their interaction with each other and their environment ....
on June 15, 1972 also from Harvard University

University

University of California, Santa Cruz

Huey P. Newton

Huey Percy Newton , was co-founder and leader of the Black Panther Party, an African-American organization established to promote Black Power, civil rights and self-defense....
, Chairman of the Black Panther Party

Black Panther Party

The Black Panther Party was an African-American organization established to promote Black Power and Right of self-defense through acts of social agitation....
, in 1978 when Newton applied (while in prison) to do a reading course with him as part of a graduate degree in History of Consciousness

History of Consciousness

The History of Consciousness program is an interdisciplinary graduate program in the humanities with links to the sciences, social sciences, and arts at the University of California at Santa Cruz....
at UC Santa Cruz

University of California, Santa Cruz

The University of California, Santa Cruz, also known as UC Santa Cruz or UCSC, is a public university, residential college university; one of ten campuses in the University of California....
. Trivers and Newton became close friends: Newton was even godfather to one of Trivers' daughters. Trivers joined the Black Panther Party in 1979. Trivers and Newton published an analysis of the role of self-deception

Self-deception

Self-deception is a process of denial or Rationalization away the relevance, significance, or importance of opposing evidence and logical argument....
by the flight crew in the crash of Air Florida Flight 90

Air Florida Flight 90

Air Florida Flight 90, an Air Florida flight of a Boeing 737 airliner, crashed into the 14th Street Bridge across the Potomac River in Washington, D.C....
.

Trivers was a faculty member at UC Santa Cruz 1978-1994. He is currently a Rutgers University

Rutgers University

Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey , is the largest institution for higher education in the U.S. state of New Jersey. It was originally chartered as Queen's College in 1766 and is the Colonial colleges in the United States....
notable faculty member. In the 2008-2009 academic year, he is a Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study in Berlin (Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin).

He wrote the original foreword to Richard Dawkins

Richard Dawkins

Clinton Richard Dawkins, Royal Society#Fellowship, Royal Society of Literature is a United Kingdom ethology, evolutionary biology and popular science author....
' book, The Selfish Gene

The Selfish Gene

The Selfish Gene is a book on evolution by Richard Dawkins, published in 1976 in literature. It builds upon the principal theory of George C....
, in which Trivers first proposed his adaptive theory of self-deception. He was recently awarded the 2007 Crafoord Prize

Crafoord Prize

The annual Crafoord Prize is a science prize established in 1980 by Holger Crafoord, a Swedish industrialist, and his wife Anna-Greta Crafoord....
in Biosciences for "his fundamental analysis of social evolution, conflict and cooperation".

Political views

Trivers is a harsh critic of Israeli government policies. He has called Harvard professor Alan Dershowitz

Alan Dershowitz

Alan Morton Dershowitz is an American lawyer, jurist, and pundit . He is the Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law at Harvard Law School. He is known for his career as an attorney in several high-profile law cases and commentary on the Arab-Israeli conflict....
, "nazi-like" and "a skunk" for his defense of Israel government policies.

Significant papers

Trivers, R. L. (1971) The evolution of reciprocal altruism. Quarterly Review of Biology, 46, 35-57.

Trivers, R. L. (1972) Parental investment and sexual selection. In B. Campbell (Ed.) Sexual selection and the descent of man, 1871-1971 (pp 136-179). Chicago, Aldine.

Trivers, R. L. & Willard, D. E. (1973) Natural selection of parental ability to vary the sex ratio of offspring. Science
Science (journal)

Science is the academic journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and is considered one of the world's most prestigious scientific journals....
, 179(68), 90-2.

Trivers, R. L. (1974). Parent-offspring conflict. American Zoologist, 14, 249-264.

Trivers, R. L. & Hare, H. (1976) Haplodiploidy and the evolution of the social insects. Science
Science (journal)

Science is the academic journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and is considered one of the world's most prestigious scientific journals....
, 191(4224), 250-263.

Trivers, R. L. (1991) Deceit and self-deception: The relationship between communication and consciousness. In: M. Robinson and L. Tiger (eds.) Man and Beast Revisited, Smithsonian, Washington, DC, pp. 175-191.

Books

Trivers, R. L. (1985) Social Evolution. Benjamin/Cummings, Menlo Park, CA.

Trivers, R. L. (2002) Natural Selection and Social Theory: Selected Papers of Robert L. Trivers. (Evolution and Cognition Series) Oxford University Press, Oxford. ISBN 0-19-513062-6

Burt, A. & Trivers, R. L. (2006) Genes in Conflict : The Biology of Selfish Genetic Elements. Belknap Press, Harvard. ISBN 0-674-01713-7

External links

The Guardian:
Interviews with leading evolutionists.