Trivers redux

Trivers' Pursuit:

. first paper, on the evolution of reciprocal altruism, described a theoretical model showing how altruism among strangers could naturally develop — people cooperate with the expectation of similar treatment from others.

. in Trivers’ second paper, he hypothesized that a single factor drives sex differences across all species. He argued that differences in parental investment — the energy and resources invested in an offspring — lead the sex that invests more (females, in most species) to focus on mate quality and the sex that invests less (males) to seek quantity.

. In another paper, Trivers conceptualized offspring not as passive recipients of parental investment, but as independent actors, generating the theory of parent-offspring conflict. A child wants disproportionate attention and resources for him- or herself, but a parent wants to spread the goods equally between all offspring. And so we have kids who bawl until they get what they want, siblings who maintain lifelong rivalries, and parents who try to instill equality no matter how selfish the kids’ tendencies.

. Trivers also made a mark with the 2006 textbook Genes in Conflict, for which he and Austin Burt spent 15 years integrating thousands of papers on genetic competition within organisms. A reviewer for Nature Genetics called it “meticulously assembled, thought-provoking, and sometimes deliciously speculative.” According to Trivers, “We created an entire field, the evolutionary dynamics of within-individual genetic conflict.

. Trivers’ most detailed exploration of self-deception didn’t come until his 2011 book The Folly of Fools, where he explains that we fool ourselves in all realms of life — when overestimating our looks or abilities, when justifying our righteousness, when defending our power or privilege, when constructing false historical narratives. It’s all part of advancing our own agendas.