Psychology and Neuroscience Journal

1. Psychology and Neuroscience Magazine Issue No. 1 February 2009
One is only micrometers wide. The other is billions of light years across. One shows neurons in a mouse
brain. The other is a simulated image of the universe. Together they suggest the unsurprisingly similar
patterns found in vastly different natural phenomena.
Contents Page No
Neuroscience: Socioeconomic status and brain differences between poor and rich kids ………. 2
Darwinism: Why we are, as we are ………………………………………………………………………………………….. 6
Neuroscience: Hijacking the brain circuits with a nickel slot machine …………………………………….15
Animal Behaviour: Swarm theory …………………………………………………………………………………………….18
Humour: They’re made out of meat …………………………………………………………………………………………..26
Book Review: Born to rebel ……………………………………………………………………………………………………….28
Economics: Paul Krugman and his four rules of research ………………………………………………………..34
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2. Editor’s Note
Welcome to the first issue of Brain Maya. This magazine consists of a collection of various
articles from various sources and has been published with the intention of increasing public
awareness and education about developments in psychology, neuroscience and related fields. If
you would like to contribute articles or have something to say you can contact the editor at
brainmaya@gmail.com
Cover Image
(Left Image) Mark Miller, a doctoral student at Brandeis University, is researching how
particular types of neurons in the brain are connected to one another. By staining thin slices of a
mouse's brain, he can identify the connections visually. The image above shows three neuron
cells on the left (two red and one yellow) and their connections.
(Right Image) An international group of astrophysicists used a computer simulation last year
to recreate how the universe grew and evolved. The simulation image above is a snapshot of the
present universe that features a large cluster of galaxies (bright yellow) surrounded by
thousands of stars, galaxies and dark matter (web).
(Source by Mark Miller, Brandeis University; Virgo Consortium for Cosmological Supercomputer
Simulations; www.visualcomplexity.com)
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3. Neuroscience quot;Kids from lower socioeconomic levels
show brain physiology patterns similar
to someone who actually had damage in
Socioeconomic status and brain
the frontal lobe as an adult,quot; said Robert
differences between poor and Knight, director of the institute and a UC
rich kids Berkeley professor of psychology. quot;We found
that kids are more likely to have a low
BERKELEY — University of California, response if they have low socioeconomic
Berkeley, researchers have shown for the status, though not everyone who is poor has
first time that the brains of low-income low frontal lobe response.quot;
children function differently from the brains
of high-income kids. Previous studies have shown a possible link
between frontal lobe function and behavioral
In a study recently accepted for publication differences in children from low and high
by the Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, socioeconomic levels, but according to
scientists at UC Berkeley's Helen Wills cognitive psychologist Mark Kishiyama, first
Neuroscience Institute and the School of author of the new paper, quot;those studies were
Public Health report that normal 9- and 10- only indirect measures of brain function and
year-olds differing only in socioeconomic could not disentangle the effects of
status have detectable differences in the intelligence, language proficiency and other
response of their prefrontal cortex, the part factors that tend to be associated with low
of the brain that is critical for problem socioeconomic status. Our study is the first
solving and creativity. with direct measure of brain activity where
there is no issue of task complexity.quot;
Co-author W. Thomas Boyce, UC Berkeley
professor emeritus of public health who
currently is the British Columbia Leadership
Chair of Child Development at the University
of British Columbia (UBC), is not surprised
by the results. quot;We know kids growing up in
resource-poor environments have more
trouble with the kinds of behavioral control
that the prefrontal cortex is involved in
regulating. But the fact that we see
functional differences in prefrontal cortex
response in lower socioeconomic status kids
is definitive.quot;
Electroencephalography, or EEG, uses
Boyce, a pediatrician and developmental
electrodes on the scalp and held in place by psychobiologist, heads a joint UC
a cap to measure underlying brain activity. Berkeley/UBC research program called
(Lee Michael Perry/UC Berkeley) WINKS - Wellness in Kids - that looks at how
the disadvantages of growing up in low
Brain function was measured by means of an socioeconomic circumstances change
children's basic neural development over the
electroencephalograph (EEG) - basically, a
first several years of life.
cap fitted with electrodes to measure
electrical activity in the brain - like that used
quot;This is a wake-up call,quot; Knight said. quot;It's
to assess epilepsy, sleep disorders and brain
not just that these kids are poor and
tumors.
more likely to have health problems, but
they might actually not be getting full
2

4. brain development from the stressful The subjects were instructed to click a
and relatively impoverished button when a slightly skewed triangle
environment associated with low flashed on the screen.
socioeconomic status: fewer books, less
reading, fewer games, fewer visits to
The researchers were interested in the
museums.quot;
brain's very early response - within as little
as 200 milliseconds, or a fifth of a second -
Kishiyama, Knight and Boyce suspect that
after a novel picture was flashed on the
the brain differences can be eliminated by
screen, such as a photo of a puppy or of
proper training. They are collaborating with
Mickey and Minnie Mouse.
UC Berkeley neuroscientists who use games
to improve the prefrontal cortex function,
quot;An EEG allows us to measure very fast brain
and thus the reasoning ability, of school-age
responses with millisecond accuracy,quot;
children.
Kishiyama said.
quot;It's not a life sentence,quot; Knight emphasized.
The researchers discovered a dramatic
quot;We think that with proper intervention and
difference in the response of the prefrontal
training, you could get improvement in both
cortex not only when an unexpected image
behavioral and physiological indices.quot;
flashed on the screen, but also when children
were merely watching the upright triangles
waiting for a skewed triangle to appear.
Those from low socioeconomic environments
showed a lower response to the unexpected
novel stimuli in the prefrontal cortex that
was similar, Kishiyama said, to the response
of people who have had a portion of their
frontal lobe destroyed by a stroke.
quot;When paying attention to the triangles, the
prefrontal cortex helps you process the
visual stimuli better. And the prefrontal
cortex is even more involved in detecting
novelty, like the unexpected photographs,quot;
Children of high socioeconomic status (SES)
he said. But in both cases, quot;the low
show more activity (dark green) in the socioeconomic kids were not detecting or
prefrontal cortex (top) than do kids of low processing the visual stimuli as well. They
SES when confronted with a novel or were not getting that extra boost from the
prefrontal cortex.quot;
unexpected stimulus. (Mark Kishiyama/UC
Berkeley)
quot;These kids have no neural damage, no
prenatal exposure to drugs and alcohol, no
Kishiyama, Knight, Boyce and their
neurological damage,quot; Kishiyama said. quot;Yet,
colleagues selected 26 children ages 9 and
the prefrontal cortex is not functioning as
10 from a group of children in the WINKS
efficiently as it should be. This difference
study. Half were from families with low
may manifest itself in problem solving
incomes and half from families with high and school performance.quot;
incomes. For each child, the researchers
measured brain activity while he or she was The researchers suspect that stressful
environments and cognitive impoverishment
engaged in a simple task: watching a
are to blame, since in animals, stress and
sequence of triangles projected on a screen.
environmental deprivation have been shown
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5. to affect the prefrontal cortex. UC Berkeley's quot;People have tried for a long time to train
Marian Diamond, professor of integrative reasoning, largely unsuccessfully,quot; Bunge
biology, showed nearly 20 years ago in rats said. quot;Our question is, 'Can we replicate
that enrichment thickens the cerebral cortex these initial findings and at the same time
as it improves test performance. And as give kids the tools to succeed?'quot;
Boyce noted, previous studies have shown
that children from poor families hear 30 Berkerly
million fewer words by the time they are four
than do kids from middle-class families. http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releas
es/2008/12/02_cortex.shtml
quot;In work that we and others have done, it
really looks like something as simple and Poor Kids Hear 30 Million Fewer Words
easily done as talking to your kidsquot; can boost by Time they Reach 4 Years
prefrontal cortex performance, Boyce said.
UC Berkeley's Marian Diamond professor
quot;We are certainly not blaming lower emeritus of integrative biology, showed
socioeconomic families for not talking to nearly 20 years ago in rats that enrichment
their kids - there are probably a zillion thickens the cerebral cortex as it
reasons why that happens,quot; he said. quot;But improves test performance. And as Boyce
changing developmental outcomes might noted, previous studies have shown that
involve something as accessible as helping children from poor families hear 30 million
parents to understand that it is important fewer words by the time they are four than
that kids sit down to dinner with their do kids from middle-class families.
parents, and that over the course of that
dinner it would be good for there to be a
quot;In work that we and others have done, it
conversation and people saying things to
really looks like something as simple and
each other.quot;
easily done as talking to your kidsquot; can boost
prefrontal cortex performance, Boyce said.
quot;The study is suggestive and a little bit
frightening that environmental
conditions have such a strong impact on
brain development,quot; said Silvia Bunge, UC
Berkeley assistant professor of psychology
who is leading the intervention studies on
prefrontal cortex development in teenagers
by using functional magnetic resonance
imaging (fMRI).
Boyce's UBC colleague, Adele Diamond,
showed last year that 5- and 6-year-olds
with impaired executive functioning, that is,
poor problem solving and reasoning abilities, The outer layer of grey matter,
can improve their academic performance approximately 2 mm thick, covering the
with the help of special activities, including entire surface of the cerebral hemispheres.
dramatic play. The cerebral cortex is made up of neuron
and supporting cells (glial cells) and
Bunge hopes that, with fMRI, she can show functions to correlate information from many
improvements in academic performance as a sources to maintain cognitive function (all
result of these games, actually boosting the aspects of perceiving, thinking and
activity of the prefrontal cortex. remembering).
4

6. quot;We are certainly not blaming lower
socioeconomic families for not talking to
their kids - there are probably a zillion
reasons why that happens,quot; he said. quot;But
changing developmental outcomes might
involve something as accessible as helping
parents to understand that it is important
that kids sit down to dinner with their
parents, and that over the course of that
dinner it would be good for there to be a
conversation and people saying things to
each other.quot;.
Boyce's Cal colleague, Adele Diamond,
showed last year that 5- and 6-year-olds
with impaired executive functioning, that is,
poor problem solving and reasoning abilities,
can improve their academic performance
with the help of special activities, including
dramatic play.
Bunge hopes that she can show
improvements in academic performance as a
result of these games, actually boosting the
activity of the prefrontal cortex.
5

7. Darwinism get to the nitty-gritty of what it truly is to be
human. Policy based on them does not work.
This is because they ignore the forces
Why we are, as we are
that made people what they are: the
forces of evolution.
As the 150th anniversary of the
publication of “On The Origin of
The reasons for that ignorance are complex.
Species” approaches, the moment has
Philosophers have preached that there exists
come to ask how Darwin’s insights can
between man and beast an unbridgeable
be used profitably by policymakers
distinction. Sociologists have been seduced
by Marxist ideas about the perfectibility of
Charles Darwin(12 February 1809 – 19 April
mankind. Theologians have feared that the
1882)
very thought of evolution threatens divine
explanations of the world. Even fully paid-up
members of the Enlightenment, people who
would not for a moment deny humanity’s
simian ancestry, are often sceptical. They
seem to believe, as Anne Campbell, a
psychologist at Durham University, in
England, elegantly puts it, that evolution
stops at the neck: that human anatomy
evolved, but human behaviour is culturally
determined.
WEALTH, according to H.L. Mencken, an
The corollary to this is the idea that with
American satirist of the last century, “is any
appropriate education, indoctrination, social
income that is at least $100 more a year
conditioning or what have you, people can
than the income of one’s wife’s sister’s
be made to behave in almost any way
husband.” Adjusted for inflation since 1949,
imaginable. The evidence, however, is
that is not a bad definition. But why do those
that they cannot. The room for shaping
who are already well-off feel the need to
their behaviour is actually quite limited.
out-earn other people? And why,
Unless that is realised, and the
contrariwise, is it so hard to abolish poverty?
underlying biology of the behaviour to
be shaped is properly understood,
America, Mencken’s homeland, executes
attempts to manipulate it are likely to
around 40 people a year for murder. Yet it
fail. Unfortunately, even as the 150th
still has a high murder rate. Why do people
anniversary of Darwin’s masterwork, “On
murder each other when they are almost
The Origin of Species”, approaches (it was
always caught and may, in America at least,
published in 1859) that fact has not been
be killed themselves as a result?
properly accepted. Time, then, to see what a
Darwinian analysis has to offer the hard-
Why, after 80 years of votes for women, and
pressed policymaker, and whether it can
40 years of the feminist revolution, do men
make a practical difference to outcomes.
still earn larger incomes? And why do so
many people hate others merely for having
Mencken’s observation neatly explains two
different coloured skin?
aspects of modern life. One is the open-
endedness of economic growth. The other is
Traditionally, the answers to such questions,
that no matter how rich your country
and many others about modern life, have
becomes, the poor you will always have with
been sought in philosophy, sociology, even
you. But what explains Mencken’s
religion. But the answers that have come
observation?
back are generally unsatisfying. They
describe, rather than explain. They do not
6

8. For a Darwinian, life is about two Life is about survival and reproduction
things: survival and reproduction. Of the
two, the second is the more significant. To For men, at least, this is demonstrably true.
put it crudely, the only Darwinian point of Evolutionary biologists are fond of quoting
survival is reproduction. As a consequence, extreme examples to make the point, the
much of daily existence is about showing off, most famous being Moulay Ismail the
subtly or starkly, in ways that attract Bloodthirsty, a Moroccan ruler who fathered
members of the opposite sex and intimidate over 1,000 children. But kings have powers
those of the same sex. In humans—unlike, of coercion. Some better examples are
say, peafowl, where only the cocks have the provided by Joe Studwell, in his book “Asian
flashy tails, or deer, where only the stags Godfathers”, which dissects the lives of
have the chunky antlers—both sexes engage businessmen. Stanley Ho, a veteran operator
in this. Men do it more than women, but you in Hong Kong and Macau, has 17 children by
need look no further than Ascot race course several women. Oei Tiong Ham, a tycoon
on Gold Cup day to see that women do it who died in 1924, had 18 concubines and 42
too. Status and hierarchy matter. And in children. The relationship holds good further
modern society, status is mediated by down the social ladder. Danile Nettle and
money. Thomas Pollet, of Newcastle University,
recently showed that in Britain the number
Girls have always liked a rich man, of of children a man has fathered is, on
course. Darwinians used to think this was average, related to his income, the spread of
due to his ability to provide materially for modern contraception notwithstanding.
their children. No doubt that is part of it. But
the thinking among evolutionary biologists Status, though, is always relative: it is linked
these days is that what is mainly going on is to money because it drives the desire to
a competition for genes, not goods. High- make more of the stuff in order to outdo the
status individuals are more likely to have competition. This is the ultimate engine of
genes that promote health and intelligence, economic growth. Since status is a moving
and members of the opposite sex have been target, there is no such thing as enough
honed by evolution to respond accordingly. A money.
high-status man will get more opportunities
to mate. A high-status woman can be more The relative nature of status explains the
choosy about whom she mates with. paradox observed in 1974 by an economist
called Richard Easterlin that, while rich
people are happier than poor people within a
country, average happiness does not
increase as that country gets richer. This has
been disputed recently. But if it withstands
scrutiny it means the free-market
argument—that because economic growth
makes everybody better off, it does not
matter that some are more better off than
others—does not stand up, at least if “better
off” is measured in terms of happiness. What
actually matters, Darwinism suggests, is that
a free society allows people to rise through
the hierarchy by their own efforts: the
American dream, if you like.
Conversely, the Darwinian explanation of
continued support for socialism—in the teeth
The book that turns 150 this year. of evidence that it results in low economic
7

9. growth—is that even though making the rich In this case, therefore, the Darwinian
poorer would not make the poor richer in conclusion is that there is no right answer—
financial terms, it would change the or at least no Utopian one. Of course, it does
hierarchy in ways that people at the bottom not take a Darwinist to work out that any
would like. When researchers ask people competition has losers. The illuminating
whether they would rather be relatively point is that losing has a real cost, not just
richer than their peers even if that means the absence of gain. With the stakes this
they are absolutely worse off, the answer is high—early death for the failures and genetic
yes. (Would you rather earn $100,000 when continuity for the successes—it is hardly
all your friends earn $50,000, or $150,000 surprising that those at the bottom of the
when everybody else earns $300,000?) The heap sometimes seek status, or at least
reason socialism does not work in practice is “respect”, in other ways. This is a point that
that this is not a question that most people should be taken seriously by policymakers.
ask themselves. What they ask is how to For those “other ways” are also explicable by
earn $300,000 when all around them people Darwinism.
are earning $50,000.
That crime is selfish is hardly news. But the
A Darwinian analysis does, however, support idea that criminal behaviour is an evolved
one argument frequently made by the left response to circumstances sounds shocking.
and pooh-poohed by the right. This is that It calls into question the moral explanation
poverty is relative. The starkest that crime is done by “bad people”. Yet that
demonstration of this, discovered by Richard explanation is itself susceptible to Darwinian
Wilkinson of Nottingham University, in analysis: evolution probably explains why
England, is that once economic growth has certain behaviours are deemed worthy of
lifted a country out of penury, its inhabitants punishment.
are likely to live longer, healthier lives if
there are not huge differences between their The study of the evolutionary roots of crime
incomes. This means that poorer countries began with the work of Martin Daly and
with low income-variation can outscore Margo Wilson, a married couple who work at
richer ones with high variation. It is also McMaster University in Canada. They looked
true, as was first demonstrated by Michael at what is usually regarded as the most
Marmot, of University College, London, that serious crime of all, murder.
those at the bottom of social hierarchies
have worse health than those at the top— That murderers are usually young men is
even when all other variables are statistically well known, but Dr Daly and Dr Wilson dug a
eliminated, including the fact that those who bit deeper. They discovered that although
are healthier are more likely to rise to the the murder rate varies from place to place,
top in the first place. the pattern does not. Plot the rate against
the age of the perpetrator and the peak is
In the 1970s, when Dr Marmot made this the same (see chart next page).
observation, expert opinion predicted the
opposite. Executives were expected to suffer
worse stress than groundlings, and this was
expected to show up as heart attacks,
strokes and so forth. In fact, the opposite is
true. It is the Darwinian failure of being at
the bottom of the heap that is truly stressful
and bad for the health. That, writ large,
probably explains the mortality patterns of
entire countries.
8

10. low status. A woman will rarely have
difficulty finding a mate, even if he does not
measure up to all her lofty ideals. In the
world of Moulay Ismail the Bloodthirsty,
however, a low-status man may be cast on
the reproductive scrap heap because there
are no women available to him at all. Though
the world in which humanity evolved was
nowhere near as polygamous as Moulay
Ismail’s, neither did it resemble the modern
one of monogamous marriage, which
distributes women widely. In those
circumstances, if the alternative was
reproductive failure, risking the
consequences of violence may have been are
worth the gamble—and instincts will have
evolved accordingly.
For similar reasons, it is no surprise to
Moreover, the pattern of the victims is
Darwinists that those who rape strangers are
similar. They, too, are mostly young men. In
also men of low status. Oddly, considering it
the original study, 86% of the victims of
is an act that might result in a child, the idea
male killers aged between 15 and 19 were
that rape is an evolved behaviour is even
also male. This is the clue as to what is
more controversial than the Darwinian
going on. Most violence (and thus most
explanation of murder. Randy Thornhill of
murder, which is simply violence’s most
the University of New Mexico, who proposed
extreme expression) is a consequence
it on the basis of criminal data and by
of competition between young,
comparing people with other species, was
unemployed, unmarried men. In the
excoriated by feminists who felt he was
view of Darwinists, these men are either
somehow excusing the crime. On the other
competing for women directly (“You
hand, it has become a mantra among some
looking at my girl, Jimmy?”) or
feminists that all men are rapists, which
competing for status (“You dissing me,
sounds a lot like the opposite point of view:
man?”).
biological determinism. Insert the word
“potential”, however, and this claim is
This is not to deny that crimes of violence
probably true.
are often crimes of poverty (for which read
low status). But that is precisely what
To a Darwinist, the most common form of
Darwinism would predict. There is no need to
forced mating, so-called date rape, which
invoke the idea that people are “born
occurs in an already charged sexual
criminal”. All that is required is the evolution
environment, looks a lot like an adaptive
of enough behavioural flexibility to respond
response. Men who engage in it are likely to
appropriately when violence is (or would
have more offspring than those who do not.
have been, in the evolutionary past) an
If a genetic disposition for men to force their
appropriate response.
attentions on women in this way does exist,
it would inevitably spread.
Sexual success, by contrast, tends to
Crime…
dampen criminal behaviour down.
Getting married and having children—in
An evolutionary analysis explains many other words, achieving at least part of
things about crime (and not just murder)— his Darwinian ambition—often
particularly why most criminals are males of
9

11. terminates a criminal’s career. Again, a duck. A lioness may try to defend her cubs
that is a commonplace observation. against infanticide, but if she fails she does
However, it tends to be explained as not plan vengeance against the male who did
“the calming influence of marriage”, it. Instead, she usually has sex with him. Yet
which is not really an explanation at all. ideas of revenge and punishment lie deep in
“Ambition fulfilled” is a better one. the human psyche.
The murder of children, too, can be …and punishment
explained evolutionarily. On the face of
things it makes no sense to kill the vessels Economists were long puzzled, for example,
carrying your genes into the next by the routine outcome of a game in which
generation. And, indeed, that is not what one player divides a sum of money between
usually happens. But sociologists failed to himself and a competitor, who then decides
notice this. It was not until Dr Daly and Dr whether the shares are fair. If the second
Wilson began researching the field that it player decides the shares are not fair,
was discovered that a child under five is neither player gets anything.
many times more likely to die an unnatural
death in a household with a stepfather What is curious about this game is that, in
present (whether or not that relationship has order to punish the first player for his
been formalised by law) than if only selfishness, the second player has
biological parents are there. deliberately made himself worse off by not
accepting the offer. Many evolutionary
In this, humans follow a pattern that is biologists feel that the sense of justice this
widespread in mammals: male hostility to a illustrates, and the willingness of one player
female’s offspring from previous matings. In to punish the other, even at a cost to
some species, such as lions and langurs, this himself, are among the things that have
results in deliberate infanticide. In humans allowed humans to become such a
things not are always as brutal and explicit. successful, collaborative species. In the
But neglect and a low threshold of irritation small social world in which humans evolved,
at the demands of a dependent non-relative people dealt with the same neighbours over
can have the same effect. and over again. Punishing a cheat has
desirable long-term consequences for the
Intriguingly, though, if a genetic parent is person doing the punishing, as well as for
the killer it is often the mother. Infanticidal the wider group. In future, the cheat will
mothers are usually young. A young mother either not deal with him or will do so more
has many years of potential reproduction honestly. Evolution will favour the
ahead of her. If circumstances do not favour development of emotions that make such
her at the time (perhaps the father has reactions automatic.
deserted her) the cost to her total
reproductive output of bringing up a child What goes for cheating goes for other bad
may exceed the risk of killing it. Not behaviour, up to and including the murder of
surprisingly, maternal infanticide is mainly a relatives and friends. Moreover, if publicly
crime of poor, single women. observed, punishment sends the same
message to those who might be considering
Many people might sympathise with those a similar course of action.
driven to commit this particular form of
homicide. But in general crimes such as It is therefore one of the marvels of
murder and rape provoke a desire to punish civilisation that punishment and revenge
the perpetrators, not to forgive them. That, have, for the most part, been
too, is probably an evolved response—and it institutionalised. But to be successful, the
may well be a uniquely human one. No court institutionalised punishment has to be seen
sits in judgment over a drake who has raped as a proper outcome by the individuals who
10

12. were harmed. Otherwise, they might mete time employment earned only 1% less than
out their own revenge. That may worry their male counterparts. This age group
those who believe that reforming the corresponds for many women to the period
criminal should be the main goal of when they are single. Once they have found
sentencing policy. If people no longer believe the best available mate, the calculation
that the punishment fits the crime, a changes: a woman no longer needs to show
Darwinian would predict that they will stop off.
supporting the criminal-justice system.
Even deterrence, however, does not always
work. On the face of things, capital
punishment ought to be the ultimate
deterrent. But it does not seem to be.
Satoshi Kanazawa, an evolutionary
psychologist at the London School of
Economics, suggests that this is further
evidence of the reproduction-related nature
of murder. Since failure to reproduce is a
Darwinian dead-end anyway, risking death
to avoid that fate—or, rather, being impelled In that context, it is less of a surprise that
to do so in the heat of the moment by an older women are out-earned by their male
evolved instinct—is not as stupid as it looks. contemporaries. One reason is that they now
Some sorts of murder might be discouraged care less about the size of their earnings. Of
by the threat of the noose or the needle. But the top 25 ideal employers, as chosen by
not the most common sort: young man on women, the IEA found that 12 were in the
young man over status and sex. public or voluntary sectors—areas where
salaries for equivalent work tend to be lower
A woman’s place than in the private sector, though job
security is higher and job satisfaction is often
Crime, then, is one field in which women are believed to be greater.
unequal with men. That does not bother
feminists, but perhaps it should. For it might For men, only four employers were in this
reflect a wider truth which those who believe category. The other reason, of course, is that
that the sexes should not merely have equal women usually look after the children.
rights but enjoy equal outcomes will find Indeed, the study by Dr Nettle and Dr Pollet
uncomfortable. which found that reproductive success
correlates with men’s income, also points out
When outcomes are unequal in socially that with women the correlation is inverted.
acceptable areas of behaviour, such as But the IEA study also found that it is
employment, it is often interpreted as a sign women themselves who are taking the
of discrimination. But people who draw this decisions about child care. It reports that
conclusion rarely consider that the two-thirds of the women who had not
discrimination in question might actually be already had a “career break”, as it is
being exercised by the supposedly euphemistically known, planned to take one
disadvantaged women themselves. at some point in the future. Less than an
eighth of men had similar aspirations. That,
A classic example is income. Women earn too, would be predicted by a Darwinist.
less than men. Or do they? In fact, younger
women do not, or not much. A recent report Although there is a strong argument for
by the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA), a making working conditions more sympathetic
British think-tank, found that British women to the needs of parents of both sexes, the
aged between 22 and 29 who were in full- underlying point is that many women—and
11

13. certainly many women with children—do not a circuitous route to a traditional destination.
care as much about striving ahead in their It isn’t: not expecting an equal distribution of
careers as men do. Men, the report found, the sexes within every profession is not the
are more motivated by pay and less by job same as saying that a woman’s place is in
satisfaction than women are. If managers, the home. And having dared to question the
they are more likely to work long hours. assumptions of both feminists and their
They also take more risks—or, at least, are opponents, some evolutionary biologists are
more frequently injured at work. now hoping to turn conventional wisdom
upside down in another area where civil
rights meet long-standing prejudice. This is
The consequence, as Len Shackleton, the
the vexed question of race.
IEA report’s main author, puts it, is that:
“The widespread belief that the gender pay
gap is a reflection of deep-rooted Race to the finish
discrimination by employers is ill-informed
and an unhelpful contribution to the debate. Racial difference is an area where modern
The pay gap is falling but is also a reflection Darwinists have feared, until recently, to
of individuals’ lifestyle preferences. tread. This is hardly surprising, given the
Government can’t regulate or legislate these topic’s history. Many early evolutionary
away, and shouldn’t try to.” He failed to add, biologists (though not Darwin himself)
however, that these preferences are often thought that just as man was a risen ape, so
the result of biological differences between white, European man was the zenith of
the sexes. humanity, and that people from other parts
of the world were necessarily inferior.
What goes for pay probably goes for career
choice as well. At one extreme, it is foolish, The consequences of that have been terrible.
as Kingsley Browne of Wayne State It gave a veneer of intellectual respectability
University, in Michigan, suggests, to expect to the eugenic horrors which culminated in
equal outcomes in organisations like the the Nazi death camps. Indeed, it is probably
armed forces. Not only are men stronger and one of the roots of the “evolution stops at
more aggressive but, Mr Browne suggests, the neck” point of view. But evolutionary
the psychology of both sexes has evolved to biology is now making amends. By
trust men (and not trust women) in combat, overturning understanding of what race
precisely because of this aggression and actually is, it may yet provide the tools that
strength. At the other end of the scale, it is allow people of different backgrounds to live
probably an opposite mixture of evolved in reasonable harmony.
aptitudes and attitudes that causes the
domination by females of professions such Revenge and punishment lie deep in the
as nursing. human psyche
This is not to say there can be no good Its first observation is a bleak one. This is
female soldiers or male nurses. Patently, that racism, or at least xenophobia, is a
there can. But it is not clear evidence of deeply ingrained human characteristic. But
discrimination that they are rarer than their its second observation is that, so far as can
counterparts of the opposite sex. A be determined, the traditional definition of
Darwinian analysis of the matter cannot say race—the tendency of people living in
where the equilibrium would lie in a world different parts of the world to have different
free from discrimination. But it can say with skin colour, hair colour and physiognomy—
reasonable confidence that this equilibrium has no wider ramifications in areas such as
will often not be 50/50. intelligence. Racial prejudice, then, is just
Many may harrumph at such a Darwinian
interpretation of feminism, and say that it is
12

14. that: prejudice. Though an individual might reasonably be
expected to know many members of his tribe
personally, he would probably not know
them all. There would thus be a biological
advantage in tribal branding, as it were.
Potential allies would quickly identify what
marked them out from others, and what
marked others out from them—and, because
those differences would probably be small,
the detector would need to be very sensitive.
In the past, such markers would often have
been cultural, since local physical differences
What is being proposed instead, by another would have been minimal. A telling instance
husband and wife team of Darwinists, Leda is recorded in the Bible:
Cosmides and John Tooby of the University
of California, Santa Barbara, is a theory of Then said they unto him, Say now
ethnicity that explains the mishmash of Shibboleth: and he said Sibboleth: for he
categories anthropologists have tried to could not frame to pronounce it right. Then
shoehorn into the general class of “race”. they took him and slew him.
Are Jews and Sikhs, who are defined by
religious exclusivity, races? Are Serbs and The questioners were the Gileadites. The
Croats, who share their religions with others, slain, an Ephraimite. But no physical
but not with each other, and whom no difference could distinguish the tribes, so the
geneticist could tell apart? These examples, Gileadite ethnic-cleansers had to rely on
and similar ones, argue that race has no linguistic tics.
biological meaning. But it does. It is just not
the traditional meaning. In a world where a syllable can get you
killed, having differently coloured skin is a
Social psychologists have long observed pretty strong brand of identity. However, it
that, on first meeting, people automatically is not a unique signal. Experiments that Dr
classify each other in three ways: by sex, by Cosmides, Dr Tooby and their students have
age and by race. But Dr Cosmides and Dr conducted in both America and Brazil
Tooby pointed out that before long-distance (another racially mixed country) suggest it
transport existed, only two of those would is surprisingly easy to rebrand even
have been relevant. People of different ages people of different skin colour by
and sexes would meet; people of different making other badges of allegiance more
races would not. significant—as happens when sportsmen
clothe themselves in coloured team shirts.
The two researchers argue that modern Moreover, Andrew Penner of the University
racial discrimination is an overstimulated of California, Irvine, and Aliya Saperstein of
response to what might be called an the University of Oregon have shown that
“alliance” detector in the human brain. In a perception of a person’s race can actually
world where the largest social unit is the change in the real world. Many people shift
tribe, clan or what-you-will of a few hundred from being “white” to “black”, in both their
people, your neighbours and your other own eyes and the eyes of others, in response
allies will normally look a lot like you, and to unemployment, impoverishment or
act similarly. However, it is known from the imprisonment.
study of modern hunter-gatherers, and
inferred from archaeological evidence about That is an uncomfortable reminder of the
ancient ones, that neighbouring tribes are way group solidarity works in America. The
often hostile. hope this analysis brings, though, is that
13

15. there is nothing particularly special about (obesity plus high blood-pressure equals
biologically based brands such as skin diabetes plus heart disease) seems to
colour. If other brands of group membership Darwinists the consequence of people trying
can be strengthened, the traditional ones to sate appetites for sugar and fat that
may diminish, even if they do not disappear evolution put no brakes on because they
completely. If this theory of race is correct were so rare in the natural world.
(and more research is certainly needed), it
indicates a strong prescription: policies that Pretending young adults are children so that
encourage groups to retain their identity they can be educated en masse in schools is
within a society will cause trouble, but those another area ripe for investigation. And the
that encourage cultural integration will refusal of people to adhere to the patterns of
smooth things over. behaviour prescribed for them by classical
economics has already spun off a field called
In practice, the history of that most behavioural economics that often has
racially mixed country of all, the United Darwinian thinking at its roots.
States, supports this idea. When
integration has been encouraged, as No one is suggesting Darwinism has all the
with the descendants of the great flood answers to social questions. Indeed, with
of European immigrants in the late 19th some, such as the role of hierarchies, it
and early 20th centuries, ethnic suggests there is no definitive answer at
distinctions have vanished. When all—itself an important conclusion.
integration has been discouraged, as
with the descendants of slaves liberated What is extraordinary, though, is how
shortly before those European rarely an evolutionary analysis is part of
immigrants arrived, differences have the process of policymaking. To draw an
been sharpened. Even in Britain, official analogy, it is like trying to fix a car
policy seems to be shifting from without properly understanding how it
“multiculturalism”, which celebrated diversity works: not impossible, but as likely as
and thus encouraged distinction, to a not to result in a breakdown or a crash.
deliberate attempt to forge a cultural Perhaps, after a century and a half, it is
consensus. time not just to recognise but also to
understand that human beings are
What the brand theory of ethnicity does not evolved creatures. To know thyself is,
require, however, is that minorities submit to after all, the beginning of wisdom.
the majority’s definition of what the brands
should be. All that is needed is for each The Economist
generation to be encouraged to form its own http://www.economist.com/science/displayst
identity from the widest range of materials ory.cfm?story_id=12795581
possible.
A Darwinian analysis thus sheds light on a
number of pressing questions. There are
others. The rise of metabolic syndrome
14

16. Neuroscience The idea has been around since Freud, said
Dr. Gregory Berns, a psychiatrist at Emory
University School of Medicine in Atlanta.
Hijacking the Brain Circuits Psychologists have studied unconscious
processing of information in terms of
With a Nickel Slot Machine subliminal effects, memory and learning, he
said, and they have started to map out what
Compulsive gambling, attendance at sporting parts of the brain are involved in such
events, vulnerability to telephone scams and processing. But only now are they learning
exuberant investing in the stock market may how these different circuits interact, he said.
not seem to have much in common. But
neuroscientists have uncovered a common ''My hunch is that most decisions are made
thread. subconsciously with many gradations of
awareness,'' Dr. Berns said. ''For example,
I'm vaguely aware of how I got to work this
morning. But consciousness seems reserved
for more important things.''
Dr. P. Read Montague, a neuroscientist at
Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, says
the idea that people can get themselves to
work on automatic pilot raises two
questions: how does the brain know what it
must pay conscious attention to? And how
did evolution create a brain that could make
Such behaviors, they say, rely on brain such distinctions?
circuits that evolved to help animals assess
rewards important to their survival, like food
The answer emerging from experiments on
and sex. Researchers have found that those
animals and people is that the brain has
same circuits are used by the human brain
evolved to shape itself, starting in infancy,
to assess social rewards as diverse as
according to what it encounters in the
investment income and surprise home runs
external world.
at the bottom of the ninth.
As Dr. Montague explained it, much of the
And, in a finding that astonishes many
world is predictable: buildings usually stay in
people, they found that the brain
one place, gravity makes objects fall, light
systems that detect and evaluate such
falling at an oblique angle makes long
rewards generally operate outside of
shadows and so forth. As children grow, their
conscious awareness. In navigating the
brains build internal models of everything
world and deciding what is rewarding,
they encounter, gradually learning to identify
humans are closer to zombies than
objects and to predict how they move
sentient beings much of the time.
through space and time.
The findings, which are gaining wide
As new information flows into it from the
adherence among neuroscientists,
outside world, the brain automatically
challenge the notion that people always
compares it to what it already knows. If
make conscious choices about what
things match up -- as when people drive to
they want and how to obtain it. In fact,
work every day along the same route --
the neuroscientists say, much of what
events, objects and the passage of time may
happens in the brain goes on outside of
not reach conscious awareness.
conscious awareness.
15

17. But if there is a surprise -- a car suddenly with various types of rewards, usually squirts
runs a red light -- the mismatch between of apple juice that the animal liked.
what is expected and what is happening
instantly shifts the brain into a new state. A Dr. Schultz found that when the monkey got
brain circuit involved in decision making is more juice than it expected, dopamine
activated, again out of conscious awareness. neurons fired vigorously. When the monkey
Drawing on past experience held in memory got an amount of juice that it expected to
banks, a decision is made: hit the brake, get, based on previous squirts, dopamine
swerve the wheel or keep going. Only a neurons did nothing. And when the monkey
second or so later, after hands and feet have expected to get juice but got none, the
initiated the chosen action, does the sense of dopamine neurons decreased their firing
having made a conscious decision arise. rate, as if to signal a lack of reward.
Dr. Montague estimates that 90 percent Scientists believe that this midbrain
of what people do every day is carried dopamine system is constantly making
out by this kind of automatic, predictions about what to expect in terms of
unconscious system that evolved to help rewards. Learning takes place only when
creatures survive. something unexpected happens and
dopamine firing rates increase or decrease.
Animals use these circuits to know what to When nothing unexpected happens, as when
attend to, what to ignore and what is worth the same amount of delicious apple juice
learning about. People use them for the keeps coming, the dopamine system is quiet.
same purposes which, as a result of their
bigger brains and culture, include listening to In animals, Dr. Montague said, these
music, eating chocolate, assessing beauty, midbrain dopamine signals are sent directly
gambling, investing in stocks and to brain areas that initiate movements and
experimenting with drugs -- all topics that behavior. These brain areas figure out how
have been studied this past year with brain to get more apple juice or sit back and do
imaging machines that directly measure the nothing. In humans, though, the dopamine
activity of human brain circuits. signal is also sent to a higher brain region
called the frontal cortex for more elaborate
The two circuits that have been studied most processing.
extensively involve how animals and people
assess rewards. Both involve a chemical Dr. Jonathan Cohen, a neuroscientist at
called dopamine. The first circuit, which is in Princeton, studies a part of the frontal cortex
a middle region of the brain, helps animals called the anterior cingulate, located in back
and people instantly assess rewards or lack of the forehead. This part of the brain has
of rewards. several functions, Dr. Cohen said, including
the task of detecting errors and conflict in
the flow of information being processed
automatically.
Brain imaging experiments are
beginning to show that when a person
gets an unexpected reward -- the
equivalent of a huge shot of delicious
apple juice -- more dopamine reaches
The circuit was described in greater detail
the anterior cingulate. When a person
several years ago by Dr. Wolfram Schultz, a
expects a reward and does not get it,
neuroscientist at Cambridge University in
less dopamine reaches the region. And
England, who tracked dopamine production
in a monkey's midbrain and experimented when a person expects a reward and
gets it, the anterior cingulate is silent.
16

18. When people expect a reward and do not Music activates neural systems of reward
receive it, their brains need a way to register and emotion. Older people with age-related
the fact that something is amiss so it can impairments to the frontal cortex do poorly
recalibrate expectations for future events, on gambling tasks and, experiments show,
Dr. Cohen said. As in monkeys, human are prone to believe misleading advertising.
dopamine neurons project to areas that plan
and control movements, he said. Fluctuating
levels of dopamine make people get up and
do things, outside their conscious
awareness. The number of things people do
to increase their dopamine firing rates is
unlimited, neuroscientists are discovering.
Several studies were published last year
looking at monetary rewards and dopamine.
Money is abstract but to the brain it looks
like cocaine, food, sex or anything a person
expects is rewarding, said Dr. Hans Breiter, Neuroscientists say that part of the
a neuroscientist at Harvard. People crave it. appeal of live sporting events is their
inherent unpredictability. When a
Some people seem to be born with baseball player with two outs at the
vulnerable dopamine systems that get bottom of the ninth inning hits a home
hijacked by social rewards. The same neural run to win the game, thousands of
circuitry involved in the highs and lows of spectators simultaneously experience a
abusing drugs is activated by winning or huge surge of dopamine. People keep
losing money, anticipating a good meal or coming back, as if addicted to the
seeking beautiful faces to look at, Dr. Breiter euphoria of experiencing unexpected
said. rewards.
For example, dopamine circuits are activated One of the most promising areas for looking
by cocaine; people become addicted when at unconscious reward circuits in human
their reward circuits have been hijacked by behavior concerns the stock market, Dr.
the drug, Dr. Montague said. Montague said. Economists do not study
people, they study collective neural systems
Winning in gambling can also hijack the in people who form mass expectations. For
dopamine system, Dr. Berns said. Many example, when the Federal Reserve
people visit a casino, lose money and are not unexpectedly lowered interest rates twice
tempted to go back. But compulsive last year, the market went up, he said. When
gamblers seem to have vulnerable dopamine it lowered interest rates on other occasions
systems, he said. The first time they win, and investors knew the move was coming,
they get a huge dopamine rush that gets markets did not respond.
embedded in their memory. They keep
gambling and the occasional dopamine rush Economists and neuroscientists use the same
of winning overrides their conscious mathematical equations for modeling market
knowledge that they will lose in the long run. behavior and dopamine behavior, Dr.
Montague said. Neuroscience may provide an
Other experiments show that reward circuits entirely new set of constructs for
are activated when young men look at understanding economic decision making.
photos of beautiful women and that these
circuits are defective in women with eating New York Times
disorders like bulimia. Bulimics say they are http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?
addicted to vomiting because it gives them a res=9800E5D61E3FF93AA25751C0A9649C8
warm, positive feeling. B63
17

19. Animal Behaviour make a critical decision about their hive if
many of them disagree? What enables a
school of herring to coordinate its
Swarm Theory :The Genius of
movements so precisely it can change
Swarms direction in a flash, like a single, silvery
organism? The collective abilities of such
A single ant or bee isn't smart, but their animals—none of which grasps the big
colonies are. The study of swarm picture, but each of which contributes to the
intelligence is providing insights that group's success—seem miraculous even to
the biologists who know them best. Yet
can help humans manage complex
during the past few decades, researchers
systems, from truck routing to robots.
have come up with intriguing insights.
I used to think ants knew what they were
One key to an ant colony, for example, is
doing. The ones marching across my kitchen
that no one's in charge. No generals
counter looked so confident, I just figured
command ant warriors. No managers boss
they had a plan, knew where they were
ant workers. The queen plays no role except
going and what needed to be done. How else
to lay eggs. Even with half a million ants, a
could ants organize highways, build
colony functions just fine with no
elaborate nests, stage epic raids, and do all
management at all—at least none that we
the other things ants do?
would recognize. It relies instead upon
countless interactions between individual
Turns out I was wrong. Ants aren't clever
ants, each of which is following simple rules
little engineers, architects, or warriors after
of thumb. Scientists describe such a system
all—at least not as individuals. When it
as self-organizing.
comes to deciding what to do next, most
ants don't have a clue. quot;If you watch an ant
try to accomplish something, you'll be
impressed by how inept it is,quot; says Deborah
M. Gordon, a biologist at Stanford University.
How do we explain, then, the success of
Earth's 12,000 or so known ant species?
They must have learned something in 140
million years.
quot;Ants aren't smart,quot; Gordon says. quot;Ant
colonies are.quot; A colony can solve
problems unthinkable for individual
Consider the problem of job allocation. In
ants, such as finding the shortest path to
the Arizona desert where Deborah Gordon
the best food source, allocating workers to
studies red harvester ants (Pogonomyrmex
different tasks, or defending a territory from
barbatus), a colony calculates each morning
neighbors. As individuals, ants might be tiny
how many workers to send out foraging for
dummies, but as colonies they respond
food. The number can change, depending on
quickly and effectively to their environment.
conditions. Have foragers recently
They do it with something called swarm
discovered a bonanza of tasty seeds? More
intelligence.
ants may be needed to haul the bounty
home. Was the nest damaged by a storm
Where this intelligence comes from
last night? Additional maintenance workers
raises a fundamental question in nature:
may be held back to make repairs. An ant
How do the simple actions of individuals
might be a nest worker one day, a trash
add up to the complex behavior of a
collector the next. But how does a colony
group? How do hundreds of honeybees
18

20. make such adjustments if no one's in That's how swarm intelligence works:
charge? Gordon has a theory. simple creatures following simple rules,
each one acting on local information. No
ant sees the big picture. No ant tells any
Ants communicate by touch and smell. When
other ant what to do. Some ant species
one ant bumps into another, it sniffs with its
may go about this with more sophistication
antennae to find out if the other belongs to
than others. (Temnothorax albipennis, for
the same nest and where it has been
example, can rate the quality of a potential
working. (Ants that work outside the nest
nest site using multiple criteria.) But the
smell different from those that stay inside.)
bottom line, says Iain Couzin, a biologist at
Before they leave the nest each day,
Oxford and Princeton Universities, is that no
foragers normally wait for early morning
leadership is required. quot;Even complex
patrollers to return. As patrollers enter the
behavior may be coordinated by relatively
nest, they touch antennae briefly with
simple interactions,quot; he says.
foragers.
Inspired by the elegance of this idea, Marco
quot;When a forager has contact with a patroller,
Dorigo, a computer scientist at the
it's a stimulus for the forager to go out,quot;
Université Libre in Brussels, used his
Gordon says. quot;But the forager needs several
knowledge of ant behavior in 1991 to create
contacts no more than ten seconds apart
mathematical procedures for solving
before it will go out.quot;
particularly complex human problems, such
as routing trucks, scheduling airlines, or
To see how this works, Gordon and her
guiding military robots.
collaborator Michael Greene of the University
of Colorado at Denver captured patroller ants
In Houston, for example, a company named
as they left a nest one morning. After
American Air Liquide has been using an ant-
waiting half an hour, they simulated the
based strategy to manage a complex
ants' return by dropping glass beads into the
business problem. The company produces
nest entrance at regular intervals—some
industrial and medical gases, mostly
coated with patroller scent, some with
nitrogen, oxygen, and hydrogen, at about a
maintenance worker scent, some with no
hundred locations in the United States and
scent. Only the beads coated with patroller
delivers them to 6,000 sites, using pipelines,
scent stimulated foragers to leave the nest.
railcars, and 400 trucks. Deregulated power
Their conclusion: Foragers use the rate of
markets in some regions (the price of
their encounters with patrollers to tell if it's
electricity changes every 15 minutes in parts
safe to go out. (If you bump into patrollers
of Texas) add yet another layer of
at the right rate, it's time to go foraging. If
complexity.
not, better wait. It might be too windy, or
there might be a hungry lizard waiting out
there.) Once the ants start foraging and quot;Right now in Houston, the price is $44 a
bringing back food, other ants join the effort, megawatt for an industrial customer,quot; says
depending on the rate at which they Charles N. Harper, who oversees the supply
encounter returning foragers. system at Air Liquide. quot;Last night the price
went up to $64, and Monday when the cold
front came through, it went up to $210.quot; The
quot;A forager won't come back until it finds
company needed a way to pull it all together.
something,quot; Gordon says. quot;The less food
there is, the longer it takes the forager to
find it and get back. The more food there is, Working with the Bios Group (now NuTech
the faster it comes back. So nobody's Solutions), a firm that specialized in artificial
deciding whether it's a good day to forage. intelligence, Air Liquide developed a
The collective is, but no particular ant is.quot; computer model based on algorithms
inspired by the foraging behavior of
Argentine ants (Linepithema humile), a
19

21. species that deposits chemical substances companies have made calls go through
called pheromones. faster on their networks by programming
messages to deposit virtual pheromones at
switching stations, just as ants leave signals
quot;When these ants bring food back to the
for other ants to show them the best trails.
nest, they lay a pheromone trail that tells
other ants to go get more food,quot; Harper
explains. quot;The pheromone trail gets In the U.S., Southwest Airlines has tested an
reinforced every time an ant goes out and ant-based model to improve service at Sky
comes back, kind of like when you wear a Harbor International Airport in Phoenix. With
trail in the forest to collect wood. So we about 200 aircraft a day taking off and
developed a program that sends out billions landing on two runways and using gates at
of software ants to find out where the three concourses, the company wanted to
pheromone trails are strongest for our truck make sure that each plane got in and out as
routes.quot; quickly as possible, even if it arrived early or
late.
Ants had evolved an efficient method to find
the best routes in their neighborhoods. Why quot;People don't like being only 500 yards away
not follow their example? So Air Liquide from a gate and having to sit out there until
combined the ant approach with other another aircraft leaves,quot; says Doug Lawson
artificial intelligence techniques to consider of Southwest. So Lawson created a computer
every permutation of plant scheduling, model of the airport, giving each aircraft the
weather, and truck routing—millions of ability to remember how long it took to get
possible decisions and outcomes a day. into and away from each gate. Then he set
Every night, forecasts of customer demand the model in motion to simulate a day's
and manufacturing costs are fed into the activity.
model.
quot;The planes are like ants searching for the
quot;It takes four hours to run, even with the best gate,quot; he says. But rather than leaving
biggest computers we have,quot; Harper says. virtual pheromones along the way, each
quot;But at six o'clock every morning we get a aircraft remembers the faster gates and
solution that says how we're going to forgets the slower ones. After many
manage our day.quot; simulations, using real data to vary arrival
and departure times, each plane learned how
to avoid an intolerable wait on the tarmac.
For truck drivers, the new system took some
Southwest was so pleased with the outcome,
getting used to. Instead of delivering gas
it may use a similar model to study the
from the plant closest to a customer, as they
ticket counter area.
used to do, drivers were now asked to pick
up shipments from whichever plant was
making gas at the lowest delivered price, When it comes to swarm intelligence, ants
even if it was farther away. aren't the only insects with something useful
to teach us. On a small, breezy island off the
southern coast of Maine, Thomas Seeley, a
quot;You want me to drive a hundred miles? To
biologist at Cornell University, has been
the drivers, it wasn't intuitive,quot; Harper says.
looking into the uncanny ability of honeybees
But for the company, the savings have been
to make good decisions. With as many as
impressive. quot;It's huge. It's actually huge.quot;
50,000 workers in a single hive,
honeybees have evolved ways to work
Other companies also have profited by
through individual differences of
imitating ants. In Italy and Switzerland,
opinion to do what's best for the colony.
fleets of trucks carrying milk and dairy
If only people could be as effective in
products, heating oil, and groceries all use
boardrooms, church committees, and town
ant-foraging rules to find the best routes for
deliveries. In England and France, telephone
20

22. meetings, Seeley says, we could avoid threshold confirmed by other experiments—
problems making decisions in our own lives. the bees at that box sensed that a quorum
had been reached, and they returned to the
swarm with the news.
During the past decade, Seeley, Kirk
Visscher of the University of California,
Riverside, and others have been studying quot;It was a race,quot; Seeley says. quot;Which site was
colonies of honeybees (Apis mellifera) to see going to build up 15 bees first?quot;
how they choose a new home. In late spring,
when a hive gets too crowded, a colony
normally splits, and the queen, some drones,
and about half the workers fly a short
distance to cluster on a tree branch. There
the bees bivouac while a small percentage of
them go searching for new real estate.
Ideally, the site will be a cavity in a tree,
well off the ground, with a small entrance
hole facing south, and lots of room inside for
brood and honey. Once a colony selects a
site, it usually won't move again, so it has to Scouts from the chosen box then spread
make the right choice. through the swarm, signaling that it was
time to move. Once all the bees had warmed
To find out how, Seeley's team applied paint up, they lifted off for their new home, which,
dots and tiny plastic tags to identify all 4,000 to no one's surprise, turned out to be the
bees in each of several small swarms that best of the five boxes.
they ferried to Appledore Island, home of the
Shoals Marine Laboratory. There, in a series The bees' rules for decision-making—
of experiments, they released each swarm to seek a diversity of options, encourage a
locate nest boxes they'd placed on one side free competition among ideas, and use
of the half-mile-long (one kilometer) island, an effective mechanism to narrow
which has plenty of shrubs but almost no choices—so impressed Seeley that he now
trees or other places for nests. uses them at Cornell as chairman of his
department.
In one test they put out five nest boxes, four
that weren't quite big enough and one that quot;I've applied what I've learned from the
was just about perfect. Scout bees soon bees to run faculty meetings,quot; he says.
appeared at all five. When they returned to To avoid going into a meeting with his
the swarm, each performed a waggle dance mind made up, hearing only what he
urging other scouts to go have a look. wants to hear, and pressuring people to
(These dances include a code giving conform, Seeley asks his group to
directions to a box's location.) The strength identify all the possibilities, kick their
of each dance reflected the scout's ideas around for a while, then vote by
enthusiasm for the site. After a while, secret ballot. quot;It's exactly what the swarm
dozens of scouts were dancing their little bees do, which gives a group time to let the
feet off, some for one site, some for another, best ideas emerge and win. People are
and a small cloud of bees was buzzing usually quite amenable to that.quot;
around each box.
In fact, almost any group that follows the
The decisive moment didn't take place in the bees' rules will make itself smarter, says
main cluster of bees, but out at the boxes, James Surowiecki, author of The Wisdom of
where scouts were building up. As soon as Crowds. quot;The analogy is really quite
the number of scouts visible near the powerful. The bees are predicting which nest
entrance to a box reached about 15—a site will be best, and humans can do the
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23. same thing, even in the face of exceptionally making decisions than with precisely
complex decisions.quot; Investors in the stock coordinating movement.
market, scientists on a research project,
even kids at a county fair guessing the Craig Reynolds, a computer graphics
number of beans in a jar can be smart researcher, was curious about what these
groups, he says, if their members are rules might be. So in 1986 he created a
diverse, independent minded, and use a deceptively simple steering program called
mechanism such as voting, auctioning, or boids. In this simulation, generic birdlike
averaging to reach a collective decision. objects, or boids, were each given three
instructions: 1) avoid crowding nearby boids,
Take bettors at a horse race. Why are they 2) fly in the average direction of nearby
so accurate at predicting the outcome of a boids, and 3) stay close to nearby boids. The
race? At the moment the horses leave the result, when set in motion on a computer
starting gate, the odds posted on the pari- screen, was a convincing simulation of
mutuel board, which are calculated from all flocking, including lifelike and unpredictable
bets put down, almost always predict the movements.
race's outcome: Horses with the lowest odds
normally finish first, those with second At the time, Reynolds was looking for ways
lowest odds finish second, and so on. The to depict animals realistically in TV shows
reason, Surowiecki says, is that pari-mutuel and films. (Batman Returns in 1992 was the
betting is a nearly perfect machine for first movie to use his approach, portraying a
tapping into the wisdom of the crowd. swarm of bats and an army of penguins.)
Today he works at Sony doing research for
quot;If you ever go to the track, you find a really games, such as an algorithm that simulates
diverse group, experts who spend all day in real time as many as 15,000 interacting
perusing daily race forms, people who know birds, fish, or people.
something about some kinds of horses, and
others who are betting at random, like the By demonstrating the power of self-
woman who only likes black horses,quot; he organizing models to mimic swarm behavior,
says. Like bees trying to make a decision, Reynolds was also blazing the trail for
bettors gather all kinds of information, robotics engineers. A team of robots that
disagree with one another, and distill their could coordinate its actions like a flock of
collective judgment when they place their birds could offer significant advantages over
bets. a solitary robot. Spread out over a large
area, a group could function as a powerful
That's why it's so rare to win on a long shot. mobile sensor net, gathering information
about what's out there. If the group
encountered something unexpected, it could
There's a small park near the White House in
adjust and respond quickly, even if the
Washington, D.C., where I like to watch
robots in the group weren't very
flocks of pigeons swirl over the traffic and
sophisticated, just as ants are able to come
trees. Sooner or later, the birds come to rest
up with various options by trial and error. If
on ledges of buildings surrounding the park.
one member of the group were to break
Then something disrupts them, and they're
down, others could take its place. And, most
off again in synchronized flight.
important, control of the group could be
decentralized, not dependent on a leader.
The birds don't have a leader. No pigeon is
telling the others what to do. Instead,
quot;In biology, if you look at groups with large
they're each paying close attention to the
numbers, there are very few examples
pigeons next to them, each bird following
where you have a central agent,quot; says Vijay
simple rules as they wheel across the sky.
Kumar, a professor of mechanical
These rules add up to another kind of swarm
engineering at the University of
intelligence—one that has less to do with
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