Herbert Gintis, a Professor at Central European University and a thinker in game theory, dives deep into how various social sciences clash and coexist. He critiques the fragmentation of these fields, advocating for an integrated perspective that blends biology, economics, and sociology. Gintis explores the complexities of rationality, arguing that true human behavior often defies traditional economic models. He also examines the role of morality in decision-making and the evolutionary connection between language, warfare, and social structures, emphasizing collaboration in research to enrich understanding.
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Inconsistent Behavioral Models
Inconsistent models of human behavior exist across social sciences, unlike natural sciences where overlaps agree.
Economics emphasizes incentives, while sociology focuses on norms, creating a conflict.
question_answer ANECDOTE
Economics Textbook
Herbert Gintis recalls a thousand-page economics textbook containing no empirical facts, unlike a quantum mechanics book.
Economists try to derive behavior from rationality, but numerous variables make this insufficient.
insights INSIGHT
Rational Actor Model
Economics and biology, the only behavioral sciences with core theories, use the rational actor model.
Other fields, like psychology and anthropology, lack core theories and exhibit scattered approaches.
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In 'A Cooperative Species', Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis provide a compelling account of human cooperation, arguing that it cannot be fully explained by kinship or reciprocity alone. They propose that group-level competition and the co-evolution of genes and culture played crucial roles in shaping human cooperation. The book draws on experimental, archaeological, genetic, and ethnographic data to support its arguments.
Schooling in Capitalist America
Herb Gintis
Samuel Bowles
Game Theory Evolving
a problem-centered introduction to modeling strategic interaction
Herbert Gintis
Game Theory Evolving by Herbert Gintis provides a problem-centered approach to understanding strategic interaction. It covers foundational topics such as probability theory and decision theory before delving into game theory basics, including Nash equilibria and evolutionary game theory. The book emphasizes problem-solving as a key learning tool, making it suitable for students and researchers alike.
Individuality and Entanglement
Individuality and Entanglement
Herbert Gintis
In 'Individuality and Entanglement', Herbert Gintis explores the complex dynamics of social behavior, delving into themes such as gene-culture coevolution, altruism, and the evolution of property rights. The book offers a multidisciplinary approach to understanding human sociality and its moral underpinnings.
How human beings behave is, for fairly evident reasons, a topic of intense interest to human beings. And yet, not only is there much we don’t understand about human behavior, different academic disciplines seem to have developed completely incompatible models to try to explain it. And as today’s guest Herb Gintis complains, they don’t put nearly enough effort into talking to each other to try to reconcile their views. So that what he’s here to do. Using game theory and a model of rational behavior — with an expanded notion of “rationality” that includes social as well as personally selfish interests — he thinks that we can come to an understanding that includes ideas from biology, economics, psychology, and sociology, to more accurately account for how people actually behave.
Herbert Gintis received his PhD in economics from Harvard University. After a long career as professor of economics at the University of Massachusetts, he is currently a professor at Central European University and an External Professor at the Santa Fe Institute. His book Schooling in Capitalist America, written with frequent collaborator Samuel Bowles, is considered a classic in educational reform. He has published books and papers on economics, game theory, sociology, evolution, and numerous other topics.
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