The Selfish Gene

by Richard Dawkins

Remember that the ‘players’ in the tournament were not humans but computer programs, preprogrammed strategies. Their human authors played the same role as genes programming bodies (think of Chapter 4’s computer chess and the Andromeda computer). You can think of the strategies as miniature ‘proxies’ for their authors. Indeed, one author could have submitted more than one strategy (although it would have been cheating—and Axelrod would presumably not have allowed it—for an author to ‘pack’ the competition with strategies, one of which received the benefits of sacrificial cooperation from the others). Some ingenious strategies were submitted, though they were, of course, far less ingenious than their authors. The winning strategy, remarkably, was the simplest and superficially least ingenious of all. It was called Tit for Tat, and was submitted by Professor Anatol Rapoport, a well-known psychologist and games theorist from Toronto. Tit for Tat begins by cooperating on the first move and thereafter simply copies the previous move of the other player. How might a game involving Tit for Tat proceed? As ever, what happens depends upon the other player. Suppose, first, that the other player is also Tit for Tat (remember that each strategy played against copies of itself as well as against the other 14). Both Tit for Tats begin by cooperating. In the next move, each player copies the other’s previous move, which was COOPERATE. Both continue to COOPERATE until the end of the game, ...