Robert Trivers
Encyclopedia
Robert L. Trivers is an American
evolutionary biologist and sociobiologist and Professor of Anthropology and Biological Sciences at Rutgers University
. Trivers is most noted for proposing the theories of reciprocal altruism
(1971), parental investment
(1972), facultative sex ratio
determination (1973), and parent-offspring conflict
(1974). Other areas in which he has made influential contributions include an adaptive view of self-deception
(first described in 1976) and intragenomic conflict
.
to study mathematics, but went on to study American history in preparation to become a lawyer. He received his bachelor's degree
in history on June 16, 1965 from Harvard. He took a psychology
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 so took a job writing social science textbooks for children that were never published. According to The Guardian's Andrew Brown, the breakdown occurred because Trivers stayed up "all night, night after night" reading Wittgenstein. This landed him in a hospital where he was "treated with the first generation of effective anti-psychotic drugs" and, as part of his therapy, he took art classes. He then got a job illustrating and later writing a "series of textbooks for high schools".
This exposure to evolutionary theory led him to do graduate work with Ernst Mayr
at Harvard from 1968 to 1972. He earned his Ph.D.
in biology
on June 15, 1972, also from Harvard. The second half of his first major paper, "The Evolution of Reciprocal Altruism" was published in 1971.
where he was a faculty member 1978 to 1994. He is currently a Rutgers University
notable faculty member. In the 2008–09 academic year, he was a Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study in Berlin (Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin).
Trivers was recently awarded the 2007 Crafoord Prize
in Biosciences for "his fundamental analysis of social evolution, conflict and cooperation".
Trivers wrote the original foreword to Richard Dawkins
' book The Selfish Gene
in which Trivers first proposed his adaptive theory of self-deception.
Trivers met Huey P. Newton
, Chairman of the Black Panther Party
, in 1978 when Newton applied while in prison to do a reading course with Trivers as part of a graduate degree in History of Consciousness
at UC Santa Cruz
. Trivers and Newton became close friends: Newton was 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
by the flight crew in the crash of Air Florida Flight 90
.
Harvard Law School
professor Alan Dershowitz
has claimed that Trivers told him that "Nazi-like apologists as [you] need to be confronted directly," during Dershowitz's highly publicized dispute with Professor Norman Finkelstein
.
considers Trivers to be "one of the great thinkers in the history of Western thought". Says Pinker, Robert Trivers has:
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
evolutionary biologist and sociobiologist and Professor of Anthropology and Biological Sciences at Rutgers University
Rutgers University
Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey , is the largest institution for higher education in New Jersey, United States. It was originally chartered as Queen's College in 1766. It is the eighth-oldest college in the United States and one of the nine Colonial colleges founded before the American...
. Trivers is most noted for proposing the theories of reciprocal altruism
Reciprocal altruism
In evolutionary biology, reciprocal altruism is a behaviour whereby an organism acts in a manner that temporarily reduces its fitness while increasing another organism's fitness, with the expectation that the other organism will act in a similar manner at a later time...
(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), facultative sex ratio
Sex ratio
Sex ratio is the ratio of males to females in a population. The primary sex ratio is the ratio at the time of conception, secondary sex ratio is the ratio at time of birth, and tertiary sex ratio is the ratio of mature organisms....
determination (1973), and parent-offspring conflict
Parent-offspring conflict
Parent–offspring conflict is a term coined in 1974 by Robert Trivers. It is used to signify the evolutionary conflict arising from differences in optimal parental investment to an offspring from the standpoint of the parent and the 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 denying or rationalizing 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 replication...
.
Education
A 1961 graduate of Phillips Academy, Andover, Trivers went to Harvard UniversityHarvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
to study mathematics, but went on to study American history in preparation to become a lawyer. He received his bachelor's degree
Bachelor's degree
A bachelor's degree is usually an academic degree awarded for an undergraduate course or major that generally lasts for three or four years, but can range anywhere from two to six years depending on the region of the world...
in history on June 16, 1965 from Harvard. He took a psychology
Psychology
Psychology is the study of the mind and behavior. Its immediate goal is to understand individuals and groups by both establishing general principles and researching specific cases. For many, the ultimate goal of psychology is to benefit society...
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 so took a job writing social science textbooks for children that were never published. According to The Guardian's Andrew Brown, the breakdown occurred because Trivers stayed up "all night, night after night" reading Wittgenstein. This landed him in a hospital where he was "treated with the first generation of effective anti-psychotic drugs" and, as part of his therapy, he took art classes. He then got a job illustrating and later writing a "series of textbooks for high schools".
While recovering, he took courses in art, and was hired to illustrate, and then to write, a series of textbooks for high schools. Despite his history degree, it was obvious to his supervisors that he knew little about human biology, so he was given the animals to write about, and started to learn modern Darwinian biology.
This exposure to evolutionary theory led him to do graduate work with Ernst Mayr
Ernst Mayr
Ernst Walter Mayr was one of the 20th century's leading evolutionary biologists. He was also a renowned taxonomist, tropical explorer, ornithologist, historian of science, and naturalist...
at Harvard from 1968 to 1972. He earned his Ph.D.
Ph.D.
A Ph.D. is a Doctor of Philosophy, an academic degree.Ph.D. may also refer to:* Ph.D. , a 1980s British group*Piled Higher and Deeper, a web comic strip*PhD: Phantasy Degree, a Korean comic series* PhD Docbook renderer, an XML renderer...
in biology
Biology
Biology is a natural science concerned with the study of life and living organisms, including their structure, function, growth, origin, evolution, distribution, and taxonomy. Biology is a vast subject containing many subdivisions, topics, and disciplines...
on June 15, 1972, also from Harvard. The second half of his first major paper, "The Evolution of Reciprocal Altruism" was published in 1971.
Career
Trivers was on faculty at Harvard from 1973 to 1978, and then moved to the University of California, Santa CruzUniversity of California, Santa Cruz
The University of California, Santa Cruz, also known as UC Santa Cruz or UCSC, is a public, collegiate university; one of ten campuses in the University of California...
where he was a faculty member 1978 to 1994. He is currently a Rutgers University
Rutgers University
Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey , is the largest institution for higher education in New Jersey, United States. It was originally chartered as Queen's College in 1766. It is the eighth-oldest college in the United States and one of the nine Colonial colleges founded before the American...
notable faculty member. In the 2008–09 academic year, he was a Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study in Berlin (Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin).
Trivers was recently awarded the 2007 Crafoord Prize
Crafoord Prize
The Crafoord Prize is an annual 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".
Trivers wrote the original foreword to Richard Dawkins
Richard Dawkins
Clinton Richard Dawkins, FRS, FRSL , known as Richard Dawkins, is a British ethologist, evolutionary biologist and author...
' book The Selfish Gene
The Selfish Gene
The Selfish Gene is a book on evolution by Richard Dawkins, published in 1976. It builds upon the principal theory of George C. Williams's first book Adaptation and Natural Selection. Dawkins coined the term "selfish gene" as a way of expressing the gene-centred view of evolution as opposed to the...
in which Trivers first proposed his adaptive theory of self-deception.
Trivers met Huey P. Newton
Huey P. Newton
Huey Percy Newton was an American political and urban activist who, along with Bobby Seale, co-founded the Black Panther Party for Self Defense.-Early life:...
, Chairman of the Black Panther Party
Black Panther Party
The Black Panther Party wasan African-American revolutionary leftist organization. It was active in the United States from 1966 until 1982....
, in 1978 when Newton applied while in prison to do a reading course with Trivers 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, collegiate university; one of ten campuses in the University of California...
. Trivers and Newton became close friends: Newton was 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 denying or rationalizing 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 was a scheduled U.S. domestic passenger flight from Washington National Airport in Arlington County, Virginia, to Fort Lauderdale – Hollywood International Airport in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, with a stopover at Tampa International Airport in Tampa, Florida...
.
Harvard Law School
Harvard Law School
Harvard Law School is one of the professional graduate schools of Harvard University. Located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, it is the oldest continually-operating law school in the United States and is home to the largest academic law library in the world. The school is routinely ranked by the U.S...
professor Alan Dershowitz
Alan Dershowitz
Alan Morton Dershowitz is an American lawyer, jurist, and political commentator. He has spent most of his career at Harvard Law School where in 1967, at the age of 28, he became the youngest full professor of law in its history...
has claimed that Trivers told him that "Nazi-like apologists as [you] need to be confronted directly," during Dershowitz's highly publicized dispute with Professor Norman Finkelstein
Norman Finkelstein
Norman Gary Finkelstein is an American political scientist, activist and author. His primary fields of research are the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the politics of the Holocaust. He is a graduate of Binghamton University and received his Ph.D in Political Science from Princeton University...
.
Influence
Trivers is arguably one of the most influential evolutionary theorists alive today. Steven PinkerSteven Pinker
Steven Arthur Pinker is a Canadian-American experimental psychologist, cognitive scientist, linguist and popular science author...
considers Trivers to be "one of the great thinkers in the history of Western thought". Says Pinker, Robert Trivers has:
inspired an astonishing amount of research and commentary in psychology and biology—the fields of sociobiology, evolutionary psychology, Darwinian social science, and behavioral ecology are in large part attempt to test and flesh out Trivers' ideas. It is no coincidence that E. O. WilsonE. O. WilsonEdward Osborne Wilson is an American biologist, researcher , theorist , naturalist and author. His biological specialty is myrmecology, the study of ants....
's Sociobiology and Richard DawkinsRichard DawkinsClinton Richard Dawkins, FRS, FRSL , known as Richard Dawkins, is a British ethologist, evolutionary biologist and author...
' The Selfish GeneThe Selfish GeneThe Selfish Gene is a book on evolution by Richard Dawkins, published in 1976. It builds upon the principal theory of George C. Williams's first book Adaptation and Natural Selection. Dawkins coined the term "selfish gene" as a way of expressing the gene-centred view of evolution as opposed to the...
were published in 1975 and 1976 respectively, just a few years after Trivers' seminal papers. Both bestselling authors openly acknowledged that they were popularizing Trivers' ideas and the research they spawned. Likewise for the much-talked-about books on evolutionary psychology in the 1990s—The Adapted MindThe Adapted MindThe Adapted Mind: Evolutionary Psychology and the Generation of Culture is an edited volume, first published in 1992 by Oxford University Press, edited by Jerome Barkow, Leda Cosmides and John Tooby...
, The Red QueenThe Red Queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human NatureThe Red Queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature is a popular science book by Matt Ridley exploring the evolutionary psychology of sexual selection...
, Born to RebelFrank SullowayFrank J. Sulloway is a visiting Scholar in the Institute of Personality and Social Research at the University of California, Berkeley, and a Visiting Professor in the Department of Psychology....
, The Origins of VirtueThe Origins Of VirtueThe Origins of Virtue is a 1996 popular science book by Matt Ridley. In the book, Ridley explores the issues surrounding the development of human morality...
, The Moral AnimalThe Moral AnimalThe Moral Animal is a 1994 book by Robert Wright. The New York Times Book Review chose it as one of the 12 best books of 1994; it was a national bestseller and has been published in 12 languages....
, and my own How the Mind WorksHow the Mind WorksHow the Mind Works is a book by Canadian-American cognitive scientist Steven Pinker, published in 1997. The book attempts to explain some of the human mind's poorly understood functions and quirks in evolutionary terms...
. Each of these books is based in large part on Trivers' ideas and the explosion of research they inspired (involving dozens of animal species, mathematical and computer modeling, and human social and cognitive psychology).
Significant papers
- 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. (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
- Trivers R, Palestis BG, Zaatari D. (2009) The Anatomy of a Fraud: Symmetry and Dance TPZ Publishers ISBN 978-0615287560
- Trivers R (2011) The Folly of Fools: The Logic of Deceit and Self-Deception in Human Life Basic BooksBasic BooksBasic Books is a book publisher founded in 1952 and located in New York. It publishes books in the fields of psychology, philosophy, economics, science, politics, sociology, current affairs, and history.-History:...
ISBN 978-0465027552