PREVIOUS EVENTS

Humans engage in Altruism and many \pro-social\ behaviours - that is, behaviours which appear to be personally costly but to benefit others. Social science, in particular when based on rational choice theory, has long struggled to explain such behaviours, as they appear to directly contradict the assumptions of individual rationality and self-interest. It may be that evolutionary biology may help fill the explanatory gap and there is an intimate link between evolutionary theory and the theory of rational behaviour. But at present there is a biter dispute among the scientists studying altruism.