ORC Course Description: The course introduces basic concepts in evolutionary games and population dynamics, including evolutionarily stable strategies, replicator dynamics, finite populations, and games on networks, along with applications to social evolution, particularly to understanding human cooperation.
Prerequisites: Math 22, Math 23. The student should be familiar with calculus, and basic concepts in ordinary differential equations and probability. Programing skills highly recommended, but not required.
Textbook: Nowak, M. A. (2006). Evolutionary Dynamics. Harvard University Press.
Grading Formula: (i) Attendance & Participation (10%) + (ii) Homework Problem Sets (40%) + (iii) Final Project Proposal (10%) + Final Project Report (30%) + Final Project Presentation (10%).
Tentative lecture plan which may be subject to further changes.
| Date | Lecture | Readings |
|---|---|---|
| 5 January 2017 | Evolutionary Games: Introduction & Overview | Nowak, M. A., & Sigmund, K. (2004). Evolutionary dynamics of biological games. Science, 303(5659), 793-799. |
| 10 January 2017 | Stability Concepts: Nash Equilibrium vs. Evolutionarily Stable Strategy | |
| 12 January 2017 | Replicator Equations and Its Connection with Ecological Dynamics | |
| 17 January 2017 | Social Dilemmas of Cooperation | Kollock, P. (1998). Social dilemmas: The anatomy of cooperation. Annual Review of Sociology, 183-214. |
| 19 January 2017 | Rules for Cooperation | Nowak, M. A. (2006). Five rules for the evolution of cooperation. Science, 314(5805), 1560-1563. |
| 24 January 2017 | Repeated Games | Binmore, K. G., & Samuelson, L. (1992). Evolutionary stability in repeated games played by finite automata. Journal of Economic Theory, 57(2), 278-305. |
| 26 January 2017 | Spatial Games | Nowak, M. A., & May, R. M. (1992). Evolutionary games and spatial chaos. Nature, 359(6398), 826-829. |
| 31 January 2017 | Final project proposal due | |
| 31 January 2017 | Beyond Pairwise Interactions: Multi-Person Games | Hardin, G., (1998) Extensions of "the tragedy of the commons". Science, 280(5364): 682-683. |
| 2 February 2017 | Adaptive Dynamics | Dieckmann, U., & Law, R. (1996). The dynamical theory of coevolution: a derivation from stochastic ecological processes. Journal of Mathematical Biology, 34(5-6), 579-612. |
| 7 February 2017 | Evolutionary Branching | Hofbauer, J., & Sigmund, K. (2003). Evolutionary game dynamics. Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society, 40(4), 479-519. Doebeli, M., Hauert, C., & Killingback, T. (2004). The evolutionary origin of cooperators and defectors. Science, 306(5697), 859-862. |
| 9 February 2017 | Finite Populations I | Nowak, M. A., Sasaki, A., Taylor, C., & Fudenberg, D. (2004). Emergence of cooperation and evolutionary stability in finite populations. Nature, 428(6983), 646-650. Traulsen, A., Claussen, J. C., & Hauert, C. (2005). Coevolutionary dynamics: from finite to infinite populations. Physical Review Letters, 95(23), 238701. |
14 February 2017 | Finite Population II |
| February 2017 | Final day for dropping a fourth course | |
| 16 February 2017 | Evolutionary Graph Theory | Lieberman, E., Hauert, C., & Nowak, M. A. (2005). Evolutionary dynamics on graphs. Nature, 433(7023), 312-316. Ohtsuki, H., Hauert, C., Lieberman, E., & Nowak, M. A. (2006). A simple rule for the evolution of cooperation on graphs and social networks. Nature, 441(7092), 502-505. Perc, M., & Szolnoki, A. (2010). Coevolutionary games--a mini review. BioSystems, 99(2), 109-125. |
| 20 February 2017 | Final day to withdraw from a course | |
| 21 February 2017 | Vaccination Dilemma | Bauch, C. T., & Earn, D. J. (2004). Vaccination and the theory of games. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 101(36), 13391-13394. |
| 23 February 2017 | Evolutionary Dynamics of In-group Favoritism | Masuda, N., & Fu, F. (2015). Evolutionary models of in-group favoritism. F1000Prime Reports, 7, 27. |
| 28 February 2017 | Evolution of Homophily | Fu, F., Nowak, M.A., Christakis, N.A., & Fowler, J.H.(2012) The evolution of homophily. Scientific reports, 2: 845. |
| 2 March 2017 | Final Project Presentations | Day I |
| 7 March 2017 | Final Project Presentations | Day II |
| 8 March 2017 | Final project report due |
Approximately 4 weeks are given to complete the project. The instructor will suggest project ideas in the third week, but you are allowed to propose your own, which has to be approved by the instructor in the fourth week at the latest. Each project presentation is limited to 15 minutes and preferably in the style of TED talks.
Course projects are listed in the alphabetical order of student names, and will be updated once more progresses are made by the students.
| Name | Project Title |
|---|---|
|
Paula X. Chen'17 Liane E. Makatura'17 |
Modeling the Spread of Fake News in Spatial Populations |
|
Madeleine M. Cooney'17 Milan P. Huynh'17 |
Adaptive Networks and Wealth Dependent Strategies - A Model for Successful Altruism |
| Rachel R. Patel'17 Danielle W. Kimball'17 |
Cooperative Dynamics of Yeas |
| Tucker E. Evans'19 | Why do they not believe? - The Network Dynamics of Opinion |
| Julio A. Resendiz'17 Luis F. Marin'17 |
An Evolutionary Game-Theoretic Analysis of Dice Strategies |
| Goodwill M. Batalingaya'16 | Public Goods Games: Social Welfare Programs & Wealth Accumulation |
| Dale T. Clement'17 | The Adaptive Dynamics of Evolutionary Trapping and Rescue |
| Peter S. Wang'17 | Evolutionary Game Dynamics in Super Smash Bros. Melee |
| John R. Lewis III'17 | The Population Problem of Antibiotic Overuse |
| Daniel Huang’17 | Strategic Risk Management of Financial Assets |
| Andrew D. Dixon'17 | Does It Really Pay to Use Growth Promoters in Farming Industry? |