Robert L. Trivers, (born 19 February 1943) is an American evolutionary biologist and sociobiologist, most noted for proposing the theories of reciprocal altruism (1971), parental investment (1972), 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. Along with George C. Williams, Trivers is arguably one of the two most influential evolutionary theorists alive today. February 19 is the 50th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar. ... 1943 (MCMXLIII) is a common year starting on Friday. ... Evolutionary biology is a subfield of biology concerned with the origin and descent of species, as well as their change over time, i. ... Sociobiology is a branch of biology and also sociology that attempts to throw light upon behavior in both human and non-human societies in terms of evolutionary advantage or strategy. ... In evolutionary biology, reciprocal altruism is a form of altruism in which one organism provides a benefit to another in the expectation of future reciprocation. ... Robert Trivers theory of parental investment predicts that the sex making the largest investment in lactation, nurturing and protecting offspring will be more discriminating in mating and that the sex that invests less in offspring will compete for access to the higher investing sex. ... Robert Trivers theory of parent-offspring conflict (1974) predicts that because the genetic interests of parents and offspring are not identical, offspring will be selected to manipulate their parents in order to ensure higher investment, and that, conversely, parents will be selected to manipulate their offspring. ... Self-deception is a process of denying or rationalizing away the relevance, significance, or importance of opposing evidence and argument. ... The selfish gene theory postulates that natural selection will increase the frequency of those genes whose phenotypic effects ensure their successful replication. ... Professor George C. Williams is emeritus professor of biology at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. ...

Trivers originally went to Harvard to study Math, but wound up studying U.S. history in preparation to become a lawyer. 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 wound up with a job writing social science textbooks for children (never published, due in part to presenting evolution by natural selection as fact). This exposure to evolutionary theory led him to graduate work with Ernst Mayr at Harvard 1968-1972 (he never got a bachelor's degree anywhere). He was on faculty at Harvard 1973-1978, then moved to UC Santa Cruz. Harvard University (incorporated as The President and Fellows of Harvard College) is a private university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. ... This article has been identified as possibly containing errors. ... The University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC or UC Santa Cruz) is a coeducational public university located in Santa Cruz, California, USA. It is one of the ten campuses of the University of California, and ranked by US News as the twenty-eighth best public university in the nation. ...

He met Huey P. Newton, Chairman of the Black Panther Party, in 1978 when Newton applied (while in prison) to do a reading course with him 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 (Trivers, R.L. & Newton, H.P. Science Digest 'The crash of flight 90: doomed by self-deception?' November 1982, pp 66,67,111). Huey Percy Newton (February 17, 1942 – August 22, 1989) was co-founder and inspirational leader of the Black Panther Party, a revolutionary Black nationalist organization iconized during the 1960s counterculture era. ... Logo of the Black Panther Party. ... The University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC or UC Santa Cruz) is a coeducational public university located in Santa Cruz, California, USA. It is one of the ten campuses of the University of California, and ranked by US News as the twenty-eighth best public university in the nation. ... Self-deception is a process of denying or rationalizing away the relevance, significance, or importance of opposing evidence and argument. ... U.S. National Transportation Safety Board diagram of flight path for Air Florida flight 90 which crashed on take-off at Washington, DC on January 13, 1982, killing 78 persons. ...

Trivers was a faculty member at UC Santa Cruz 1978-1994. He is currently a Rutgers University notable faculty member.

He was named one of the 100 greatest thinkers and scientists of the 20th Century by 'Time' magazine.

Significant papers

• Trivers, R. L. (1971) The evolution of reciprocal altruism. Quarterly Review of Biology, 46, 35-57.

• Trivers, R. L. (1972) Parental investment and sexual selection. In B. Campbell (Ed.) Sexual selection and the descent of man, 1871-1871 (pp 136-179). Chicago, Aldine.

• Trivers R.L. & Willard, D. E. (1973) Natural selection of parental ability to vary the sex ratio of offspring. Science, 179(68), 90-2. pubmed

• Trivers, R. L. (1974). Parent-offspring conflict. American Zoologist, 14, 249-264.

• Trivers, R. L. & Hare R. (1976) Haplodiploidy and the evolution of the social insects. Science, 191(4224), 250-263. pubmed

• 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.

Science is the journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). ... Science is the journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). ...

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 0195130626

• Burt, A. & Trivers, R. L. (2006) Genes in Conflict : The Biology of Selfish Genetic Elements. Belknap Press, Harvard. ISBN 0674017137

External links

• Official site at Rutgers University
• Brief Autobiography
• The Guardian: Profile: The Kindness of Strangers
• Rutgers University notable faculty member.

• IT Conversations lectures
• Speak, Darwinists! Interviews with leading sociobiologists.