title: The veil of ignorance can favour biological cooperation.
abstract: Lack of information is a constraint but ignorance can sometimes assist the evolution of cooperation by constraining selfishness. We discuss examples involving both ignorance of role or pay-off and ignorance of relatedness. Ignorance can favour cooperative traits like grouping and warning coloration and reduce conflicts from meiotic drive, imprinting, greenbeards and various forms of nepotism.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biology CB1137, Washington University in St Louis, , One Brookings Drive, St Louis, MO 63130, USA.
authors.forename: David C
authors.initials: DC
authors.lastname: Queller
authors.forename: Joan E
authors.initials: JE
authors.lastname: Strassmann
mesh_terms: D022126:Access to Information; D000818:Animals; D001522:Behavior, Animal; D005075:Biological Evolution; D003299:Cooperative Behavior; D004023:Dictyostelium; D006801:Humans; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D019359:Knowledge; D008540:Meiosis; D008954:Models, Biological; D010641:Phenotype; D012919:Social Behavior
keywords: conflict; cooperation; meiosis; nepotism; relatedness; veil of ignorance