SFI Omidyar Fellow Simon DeDeo, in the Miller-McCune podcast “Curiouser and Curiouser,” describes SFI research that is revealing the hidden order behind conflict.
Listen to the podcast (14 minutes)
DeDeo, SFI Professors David Krakauer and Jessica Flack, and their collaborators are bringing mathematical approaches to the study of conflict in animal species. Here, DeDeo discusses a recent paper in the Journal of the Royal Society, where the researchers find hidden patterns of fights in a colony of monkeys known as pig-tailed macaques -- a pattern that arises as much from within the social hierarchy of the monkey society as from external factors that are commonly attributed to causing conflict.
Their research potentially offers insights into conflict in other species that maintain social hierarchies, including humans, he says.
Listen to the podcast (July 13, 2011, 14 minutes)
Read the paper (February 16, 2011)