Good ideas and conversation. No ads, no tracking. Login or Take a Tour!
mk · 5125 days ago · link · · parent · post: A Quantitative Test of Hamilton's Rule for the Evolution of Altruism
Probably because they spent a lot of time and grant money building those robots. :) But, seriously, I think you are right, there doesn't seem to be any advantage conferred by the robots in terms of modeling purposes. If anything, there are more limitations. That said, I the effect of physical entities competing on familiar time scales might make the concepts of the study more accessible, and probably a lot more fun to watch. Personally, I was disappointed that they didn't include a video.
They do make this statement: "More generally, this study reveals that a fundamental principle of natural selection also applies to synthetic organisms when these have heritable properties", which might have been in response to a similar query from a reviewer. It reminded me of this great experiment by Robert Axelrod: http://www-personal.umich.edu/~axe/research/Axelrod%20and%20... I heard him discuss it on the radio just a couple of weeks ago.