Is Cooperation Still a Driving Force of Evolution? This time last year, Martin Novak, Director of the Program for Evolutionary Dynamics and Professor of Mathematics and Biology at Harvard University, published a controversial book called, Super Cooperators, (Altruism, Evolution and Why we Need Each Other to Succeed) arguing that cooperation is as much a driving force for evolution as mutation and natural selection. The book was co-written by Daily Telegraph columnist and New Scientist editor, Roger Highfield, and will be serialized in the Daily Telegraph. The book evolved from the Program for Evolutionary Dynamics which was established in 2003 from a $30 million dollar grant by Jeffrey Epstein and The Jeffrey Epstein Foundation. "I wanted to provide a platform where evolution and biology could be explained from a purely mathematical point of view," Epstein notes. "The beauty of mathematics is in its accuracy and objectivity. It can lead to unpredictable theories." Since then, Novak and the Program have gone on to establish the first quantitative analysis of several diseases including the kinetics behind in vivo human cancer cells. The premise of Super Cooperators is that mathematically, biological cooperation is as important in evolution as mutation and the dog-eats-dog world of Darwin's survival of the fittest. Novak stresses that, "The two pillars of evolution are mutation and natural selection: mutation generates diversity, and natural selection chooses the winner. What I want to argue in this book is that, in order to get complexity, there is a third principle, co-operation. It's not just a small phenomenon; it's something that's really needed to explain the world as we see it." Novak's description of evolutionary cooperation is not to be confused with inclusive fitness, a core tenant of evolutionary cooperative theory today. Inclusive fitness suggests that evolution can favor creatures that do not reproduce, so long as they assist in the s