Organisms that live together in interacting populations are referred to as social organisms. The study of such populations is integral to ecology.
When the organisms in question are human beings, the populations are of interest to a variety of disciplines including sociology, political science, anthropology, economics, social philosophy, communication studies, history, linguistics, and cultural studies.
It is argued that it’s the human species’ aptitude for sociality and cooperation that has contributed to our being Earth’s dominant species. The biologist and mathematician Martin Nowak (2011) refers to us as SuperCooperators.
Yet there is a need for further improvement. We need to figure out how to scale cooperation and the qualities of sociality way beyond any scale required to date to respond for the first time to global super wicked problems.
LINKS
- Nowak, M.A. (2011). SuperCooperators