Blind Cooperation: The Evolution of Redundancy via Ignorance

One curious phenomenon of several social groups is that they are ‘redundant’ in the sense contain more cooperators than strictly needed to complete certain group tasks, such as foraging. Redundancy puzzling because redundant particularly susceptible invasion by defectors. Yet, redundancy can be found formed a wide range organisms, including insects and microbes. Birch ([2012]) has recently argued coercive behaviours might account for using insect colonies case study. However, microbial examples suggest evolve without behaviours. This paper formulates an explanation does not require targeted punishment defectors; instead, it proposes due ignorance. Specifically, suggested evolves by-product selection when members have opt whether cooperate or while being blind strategies others. Accordingly, possessing information about undermine rather facilitate cooperation within groups.