This document summarizes Stuart Church's presentation on applying evolutionary thinking to design and behavior. It discusses how designs and behaviors are subject to natural selection processes like variation, replication, and selection. Successful designs and behaviors persist while unsuccessful ones fail. Experimental approaches that generate many variations, like Amazon's product experiments, can accelerate innovation. Most new innovations are small modifications of existing ideas and behaviors within the "adjacent possible." Cooperative behaviors can emerge from strategies like reciprocity in iterated games. Copying others' successful behaviors and designs is also an evolutionarily advantageous strategy.

2. From Darwin
to Design
Stuart Church
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tsevis/3288860652
@stuchurch
Applied Behavioural Science Meetup, Bristol
19 February 2015

3. A tale of two careers
Academic Research User Experience
(Other) Animal Behaviour (Human) Animal Behaviour

4. Today…
1. What can we learn about design &
innovation from evolutionary systems?
2. What can we learn about behaviour
from evolutionary thinking?

5. Evolution & adaptation
Evolution is the change in the inherited characteristics of
(biological) populations over successive generations.
“The survival of the fittest”
Variation
Replicators
Selection

6. Genes
Predators
Pathogens
& disease
Physical
environment
Competition
Prey
Mating
Memes
Meaning
Motivation
Utility /
function
Social
factors
Technological
environment
Biological evolution
(social learning)
Cultural evolution

7. Fitness landscapes
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fitness_landscape

8. What can we learn about
design & innovation from
evolutionary systems?

9. Designs are ideas that are
culturally inherited. Good designs
serve a purpose and persist. Poor
designs get forgotten.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/dvanzuijlekom/7324829530
The unit of selection is the idea
rather than the design itself.
Designs as memes

10. Species #fail
99.9% of all species that have
ever existed are extinct
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bugmonkey/2844115494
Product #fail
80-95% of new products fail in
the first year (Source: Acupoll)
Failure is the norm

11. http://www.flickr.com/photos/quasimondo/4108216751
Evolution is experimental
“The Creator, if He exists, has an
inordinate fondness for beetles"
JBS Haldane

12. Design and innovation as
experimentation

13. 41 Shades of Blue

14. Can design be replaced by
experiments?
“If you double the number of
experiments you do per year
you’re going to double your
inventiveness”
Jeff Bezos, 2004
(Amazon runs 1000+
experiments per year on its
website)
By Steve Jurvetson (Flickr: Bezos’ Iconic Laugh) [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

15. Fitness landscapes
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fitness_landscape

16. Most successful ideas & innovations
tend not be that different from what
already exists.
On a fitness landscape, feasible steps
are the closest steps in gene space or
meme space.
The ‘adjacent possible’

17. http://www.flickr.com/photos/33134305@N04/3090115697
1992 2007
Can ideas be too innovative?
“There was no mental slot in people’s heads that the
Newton could glide into….Consumers are willing to
overlook technical glitches if they have a firm grasp of what
a product is and what it’s supposed to do. “
“What’s important is that, for the first time, so many
great ideas and processes have been assembled in one
device, iterated until they squeak, and made
accessible to normal human beings. That’s the genius
of Steve Jobs; that’s the genius of Apple”.
Bruce Tognazzoini

19. What can we learn about
behaviour from
evolutionary thinking?

20. http://www.flickr.com/photos/wantet/305431220
Behaviours are subject to natural selection,
so animals will tend to behave in ways that
are close to optimal
Optimality theory &
evolutionary psychology

21. Cialdini’s ‘pillars of persuasion’
Social proof
Reciprocity
Authority
Likeability
Commitment & consistency
Scarcity

22. Cialdini’s ‘pillars of persuasion’
Social proof
Reciprocity
Authority
Likeability
Commitment & consistency
Scarcity

23. Reciprocity & cooperation
http://www.flickr.com/photos/22280677@N07/3527622458

24. "Grooming monkeys PLW edit" by Muhammad Mahdi Karim (www.micro2macro.net) FacebookYoutube (original photograph), Papa Lima Whiskey (derivative edit) - Own work. Licensed under GFDL 1.2 via Wikimedia Commons - http://
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Grooming_monkeys_PLW_edit.jpg#mediaviewer/File:Grooming_monkeys_PLW_edit.jpg

25. The Prisoner’s Dilemma
Played once
Only sensible strategy is to DEFECT
For Iterated Prisoner’s Dilemma
Best strategy is TIT-FOR-TAT (be
nice, then follow opponent). i.e. the
best possible strategy in the long
term is a cooperative one.
A classic example of ‘Game Theory’
• 2 suspects, arrested on suspicion of a crime
• Put in separate cells and asked to testify against the other
• So, can either testify (defect) or stay silent (cooperate)

26. ‘Raising the stakes’
What if we can vary the amount of we invest in altruistic acts? (e.g. amount
of time spent grooming).
Some possible strategies are:
• Give as good as you get
• Non-altruistic
• Raise the stakes
• Short changer
• Occasional short changer
• Occasional cheat
‘Raise the stakes’ is an ESS - start low and, if matched, invest more next time
Roberts & Sherratt (1998) Development of cooperative relationships through increasing investment. Nature 394: 175-179

27. Reciprocity is powerful & deeply embedded
Start with small, low risk acts of
kindness….
Implications
‘Giving’ (in whatever form) to people/customers etc elicits
a strong desire for others to respond in kind

28. Short changers…
To download a white paper….

29. Social proof - copying as a
behavioural strategy

30. ‘Copying’ is a successful strategy
Science. 2010 Apr 9;328(5975):208-13. doi: 10.1126/science.1184719.
Why copy others? Insights from the social learning strategies tournament.
Rendell L1, Boyd R, Cownden D, Enquist M, Eriksson K, Feldman MW, Fogarty L, Ghirlanda S, Lillicrap T, Laland KN.
Rendell et al (2010) set up a computer tournament to explore how successful
social learning strategies are in the long term.
The scenario was a ‘restless multiarmed bandit’ - 100 behaviours, each
associated with a different payoff. Aim is to maximise payoff over the long
run. 108 teams entered different strategies.
Strategy options are to: innovate, copy or exploit.
The winning strategy relied almost exclusively on social learning!
“In an environment where the world is changing, the best strategy is a lot if
imitation”