Cheating Viruses and Game Theory
By Paul E. Turner
The theory of games can explain how viruses evolve when they compete against one another in a test of evolutionary fitness
This Article From Issue
September-October 2005
Volume 93, Number 5
Page 428
DOI: 10.1511/2005.55.428
The 19th-century circus showman P. T. Barnum is reputed to have coined the phrase "There's a sucker born every minute"—although Barnum denied the saying was his, and it has been variously attributed by biographers. In any event, whoever did voice this cynical view of human gullibility could not have predicted that the terms "cheaters" and "suckers" would describe individuals in the world of microorganisms as well.
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