*Please distribute to others who may be interested...*
You are hereby invited to the 9th weekly seminar in our seventh interdisciplinary series on Evolution, Complexity and Cognition<http://ecco.vub.ac.be/?q=node/108>(ECCO). *Time*: Friday, January 14th, 14:00-16:00 p.m (note: this year (2011), all seminars take place on Fridays, 14-16 pm, unless announced otherwise) *Place*: Top floor, Center Leo Apostel, Krijgskundestraat 33, B-1160 Brussels (This is just outside the main VUB campus, see map and directions<http://tinyurl.com/379uyyr> ) Note: this is not the usual room for ECCO seminars! Free entrance: everybody welcome. ------------------------------ *Perspectives on Altruistic Internet Based Phenomena* Chris Exton <http://www.csis.ul.ie/staff/chrisexton/> (University of Limerick) *Abstract:* Altruism as a concept has a long history in philosophical and ethical thought. The term was originally coined in the 19th century by the founding sociologist and philosopher of science, Auguste Comte, and has become a major topic for psychologists and in particular evolutionary psychologists. In this talk I will explore a variety of seemingly altruistic internet based phenomena such as "open source development" and "crowdsourcing" and their related communities from an evolutionary psychology perspective. My intention is to gain a better understanding of how they work and consider what underlying evolutionary psychology theories might best explain the phenomena. Altruism in the internet domain is of particular interest as it cannot simply be explained by the commonly cited kin selection theories as interactions are nearly exclusively with non-kin and often anonymous others. ------------------------------ *Upcoming Seminars* * **Jan 21* Marco Fenici <http://unisi.academia.edu/MarcoFenici> (University of Siena) *Children's Understanding of Others' Minds: Empirical Research and Challenges Ahead* * * More info about the ECCO seminar program: http://ecco.vub.ac.be/?q=node/108
