A little more than kind and less than kin: The unwarranted use of kin selection in spatial models of communication

It has become increasingly apparent that spatial and other forms of ecological situatedness can introduce radical differences in the evolutionary outcome of models of conflictive social behavior. Cooperative interactions are often found to have an increased viability in spatially situated models. One possible explanation for this phenomenon makes use of kin-selective arguments according to which high relatedness between neighbors stabilizes cooperation. Unfortunately, in some cases the argument does not go beyond the merely verbal. This paper shows that an explanation in terms of kin selection can easily be tested in a computer simulation and that, in the particular case treated here, the result of such verification is negative thus strengthening previous conclusions regarding the relevance of other factors such as discreteness, stochasticity and ecological organization.