Friday, June 6, 2008

It's a Fowl Thing...And I'm Partially to Blame

Yesterday while posting on the domestic chicken, there was some inadvertant content that got tossed in, namely:

The game of Chicken, also known as the Hawk-Dove game, is an influential model of conflict for two players in game theory. The principle of the game is that while each player prefers not to yield to the other, the outcome where neither player yields is the worst possible one for both players. The name "Chicken" has its origins in a game in which two drivers drive towards each other on a collision course: one must swerve, or both may die in the crash, but if one driver swerves but the other does not, he or she will be called a "chicken"; this terminology is most prevalent in the political science and economics. The name "Hawk-Dove" refers to a situation in which there is a competition for a shared resource and the contestants can choose either conciliation or conflict; this terminology is most commonly used in biology and evolutionary game theory. From a game-theoretic point of view, "Chicken" and "Hawk-Dove" are identical; the different names stem from parallel development of the basic principles in different research areas.[1] The game has also been used to describe the mutual assured destruction of nuclear warfare.[2]

The game is similar to the prisoner's dilemma game in that an "agreeable" mutual solution is unstable since both players are individually tempted to stray from it. However, it differs in the cost of responding to such a deviation. This means that, even in an iterated version of the game, retaliation is ineffective, and a mixed strategy may be more appropriate.


Apparently there were other conspirators as well. Oops. What a Pigeon I am.

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