Games – Darwin College Lecture Series 2016 Cambridge University

"The Game Theory of Conflict"
Dr Thomas C Schelling, University of Maryland
Darwin College Lecture Series 2016 – Games

Thomas C. Schelling, PhD Harvard economics, 1951, was on the Faculty of Yale University 1953-57, spent 1958-59 at the RAND Corporation, 1959-90 at Harvard, Department of Economics, Centre for International Affairs, and John F. Kennedy School of Government, and 1990-2005 at the University of Maryland’s Department of Economics and School of Public Policy. He was a fiscal analyst at the US Bureau of the Budget, 1945-46, did graduate work at Harvard, 1946-48, was in the Marshall Plan Mission to Denmark 1948-49, the European Office of the Marshall Plan, Paris, 1949-50, the White House Foreign Policy Staff, 1950-51, and the Executive Office of the President (foreign aid programs), 1951-53. His main theoretical interests have been bargaining, conflict and cooperation, racial segregation and techniques of self-management. His main policy interests have been nuclear weapons, the limitation of war, climate change, foreign aid and tobacco. From 1983-1989 he was founding director of the Institute for the Study of Smoking Behaviour and Policy at Harvard University. His major books are The Strategy of Conflict, 1960, Strategy and Arms Control (with Morton H, Halperin) 1961, Arms and Influence 1966, Micromotives and Macrobehaviour 1978, Choice and Consequence 1984, and Strategies of Commitment and Other Essays 2006. He has been elected to the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Medicine, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and is the recipient of the Frank E. Seidman Distinguished Award in Political Economy and the National Academy of Sciences Award for Behavioural Research Relevant to the Prevention of Nuclear War. In 2005 he received, jointly with Robert Aumann, the Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel. Thomas Schelling lives with his wife, Alice Coleman Schelling, in Bethesda Maryland.

"Games Animals Play"
Professor Nick Davies, University of Cambridge
Darwin College Lecture Series 2016 – Games

Dr Frank Ledwidge, Barrister, Writer and Lecturer
Darwin College Lecture Series 2016 – Games
The failed British military campaigns in Basra and Helmand followed similar courses. They began confidently, followed by defeat in the field and US military bail-out. The enemies of UK forces now dominate both theatres. British generals prided themselves on their prowess in exactly the kind of conflicts they thought they had entered- ‘counterinsurgency’. How then did they go so wrong? Before an army becomes involved in conflict, it should fully understand the kind of war it is going to be, what it wants to achieve by it and how the war will achieve those ends. British generals failed to ensure clarity on any of these questions and had no workable strategy. Further, they lacked a corporate culture and flexibility to understand and adapt to the environments in which they found themselves and defaulted to methods for which they were trained. The lack of a sound intelligence system and consequent situational naivete allowed their enemies to gain and retain the initiative. However, whilst there is a long way to go, there are signs that UK military leadership is developing the necessary skills and awareness to conduct successful operations.

Biography

Following eight years as a Barrister in Liverpool, Dr Frank Ledwidge served as a reserve military intelligence officer on front-line operations in Bosnia, Kosovo and Iraq.He has also worked as a civilian security and justice advisor in UK Missions during the conflicts in Afghanistan and Libya. A law graduate of Oxford University, Frank holds a doctorate from Kings College London awarded for a study of the role of courts in insurgency. He is the author of two well-reviewed and bestselling studies of Britain’s recent military adventures ‘Losing Small Wars’ (Yale 2011) and ‘Investment in Blood’ (Yale 2013). He currently lectures in strategy and international law for Portsmouth University at the Royal Air Force College, Cranwell.

In the final paragraph of The Origin of Species, Charles Darwin leaves us with the vision of Nature as an “entangled bank”, where individuals struggle to survive and reproduce in a world of competitors, predators and parasites. In this lecture, I shall explore the games animals play in these struggles. Some are behavioural games, resulting in an extraordinary mix of cooperation and conflict in animal families, where sexual partners and parents and their offspring sometimes help one another, but sometimes cheat. Some are games played over evolutionary time, where strategies escalate over the generations between competitors, and between enemies and their victims, leading to extremes, not only in weaponry and cruelty, but in ornamentation and beauty, too. I shall illustrate these themes especially with examples of mating games in birds and evolutionary arms races between cuckoos and their hosts, to show how the rules of the games can be unravelled by a combination of bird watching and field experiments.

Biography

Nick Davies is Professor of Behavioural Ecology at the University of Cambridge, and a Fellow of Pembroke College. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society and in 2015 he gave the Croonian Lecture. His book “Cuckoo – Cheating by Nature” was published recently by Bloomsbury.

There is nothing more important than good brain health and wellbeing throughout our lives. Yet while many people are concerned with their physical health and utilise wearable tech and mobile devises to monitor their exercise, steps, heart rate etc, we are not yet using technology to enhance our brain health and wellbeing. In this lecture, I will discuss how neuroscientists can work together with other experts in game development, IT and computing to develop enjoyable games for enhancing cognition, such as memory. In addition, I will discuss how we can use games to improve cognition, motivation and the ability to function in daily life for people with neuropsychiatric disorders, such as schizophrenia. Everyone likes to play games, so why not play one that is fun and good for your brain?

Biography

Barbara J Sahakian is Professor of Clinical Neuropsychology at the University of Cambridge Department of Psychiatry and MRC /Wellcome Trust Behavioural and Clinical Neuroscience Institute. She is also an Honorary Clinical Psychologist at Addenbrooke’s Hospital, Cambridge. She holds a PhD and a DSc from the University of Cambridge. She is President of the International Neuroethics Society, Past-President of the British Association for Psychopharmacology and a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences. Sahakian is also a Member of the International Expert Jury for the 2017 Else Kröner-Fresenius-Stiftung Prize. She is a member of ACNP , CINP Council and ECNP Review Board and a member of the Human Brain Project. She is co-author of ‘Bad Moves: How decision making goes wrong and the ethics of smart drugs’ (Oxford University Press, 2013) and co-editor of The Oxford Handbook of Neuroethics (OUP, 2011).

Sahakian has an international reputation in the fields of psychopharmacology, neuropsychology, neuropsychiatry, neuroimaging and neuroethics. She is perhaps best known for her work on ‘hot’ and ‘cold’ cognitive deficits in depression and early detection and early treatment with cholinesterase inhibitors in Alzheimer’s disease. She has over 390 publications in high impact scientific journals. The ISI Web of Science database credits her with a Hirsch (h) index of 102, with some publications having over 300 citations. Sahakian co-invented the neuropsychological CANTAB tests. She serves as a Senior Consultant to Cambridge Cognition, a University of Cambridge spin-out that provides CANTAB (www.cantab.com). She is also a Consultant for Peak (Brainbow) (https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/peak-brain-training/id806223188?mt=8). Sahakian has contributed to Neuroscience and Mental Health Government Policy and has spoken on resilience, brain health, neuroscience and mental health at the World Economic Forum, Davos, 2014. She was also a finalist for a World Technology Award 2014 under the category of ‘Health and Medicine’. She is a member of the World Economic Forum Global Agenda Council on Brain Research.