Why is life like a poker game? How did a failed robbery help to explainhuman nature? Why are we so certain bad men will win - and yet we're so wrong?In this, the third volume of The Secrets of Life quartet, SS O'Connor oncemore uses his easy-going, conversational style to explain how the science ofdecision analysis developed, and why it has come to show us not only thereasoning behind how humans arrive at their choices in life, but why so muchof the apparently bizarre behaviour of the natural world has the same hardlogic to it. Instead of the confusion and chaos one might expect, O'Connorlays out how the options organisms face when they interact can actually beanalysed, and how we humans then refined this process through the addition ofour intelligence and language skills. Starting with the extraordinary new waysof thinking that Adam Smith opened the world's eyes to, the book progresses tothe 20th century - and shows how the mathematical reasoning behind our thoughtprocesses was revealed at a time when the very future of the world was atstake. From these earliest investigations, through to the fevereddisagreements of later experts, this third volume of the Secrets of Lifeseries explains how the science of game theory illuminates the reasons for ourbehaviour. In particular, the book provides insights into how the interests ofthe individual should be balanced against those of the group, and why themechanism of trading would extend far further into our lives than we couldever have imagined. As the story unfolds it becomes ever clearer howcooperation has evolved to be the catalyst at every level of life. It explainshow it was the force that built our world, and why it would settle so deeplyin our hardwiring that it's become instinctive and innate in us. Perhaps mostpleasingly, the same logic also shows that the benefits of collaboration arealways bound to ratchet upwards - and how this will inevitably lead humans toever-increasing levels of moral behaviour.