Below are downloadable versions of some my of recent papers. Most are in Adobe Acrobat (pdf) format. To down load a free copy of the Adobe Acrobat Reader. For a complete publication list see my CV. Last updated 5/30/07

R. Boyd and S. Mathew. A Narrow Road to Cooperation, Science, 316: 1858–1859, 2007. (pdf).

R. Boyd. The Puzzle of Human Sociality, Science, 314: 1553 2006. (pdf)

R. Boyd and P. J. Richerson. Culture, Adaptation, and Innateness. In: The Innate Mind: Culture and Cognition, P. Carruthers, S. Stich, & S. Laurence, eds., 2006.(pdf).

S. Le and R. Boyd, Evolutionary Dynamics of the Continuous Iterated Prisoner's Dilemma, Journal of Theoretical Biology, Volume 245, 258–267. 2007, (pdf).

R. Boyd and P. J. Richerson. Culture and the evolution of the human social instincts. In: Roots of Human Sociality, S. Levinson and N. Enfield, eds., Berg, Oxford. 2006, (pdf)

R. Boyd and P. J. Richerson, Solving the Puzzle of Human Cooperation, In: Evolution and Culture, S. Levinson ed. MIT Press, Cambridge MA, pp 105–132, 2005(pdf).

J. Henrich, R. Boyd, S. Bowles, C. Camerer, E. Fehr, H. Gintis, R. McElreath, M. Alvard, A. Barr, J. Ensminger, K. Hill, F. Gil-White, M. Gurven, F. Marlowe, J. Q. Patton, N. Smith, and D. Tracer, 'Economic Man' in Cross-cultural Perspective: Behavioral Experiments in 15 Small-scale Societies, Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 28: 795–855, 2005. (pdf)

K. Panchanathan and R. Boyd. Indirect reciprocity can stabilize cooperation without the second-order free rider problem. Nature 432: 499–502, 2004. (pdf). Accompanying News & Views commentary by Ernst Fehr (pdf).

K. Panchanathan and R. Boyd. A Tale of Two Defectors: The Importance of Standing for the Evolution of Indirect Reciprocity. Journal of Theoretical Biology, 224:115–126, 2003, (pdf).

H. Gintis, S. Bowles, R. Boyd, & E. Fehr, Explaining Altruistic Behavior in Humans, Evolution and Human Behavior, 24: 153–172, 2003, (pdf).

P. J. Richerson, R. Boyd, and J. Henrich. The Cultural Evolution of Human Cooperation. The Genetic and Cultural Evolution of Cooperation, P. Hammerstein ed. MIT Press, Cambridge MA, 2003, pp 357–388 (pdf). This paper was presented at a Dahlem Conference, June 2002.

R. Boyd, H. Gintis, S. Bowles, and P. J. Richerson. The Evolution of Altruistic Punishment. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (USA) 100: 3531–3535, 2003 (pdf).

R. McElreath, R. Boyd and P. J. Richerson. Shared Norms Can Lead to the Evolution of Ethnic Markers. Current Anthropology, 44: 122–130, 2003 (pdf).

J. Henrich and R. Boyd, Culture and Cognition: Why Cultural Evolution Does Not Require Replication of Representations, Culture and Cognition, 2: 87–112, 2002. (pdf).

P. J. Richerson, R. Boyd and B. Paciotti. An Evolutionary Theory of Commons Management, The Drama of the Commons. Elinor Ostrom, Thomas Dietz, Nives Dolsak, Paul C. Stern, Susan Stonich, and Elke U. Weber, Eds., National Academy Press, Washington, D.C. 2002. pp 413–413 (pdf).

R. Boyd and P. J. Richerson, Group Beneficial Norms Spread Rapidly in a Structured Population, Journal of Theoretical Biology, 215: 287–296, 2002. (pdf).

P. J. Richerson and R. Boyd. Built for Speed, Not for Comfort, Darwinian Theory and Human Culture, History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences, 23: 425–465 (pdf).

R. Boyd and P. J. Richerson, Norms and Bounded Rationality. In: The Adaptive Tool Box, G. Gigerenzer and R. Selten, eds. pp 281–296, MIT Press, Cambridge MA, 2001. Abstract (html)

J. Henrich and R. Boyd, Why people punish defectors: Weak conformist transmission can stabilize costly enforcement of norms in cooperative dilemmas. Joural of Theoretical Biology, 208: 79–89. 2001 (pdf).

P. J. Richerson, R. Boyd, and R. L. Bettinger, Was Agriculture Iimpossible During the Pleistocene but Mandatory during the Holocene? A Climate Change Hypothesis, American Antiquity 66: 387–411, 2001 (pdf).

J. Henrich, R. Boyd, S. Bowles, C. Camerer E. Fehr, H. Gintis, and R. McElreath, Cooperation, Reciprocity and Punishment in Fifteen Small-scale Societies, American Economic Review, 91: 73–78, 2001(pdf).

J. B. Silk, E. Kaldor, and R. Boyd, Cheap Talk When there are Conflict of Interest. Animal Behaviour, 59: 423-432, 2000 (pdf).

R. Boyd and P. J. Richerson, Memes: Universal Acid or a Better Mouse Trap. In: Darwinizing Culture: The Status of Memetics as a Science. R. Aunger ed. pp.143–162, Oxford University Press, Oxford. 2000 (pdf).

P. J Richerson and R. Boyd, The Evolutionary Dynamics of a Crude Super Organism. Human Nature, 10: 253–289, 1999 (pdf).

J. Henrich and R. Boyd, The Evolution of Conformist Transmission and the Emergence of Between-Group Differences.Evolution and Human Behavior, 19: 215–242. 1998 (pdf).

P. J. Richerson and R. Boyd, The Evolution of Human Ultra-Sociality, In: Ideology, Warfare, and Indoctrinability. I. Eibl-Eibisfeldt and F. Salter, eds. pp. 71–95, Berghan Books, 1998 (pdf).

R. Boyd, P.J. Richerson, M. Borgerhoff-Mulder, and W. H. Durham. Are Cultural Phylogenies Possible? In: Human by Nature, Between Biology and the Social Sciences, P. Weingart, P.J. Richerson, S.D.Mitchell, and S. Maasen, eds. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates: Mahwah, NJ, 1997. Pp. 355–386 (pdf).

R. Boyd and P. J. Richerson, Why Culture is Common but Cultural Evolution is Rare, Proceedings of the British Academy, 88: 73–93, 1996 (pdf).

J. Soltis, R. Boyd and P. J. Richerson, Can Group-functional behaviors evolve by cultural group selection? An empirical test. Current Anthropology, 63: 473–494, 1995 (pdf).

R. Boyd and P. J. Richerson, Why Does Culture Increase Human Adaptibility? Ethology and Sociobiology. 16: 125–143, 1995 (pdf).

R. Boyd and P. J. Richerson, The Evolution of Ethnic Markers, Cultural Anthropology, 2: 65–79, 1987. (pdf)

R. Boyd and J. P. Lorberbaum, No Pure Strategy is Stable in the Repeated Prisoner's Dilemma Game, Nature, 327: 58–59, 1987, (pdf)

R. Boyd and P. J. Richerson, Why is Culture Adaptive? Quarterly Review of Biology, 58: 209–214, 1983. (pdf)

Not by Genes Alone: How culture transformed human evolution gives an accessible treatment of my work (with Peter Richerson) on cultural evolution is now available from the University of Chicago Press (webpage).

Mathematical Models of Social Evolution: A guide for the perplexed provides an introduction to the mathematical theory of social behavior for readers with modest mathematical background (with Richard McElreath) Now available from the University of Chicago Press (webpage).

The Origin and Evolution of Cultures is a collection of papers on cultural evolution with Pete Richerson and includes five new essays. Available from Oxford University Press, 2005.

Foundations of Human Sociality J. Henrich, R. Boyd, S. Bowles, C. Camerer, E. Fehr & H. Gintis eds. Oxford University Press, Oxford 2004 reports the results of cross cultural project in 15 small scale societies which used games from experimental economics to measure the sources of cooperative behavior. Oxford UniversityPress webpage for this book.

Moral Sentiments and Material Interests
The Foundations of Cooperation in Economic Life
Herbert Gintis, Samuel Bowles, Robert T. Boyd and Ernst Fehr, eds. MIT Press, Cambridge, 2005 presents an synthesis of research in different disciplines to argue that cooperation stems presence of strong reciprocators in a social group. MIT Press website for this book.

Culture and the Evolutionary Process presents some of the theory of cultural evolution that Peter Richerson and I have developed is now back in print. To order visit the University of Chicago Press webpage for this book.