Dissertation Research: The Politics of Game Theory: Mathematics and Cold War Culture, 1944-1984

这项科学和技术研究论文改进补助金将提供资金，使博士生收集所需的数据，使学生更接近完成博士学位的目的。 资金将用于在华盛顿特区进行档案研究的旅费，密歇根州和伦敦，并在这些地点进行采访。该项目的重点是博弈论的历史，因为它是在冷战期间开发和引入到许多应用领域。它将集中在这一时期博弈论发展的核心，并深刻地塑造了博弈论领域，因为它今天存在的四个背景：应用数学，行为科学，和平研究和冲突解决，以及生物学。在这些不同的背景下博弈论的检查将有助于在冷战期间的科学史，数学和科学理论的社会学越来越多的文献。虽然战后科学的历史学家已经做了很多工作，以表明表面上的“纯”科学的行为和内容是如何形成的冷战（特别是军事资金）的背景下，本论文将寻求探索冷战文化的更精细的纹理及其对博弈论的发展的影响。在理解这些过程中，本论文将借鉴和促进越来越多的文献，试图了解理论，数学模型，文化价值观和推理风格之间的关系。自从约翰·冯·诺依曼和奥斯卡·摩根斯坦在1944年发表了他们开创性的《博弈论和经济行为》以来，博弈论得到了巨大的发展。从20世纪40年代末开始，由美国军方资助的数学家们非常迅速地发展了博弈论的形式结构及其与其他数学思想的联系，如信息论，控制论和线性规划。在同一时期，行为科学家开始测试博弈论对观察到的人类行为的预测，从而导致了在实际环境中对正式博弈论和决策理论模型的批评的丰富传统。鉴于博弈论的军事根源，20世纪60年代初，“和平研究”和“冲突解决”这两个密切相关的专业的创立进一步发展了（特别是）非零和博弈论和博弈行为的心理学研究。最后，在20世纪60年代和70年代，关注动物攻击性的生物学家开发了一套与“进化游戏”相关的惊人的新概念，这一研究领域的重要性今天继续增长。本文将认为，博弈论的发展，因为这些方向的文化和政治条件，冷战的特点。数学家们精心设计了一种博弈论，以应对他们的军事赞助人的战术和后勤问题。对于行为科学家来说，冲突与合作的博弈论研究通常是在更广泛的努力中进行的，以数学化人类行为，并为稳定而民主的冷战社会奠定基础。和平研究的先驱们转向博弈论，试图为传统的军事战略研究提供一种“科学的”和平导向的替代方案，他们经常攻击传统的军事战略研究，称其滥用了博弈论。最后，对于生物学家来说，博弈论允许新达尔文主义解释令人困惑的动物行为现象，例如利他主义，这在和平研究议程中也很重要。通过研究这些事件，研究者将阐明科学理论与这个时代的政治背景之间的关系。将获得对几个学校的博弈论，继续塑造科学知识和实际决策的今天，以及数学模型和人类价值观之间的关系更广泛的理解形成的观点。

This Science and Technology Studies Dissertation Improvement Grant will provide funds to enable the doctoral student to collect needed data with the purpose of bringing the student to closer completion of the Ph.D. Funds will support travel to conduct archival research in Washington D.C., Michigan, and London, and to conduct interviews at these locations. The project focuses on a history of game theory as it was developed and imported into many fields of application during the Cold War. It will focus on four contexts that were central to game theory's development during this period and that have profoundly shaped the field of game theory as it exists today: applied mathematics, behavioral science, peace research and conflict resolution, and biology. An examination of game theory in these different contexts will contribute to growing literatures on the history of science during the Cold War, and on the sociology of mathematics and scientific theory. While historians of postwar science have done much to suggest how the conduct and content of ostensibly "pure" science was shaped by the context of the Cold War (and especially military funding), this dissertation will seek to explore the finer texture of Cold War culture and its influence on game theory's development. In understanding these processes, this dissertation will both draw upon and contribute to a growing literature that seeks to understand the relationship between theory, mathematical models, and cultural values and styles of reasoning. Game theory has developed dramatically since John von Neumann and Oskar Morganstern published their seminal Theory of Games and Economic Behavior in 1944. Starting in the late 1940s, mathematicians funded by the U.S. military very rapidly developed the formal structure of game theory and its connections to other ideas in mathematics, such as information theory, cybernetics, and linear programming. In this same period, behavioral scientists began to test game theory's predictions against observed human behavior, thereby leading to a rich tradition of critiques of formal game theoretic and decision-theoretic models in practical contexts. Given game theory's military roots, the early 1960s saw the creation of the closely related specialties of "peace studies" and "conflict resolution" that further developed (especially) non-zero-sum game theory and psychological studies of game-playing behavior. Finally, in the 1960s and 1970s, biologists concerned with animal aggression developed a startling new set of concepts associated with "evolutionary games," an area of research that continues to grow in importance today. This dissertation will argue that game theory developed in these directions because of the cultural and political conditions that characterized the Cold War. Mathematicians crafted a game theory that was responsive to the tactical and logistical problems of their military patrons. For behavioral scientists, game-theoretic investigations of conflict and cooperation were often performed in the context of a broader effort to mathematize human behavior and to lay the foundations for a stable yet democratic Cold War society. The progenitors of peace research turned to game theory in an effort to provide a "scientific" peace-oriented alternative to conventional military-strategic studies, which they often attacked for its alleged misuse of game theory. And finally, for biologists, game theory permitted a neo-Darwinian explanation of puzzling phenomena of animal behavior, such as altruism, that were also important in the peace studies agenda. By examining these episodes, the researcher will shed light on the relationship between scientific theories and the political context of this era. A perspective will be gained on the formation of several schools of game theory that continue to shape scientific knowledge and practical decision-making today, as well as a broader understanding of the relationship between mathematical models and human values.