Chapter XXVIII: Heuristics | The Philosophy Of Science by Steven Gussman [1st Edition]
“Nobody would ever claim that a bacterium was a conscious strategist, yet bacterial parasites are probably engaged in ceaseless games of Prisoner's Dillemma with their hosts and there is no reason why we should not attribute Axelrodian adjectives—forgiving, non-envious, and so on— to their strategies... Needless to say, there is no suggestion that the bacteria work all this out in their nasty little heads! Selection on generations of bacteria has presumably built into them an unconscious rule of thumb which works by purely biochemical means. Plants, according to Axelrod and Hamilton, may even take revenge, again obviously ...