Title: Reputation is required for cooperation to emerge in dynamic networks,
Abstract: Melamed, Harrell, and Simpson have recently reported on an experiment which
appears to show that cooperation can arise in a dynamic network without
reputational knowledge, i.e., purely via dynamics [1]. We believe that their
experimental design is actually not testing this, in so far as players do know
the last action of their current partners before making a choice on their own
next action and subsequently deciding which link to cut. Had the authors given
no information at all, the result would be a decline in cooperation as shown in
[2].