Abstract: As an interdisciplinary theoretical framework, evolutionary game theory (EGT) has been widely applied in the study of biology and social sciences. Chuang Liu has argued that the concept of “game” in its full sense is indispensable in the study of EGT in social sciences such as economics, but has no place in scientific explanations in biology; since the replicator equations used in EGT are mathematically equivalent to the Lotka-Volterra (LV) equations in theoretical ecology, EGT in biology had better give way to theories that do not rely on the concept of “game” and use tools such as the LV equations. This article argues that, in both biology and social sciences, EGT adopts the same technical “thin” definition of the “game” concept, which provides a unified analytical framework for EGT. Given the differences in scope of application and representational capacity, EGT in biology cannot be replaced by theories using tools such as the LV equations.

Key Words: Evolutionary game theory; Game; Replicator equations; LV equations; Representational capacity

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