W.D. Hamilton (1936-2000) was one of the most influential evolutionary biologists of the 20th century. He is best known as the originator of Inclusive Fitness Theory, which at the time was regarded as a breakthrough solution to the evolution of altruism compared to the failed theory of group selection.
Less well known is that Hamilton changed his mind about the relationship between his theory and group selection, based on the work of another theoretical biologist named George Price. The fact that this is still news to many people is curious, since Hamilton himself wrote about it over 40 years ago[1], Elliott Sober and I called attention to it in our book Unto Others over 20 years ago, and the historian of science Oren Harman wrote about it in his best-selling book The Price of Altruism almost ten years ago.
In my interview with Harman, we tell the story of Hamilton’s conversion one more time and then tackle the fascinating question of why it remains news to so many people after all these years.
This is the second of a series of interviews designed to achieve a long overdue consensus on Multilevel Selection Theory. The first interview, with Elliott Sober, is titled “Was Darwin a Group Selectionist?”.
[1] Hamilton, W. D. (1975). Innate social aptitudes in man, an approach from evolutionary genetics. In R. Fox (Ed.), Biosocial anthropology (pp. 133–155). London: Malaby Press.
I think the reason that 1975 paper by Hamilton is unknown is because it is not easy to find. Also Hamilton’s rule rB>C is such an easy equation that it has become religion. Price fixed up that equation i part; but now there are even more very complex versions (which still don’t cover everything) so nobody even tries to read those. (They are highly nonlinear , so you end up with something that looks like General Relativity.)
There are lots of simple equations which people seize on so they become an orthodoxy. one has Piketty’s (r,g) theory of economic inequality–and that comes from MIT—Paul Samueson, for all his faults, knew more math analyses than that. Libertarians forgot that Adam Smith wrote a book called ‘the moral sentiments’, so they have half a theory. Self-proclaimed Marxists never read marx’s original article on ‘anomie’ (similar to Durkheim) , nor did they read the ladt chapters on marx so they have some sort of version of marxism as viable as a baby with its head cut off.
p.s. one can also note that Price after writing down his equation dropped out of science , became a christian social worker working with the poor. That approach doesn’t work either. My area has many christian social workers, and it still has alot of poverty, violence, addiction, and other problems. Some call christian social workers poverty pimps.