Just Science, William D. Hamilton week

I stated earlier this week that I would post on papers from William D. Hamilton's Narrow Roads of Gene Land. I've narrowed down which ones I'll blog:

Day 1: The genetical evolution of social behaviour. I
Day 2: The genetical evolution of social behaviour. II
Day 3: The moulding of senescence by natural selection
Day 4: Extraordinary sex ratios
Day 5: Innate social aptitudes of man

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Just noticed that Nature's Oracle: A Life of W. D. Hamilton is finally out. I haven't read it yet, but will have soon once my copy arrives. If you don't know who W. D. Hamilton is, you know his work. Hamilton's early theoretical papers on the evolution of sociality (e.g., kin selection) were the…
The moulding of senescence by natural selection is not one of William D. Hamilton's favorite papers. In the biographical introduction he notes that both Peter Medawar & George C. Williams covered the same ground in the 1950s; a fact that he was not aware of by the time he had already invested a…
Inclusive fitness is something you've heard of before no doubt. J. B. S. Haldane, one of the greatest evolutionary geneticists of the 20th century, once quipped that he would "...lay down [his] life for two brothers or eight cousins," a succinct expression of the subset of this framework which is…
I would like to give a heads up that the last volume of W.D. Hamilton's papers are out, Narrow Roads of Gene Land, The Collected Papers of W. D. Hamilton Volume 3: Last Words. Of course, you should check our volume 1, on social theory, and volume 2, the evolution of sex. If you don't know who…

Hopefully Hamilton talks about the history of the Price equation paper in his background to the "innate social aptitudes..." paper. Price's paper was one of the few modern-era Nature papers that does NOT have citations!

I'm looking forward to your thoughts/comments on all these papers Razib, particularly on the "innate social aptitudes..." paper.

i don't think that much of the scholarship in that paper rich. but i thought i should cover it since it is pretty controversial as the 'nazi paper.'

I could be thinking of the wrong paper. In some paper in the early 70's Hamilton uses the Price Equation to re-derive his kin selection equation, maybe it's not in the "social aptitudes..." paper.

By rich lawler (not verified) on 03 Feb 2008 #permalink