Hamilton's missing link

J Theor Biol. 2007 Jun 7;246(3):551-4. doi: 10.1016/j.jtbi.2007.01.001. Epub 2007 Jan 8.

Abstract

Hamilton's famous rule was presented in 1964 in a paper called "The genetical theory of social behaviour (I and II)", Journal of Theoretical Biology 7, 1-16, 17-32. The paper contains a mathematical genetical model from which the rule supposedly follows, but it does not provide a link between the paper's central result, which states that selection dynamics take the population to a state where mean inclusive fitness is maximized, and the rule, which states that selection will lead to maximization of individual inclusive fitness. This note provides a condition under which Hamilton's rule does follow from his central result.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Altruism*
  • Animals
  • Biological Evolution*
  • Game Theory
  • Genetics, Population
  • Humans
  • Models, Genetic*
  • Selection, Genetic*