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W.D. Hamilton (1936-2000) was responsible for a revolution in thinking about evolutionary biology – a revolution that changed our understanding of life itself.
He played a central role in the realization that what matters in evolution is not the survival of the individual but of the survival of its genes. This provided the solution to the long-standing problem of animal altruism that vexed even Darwin himself, and in due course resulted in terms like selfish genes, kin selection, and sociobiology becoming familiar to a wider public. Hamilton went on to solve many more major problems, and open up ever new fields – he shaped much of our current understanding of central problems including the evolution of sexual reproduction and ageing. He became world-famous and garnered international prizes.
But this is all in hindsight. In fact, Hamilton's recognition came late – his career is a classic case of misunderstood genius. In this illuminating and moving biography, Ullica Segerstråle documents Hamilton's extraordinary life and work, revealing a man of immense intellectual curiosity, an uncompromising truth-seeker, a naturalist and jungle explorer, a risk-taker, an unconventional scientist with a poet's soul and a deep concern for life on earth and mankind's future.
Preface
Introduction
1. Growing up at Oaklea
2. Finding Life's Pattern
3. Schoolboy at Tonbridge
4. Fisher Found and Lost
5. The Struggle for Altruism
6. Altruism through the Looking Glass
7. Brazilian Break
8. Sex and Death
9. Challenges of Social Life
10. The Price Effect
11. Creativity in a Tight Spot
12. Priority Matters
13. When Leaving is Better than Staying
14. Encounters with Sociobiology
15. The Parasite Paradigm
16. Cooperation without Kinship
17. The Oxford Move
18. Defending the Queen
19. In Tune With Nature
20. Truth at any Price
21. Creative Strategies
22. Through a Glass Darkly
23. The Final Defiance
24. The Edge of Creativity
Notes
Glossary
References
Index
Ullica Segerstråle is a Professor of Sociology at the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago and director of its Camras Scholars Program. She holds a PhD in sociology from Harvard, an MA in communication from the University of Pennsylvania, and MS degrees in both organic chemistry and sociology from the University of Helsinki. She has held Guggenheim and Fulbright fellowships, and been supported by the American Philosophical Society, the Rockefeller Foundation and the Sloan Foundation, among others. She is a member of the European Academy of Sciences and Arts, and the Finnish Academy of Sciences and Letters. Segerstrale has written and lectured widely internationally on science and values, the ethics of research, and the debates about what it means to be human. Her books include Defenders of the Truth: The Battle for Science in the Sociobiology Debate and Beyond, and Beyond the Science Wars: The Missing Discourse about Science and Society.
"with its wealth of new information and anecdotes, Nature's Oracle fills an important gap in our knowledge of recent history of evolutionary biology. Historians interested in this topic, or in Bill Hamilton's ideas, will find in the book a useful springboard for further research."
– Guido Caniglia, Journal of the History of Biology
"Segerstråle has done a terrific job. Nature's Oracle is a biography truly worthy of a scientist of Hamilton's stature and it will be an invaluable source of insight for anyone interested in the life and science of one of the giants of twentieth-century biology."
– J. Arvid Agren, Journal of Genetics
"William Hamilton's name stands above all others in evolutionary biology since the Modern Synthesis of the 1930s and '40s. As John Maynard Smith, with whom he had a troubled relationship, said, "He's the only bloody genius we've got." As geniuses often are, he was a complex character and an exceptional challenge for any biographer. Ullica Segerstråle is ideally qualified to rise to that challenge. She achieves a genuinely affectionate yet warts-and-all portrait of her subject, combined with a good understanding of the deep subtleties of his thinking. Those who loved him, as I did, and those who wish to know more of the astonishing originality and versatility of his contributions to science, will treasure this book."
– Richard Dawkins
"This is an outstanding biography of a truly brilliant scientist. Segerstråle beautifully interweaves Hamilton's epic work with the details of his life."
– Robert L. Trivers
"Bill Hamilton's remarkable story has now been told: a truly great naturalist, who thought his way to the very heart of evolution by natural selection, completing and expanding the insights of Darwin as he discovered the disorienting and enlightening perspective of the gene itself."
– Matt Ridley, author of The Red Queen
"This is the first biography of one of the 20th century’s boldest and most brilliant thinkers, W D “Bill” Hamilton, an evolutionary biologist and naturalist who died, as he lived, in hot pursuit of an unpopular idea. Ullica Segerstråle’s generous, conversationally written book allows the general reader to see Hamilton as one of science’s most attractive and outrageous characters. [...] Segerstråle is a knowledgeable and enthusiastic biographer, and I soon grew used to her remarkably informal, direct style – Hamilton’s capacity to do or think surprising things induces frequent exclamation marks. One blind spot is the beauty of W.D. Hamilton’s writing style, which she refers to rather dismissively as “typical flight-of-fancy Bill style” or “typical earnestly meant Bill style”. But she does justice to the ideas and to Hamilton’s over-sensitive, obstinate, democratic and obsessively curious nature."
– Maggie Gee, The Telegraph, 24-03-2013
