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 Segerstrale is Professor of Sociology at Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, and Chair of the Department of Social Sciences. She has published widely on the history and the sociology of science: her publications include Defenders of the truth: The battle for science in the sociobiology debate and beyond (Oxford, 2000), Beyond the science wars: The missing discourse about science and society (SUNY Press, 2000, as editor), and Nonverbal communication: Where nature meets culture (Erlbaum, 1997, as co-editor). Segerstrale holds a PhD in sociology from Harvard, a MA in communications from the University of Pennsylvania, and an MS in organic chemistry from the University of Helsinki. She is a Fulbright Fellow, a fellow of the Salzburg Seminar in American Studies, and the recipient of a Senior Researcher Grant from the Academy of Finland, Helsinki.
Ullica Segerstrale... has produced an interesting and readable
biography based on Hamilton's letters, published work and the
testimonies of friends and family. It is detailed and
uncompromising.
*A. M. Mannion, The Biologist*
with its wealth of new information and anecdotes, Natures Oracle
fills an important gap in our knowledge of recent history of
evolutionary biology. Historians interested in this topic, or in
Bill Hamiltons ideas, will find in the book a useful springboard
for further research.
*Guido Caniglia, Journal of the History of Biology*
Segerstrale has done a terrific job. Natures Oracle is a biography
truly worthy of a scientist of Hamiltons 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 Segerstrale 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.
Segerstrale beautifully interweaves Hamilton's epic work with the
details of his life.
*Robert L. Trivers*
Interesting and readable
*The Biologist*
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 *
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