In the fore-runner to this article, ‘When Science is not Science’, I argued that W. D. Hamilton’s gene-centric view of evolution, which has become orthodox doctrine in evolution studies, has three fundamental flaws – a false explanation for the origin of altruism, a false belief that genes have power and influence that is apart from and superior to that of the organisms in which they exist, and an extraordinary refusal to accept group selection as an evolutionary process despite group adaptations and dynamics being part of daily life for all social animals including humans. It is appropriate now to examine the consequences of false science becoming accepted as correct and how this came about. Let’s start with this quote:

Galton and his followers felt free to invent a science which accorded with their own prejudices. They believed that our duty to our genes outweighs that to those who bear them. They were filled with extraordinary self-assurance. Their views were taken seriously although in retrospect it is obvious that they knew almost nothing. [1]

Steve Jones, author of The Language of the Genes, made that statement after explaining that a venture into social science and human evolution by Charles Darwin’s cousin Francis Dalton resulted in the emergence of the new “science” of eugenics, which led ultimately to the horrors of race improvement programs in Nazi Germany and other countries, including the United States. (Eugenics cannot be called a science as it had a stated agenda, “To check the birth-rate of the Unfit and improve the race by furthering the productivity of the fit by early marriages of the best stock.”)

From his statement it seems reasonable to assume that in the opinion of Steve Jones the eugenics movement has run its course and no longer has significant influence. That is not the case. Francis Galton’s legacy lives on in the gene-centric interpretation of evolution that has become orthodox doctrine in evolution studies.

Can such a bold statement be true? If so, just what is the link between Francis Galton’s eugenics and evolutionary theory as taught today?

The first link in the chain was R. A. Fisher, another skilled statistician whose personal leanings led to him use statistics and mathematical modelling to arrive at a gene-based analysis of natural selection which is ultimately a gene-based analysis of evolution, despite the fact that the two concepts, although linked, are not synonymous. His The Genetical Theory of Natural Selection is still cited today as an authoritative text. [2] Fisher’s similarity to Galton did not end with his statistics profession and a personal whim that led to a divergence into evolution theory – Fisher was, like Galton, an unabashed eugenicist. In fairness to Fisher, his interest in eugenics appears to have been based entirely on compassion for the less fortunate. However, that motivation is not a get-out-of-jail-free card. A eugenics philosophy no matter how ethics-based, requires of its adherents an innate sense of superiority that gives them knowledge of what constitutes the best interests of others and of society without the need for the consent of, or consultation with, its subjects. And a eugenics philosophy no matter what the motivation, excludes the possibility that the misfortunes of others might have a source other than a gene-based personal evolution history. On the basis of their rejection of alternative reasons for physical, mental and social inferiority, it is not unreasonable to assume that for both Galton and Fisher it was a class and/or race based embrace of eugenics that prompted them to propose a statistics based argument regarding evolutionary trends. They used their “science” to buttress their prejudice.

The next link in the chain was W. D. Hamilton. In 1988 he wrote a short article reflecting on the circumstances that led to his 1964 publication of The Genetical Evolution of Social Behaviour while engaged at the Galton Laboratory University College London. In the article he said this: “while I was an undergraduate reading natural science at the University of Cambridge in 1958 I discovered R. A. Fisher’s The Genetical Theory of Natural Selection… and immediately realised that this was the key to the understanding of evolution that I had long wanted.”

So the link to Fisher is verified, but it gets worse. He continued:

I became a Fisher freak and neglected whole courses in my efforts to grasp the book’s extremely compressed style and reasoning. I quickly noticed however that Fisher’s arguments implied a basically different interpretation of adaptation from what I was hearing from most of my lecturers, and reading in other books. Was adaptation mainly for the benefit of species (the lecturers’ view) or for the benefit of individuals (Fisher’s view)? Clearly it was Fisher who had thought out his Darwinism properly: where interpretations differed, therefore, he must be right…

So on the basis of reading one book that was opposed to the general view, Hamilton decided the general view was wrong. That is not a particularly rational decision; could other factors have been in play in Hamilton’s thinking? And could the process possibly get worse? It turns out that Hamilton was also an unabashed eugenicist.

This facet of Hamilton’s character has been a matter of some concern and embarrassment to those engaged in defending the gene-centric view of evolution today. After Hamilton’s death in 2000 Alan Grafen, Professor of Theoretical Biology at Oxford University and prominent gene-warrior, wrote a tribute article [3] in which he grappled with the eugenics problem. But he raised other matters pertinent to this discussion that will be discussed briefly in turn.

The first item of interest was Grafen’s reference to comments Hamilton made about the impact on him personally of Fisher’s The Genetical Theory of Natural Selection. Hamilton: “By the time of my ultimate graduation (i.e. death) will I have understood all that is true in this book, and will I get a First? I doubt it. In some ways some of us have overtaken Fisher, in many however, this brilliant, daring man is still far in front.” This refers, I believe, to Fisher’s position on eugenics, for reasons that will become clear later.

When explaining the process that Hamilton went through to develop the gene-centric approach to evolution, Grafen wrote:

The initial idea was that sharing of genes altered calculations. Selection could quite easily favour helping siblings, but less often second cousins. Hamilton built up many models of special cases, each with a different genealogical link between actor and recipient. These were unsatisfactory because clearly there was some more general phenomenon going on than these scattered separate cases, particularly as in each of them the gene frequency more or less magically dropped out from the condition for spread. More deeply, they could not aspire to provide the generalisation of Fisher’s fundamental theorem that was so necessary on conceptual grounds. It would be deeply unsatisfying to have a correct theory of altruism which would disprove Fisher’s fundamental theorem and throw evolutionary biology (at least as understood by Hamilton and Fisher) back into disorder. (Emphasis added.)

That passage is quite remarkable. In regard to the alleged fitness contributions to cousins and second cousins that Hamilton’s Rule claims to calculate, it is useful to refer to the human situation, as there we can be more confident of making fewer incorrect assumptions. In my experience, while I do not rule out fitness contributions to cousins and second cousins, such contributions are rare. In fact, for those who donate regularly to charities, their total altruistic contributions would overwhelmingly be directed away from cousins and second cousins and toward non-kin. We can see just how far from reality this argument drifted when we consider the point made by Richard Dawkins in The Selfish Gene that we expect that a cake should be divided into portions proportional to the relatedness of the recipients! [4] Hamilton’s Rule is a fantasy, not an explanation of a feature of evolution. More importantly, it’s clear from this passage that Hamilton’s gene-centred explanation of evolution was developed, engineered and manipulated to fit “conceptual grounds”.

In discussing the end result of all this manipulation for conceptual ends, the end result being inclusive fitness, Grafen wrote:

Inclusive fitness has been much admired but also much misunderstood (Grafen 1982). It was, in the words of his (Hamilton’s) 1964 paper, “its production of adult offspring… stripped of all components which can be considered as due to an individual’s social environment… then augmented by certain fractions of the harm and benefit which the individual himself causes to the fitness of his neighbours. The fractions in question are simply the coefficients of relationship.”

Stripped of all social components? We see here clear evidence of ignoring all data that does not fit the “conceptual grounds”.

In discussing the originality of Hamilton’s work in comparison to Haldane and Fisher, Grafen wrote: “There was however, a definite moment at which Hamilton realised the significance of the coefficient of relatedness, and found that instead of separate models making special assumptions, he could instead construct a single general model in which relatedness played a crucial role.” So there we have it, the Holy Grail, a Theory for Everything, biology’s answer to relativity theory. But like the perpetual motion machine, it just will not run. If Hamilton had opened his eyes more, and once again reference to the human condition is useful, he would have known that contributions to fitness do not depend on relatedness. We cooperate with anyone who can help us. If I am standing at a bus stop with my grandmother and I’m confronted by a mugger, will I look to my grandmother for help, or to the young man behind her who looks like a boxing champion? Doubtless the Hamiltonian response to that would be that such situations are so infrequent as to be irrelevant to evolutionary considerations, which is arguable, but the example leads to a further aspect of our cooperation with non-kin that cannot be so easily dismissed. In human societies generally, all those with whom we cooperate closely and constantly are regarded as kin irrespective of relatedness. Close family friends are called aunt and uncle the world over, and cooperation ties are given the same status as kinship ties, sometimes a higher status depending on the level of cooperation. Hamiltonian thought has it that such ties are actually selfish, based on “reciprocal altruism”, and there is indeed an element of that involved. But they conveniently overlook the common practice of pure altruism – altruism with no expectation of reward. Not only do people give to charities with no expectation of reward, or donate blood with little expectation of reward, but most people would give more assistance to an unrelated elderly neighbour who cannot possibly reciprocate, than they would give to cousins and second cousins. The assumptions on which inclusive fitness are based are just plain wrong, and the capacity of gene-centrics for misrepresentation is endless. Speaking of misrepresentation, just prior to making the statement above, Alan Grafen had written “Inclusive fitness accounts offspring by causation and not by parenthood.” There’s more than a hint of intellectual arrogance in that remark, as it implies that the gene-centred view is the big-picture view, but it’s actually the small-picture view as it refuses to acknowledge the contribution to survival that is made by non-kin. So his statement is wrong.

Further on Grafen wrote: “Inclusive fitness theory provided a maximising principle, namely that natural selection causes organisms to act so as to maximise their inclusive fitness”. [5] The principle is false. Organisms do not act to maximise their inclusive fitness. Contrary evidence can be found in other species, but again it’s useful to look at the human situation. Isolated societies facing food shortages, for example on some Pacific islands, have practised infanticide, a community-based solution in which individual preference is irrelevant. And in wealthy societies it’s been noted that the production of offspring falls dramatically in the wealthy class, a matter of grave concern at the time that eugenics ideas were taking hold and undoubtedly a contributing factor to that.

But it’s time we returned to the eugenics side of the Hamilton story. You will recall that when Hamilton said of Fisher “this brilliant, daring man is still far in front” I suggested that this was a reference to Fisher’s position on eugenics. The reason for that assumption can partly be found toward the end of Grafen’s tribute article when he grappled with Hamilton’s embrace of eugenics. After a brief description of the final five chapters of Fisher’s Genetical Theory, Grafen wrote: “It was the final five chapters of the Genetical Theory that Hamilton enthused over in a postcard to his sister Mary, written on the very day that he discovered the book”. Keep in mind that Hamilton was a fresh young student at this time; he was yet to begin work on the development of inclusive fitness as a concept, and he stated himself that reading the book was difficult, so difficult that some chapters took weeks, even months to cover. The titles of the final five chapters are; ‘Man and Society’; ‘The Inheritance of Human Fertility’; ‘Reproduction in relation to Social Class’; ‘Social Selection of Fertility’; and ‘Conditions of Permanent Civilization’. This was Hamilton’s formal introduction to eugenics as a philosophy. Clearly he already had inclinations in that direction as indicated by him going directly to those chapters on the day he acquired the book. And his later preference for mathematics and modelling based solutions to issues that contradicted observed phenomena, shows that his development of concepts was aimed not at furthering knowledge, but at supporting pre-conceived ideas. Was eugenics that preconception?

To find out, let’s look at what Hamilton himself said about eugenics. He was, like Fisher, motivated by compassion and a wish for the general good. Although his early beliefs were apparently quite crudely interventionist, he wrote:

Since that time I have changed my views considerably. Although I am even more certain that if an omnipotent dictator chose to breed humans with exceptional abilities in any direction the job could be done, I am also certain that the products would not be very desirable – even leaving out any intervening ghastliness of the policies. Contrary to what is fiercely argued, heritable variation in almost every human talent does seem to be abundant. New evidence is being added all the time. In short, the dictator’s selection would work. My change in view results rather from my search for ultimate reasons for sex… I now believe that just about when the dictator was beginning to relax on her throne and to congratulate herself on her progress, she would find her various “alpha” human stocks had become so poorly in general health that no one would like them and no one would want to mate with them. [6]

Hamilton went on to express a few more thoughts opposed to eugenic intervention, all of which were, like the one quoted here, based not on ethical objections, but purely on practical objections. His basic position never changed. And as I stated in regard to Fisher, a compassion motive is not a get-out-of-jail free card. Overpopulation was the key concern for Hamilton, a problem that he assumed was purely genetic in origin. After all, that was the final “principle” emanating from inclusive fitness as Alan Grafen proudly informed us, that organisms act so as to maximise their inclusive fitness. Maximise their “production of adult offspring” as he put it. That proposition is false. Social conditions contribute as much to population levels as genetics, perhaps more so, which means that the predictions of inclusive fitness are mere fantasy. (Even if “maximise inclusive fitness” is used in its most reductionist sense of “maximise gene frequencies” it still results in maximisation of individuals, i.e., population increase.)

Hamilton concluded the discussion of his eugenics leanings with this: “it is important to emphasise that my interest (in eugenics) is not in fact particularly relevant to the interest in the evolution of altruism and selfishness expressed in the paper in this chapter.” Is that supported by the facts? He made an extraordinary admission in describing the circumstances that led to that paper, his influential The Genetical Evolution of Social Behaviours:

But even before this, still at Cambridge, I had made the decision that I would not even try to come abreast of the important work that was being done around me on the molecular side of genetics. This might well be marvellous in itself; I admitted the DNA story to concern life’s most fundamental executive code. But, to me, this wasn’t the same as reading life’s real plan. I was convinced that none of the DNA stuff was going to help me understand the puzzles raised by my reading of Fisher and Haldane or to fill in the gaps they left… [7]

It is clear from that passage that Hamilton believed that he possessed knowledge or intuitions regarding life that were superior, that were above the common herd, that could justifiably lay claim to a development that was independent of any facts that might emanate from other fields of research. It’s also clear that his future work was going to be in line with “life’s real plan”, so the existence of a prior agenda is beyond doubt. Hamilton’s disregard for facts and admiration for his own speculations is nowhere more plain to see than here: “My ideas about kin selection were at last written down and submitted to a journal. I was pretty sure they were right – that is, that they were correctly argued. If right in this way, it was clear that no amount of evidence from nature would make them wrong…” [8] Unbelievable. There is only one very narrow sense in which that statement can be a legitimate scientific view, that is, if Hamilton was conceding that inclusive fitness is not a study of actually existing natural phenomena. You will search in vain for such a concession.

All the indications are that Hamilton’s work was closely tied to his eugenics. He was an admitted “Fisher freak”. Fisher’s lengthy and detailed interpretation of natural selection as a story of gene frequencies concluded with an endorsement of eugenics, so presumably Fisher saw his interpretation of natural selection as a justification for eugenic policies. Hamilton developed an explanation of altruism and selfishness as a story of gene frequencies. So we now have Fisher’s gene frequencies linked to eugenics and Hamilton’s gene frequencies (that he regarded as an extension of Fisher’s work) linked to altruism and selfishness. So something of a link exists already between eugenics and altruism/selfishness. Let’s go on. Hamilton’s embrace of eugenics was prompted by a fear of overpopulation, so with maximisation of related individuals at the heart of his analysis of altruism and selfishness, the eugenics/altruism-selfishness link is hard to deny. Undeniable actually, when we consider this: “As a young man… I slowly came to realize that there were major unsolved problems about the organisation of life that, until solved, must preclude eugenic prescriptions.” [9] He has clearly linked the unsolved problems to eugenic solutions. On the next page this: “Another thing I wanted to understand, as a preliminary to thinking about what might be “best” for humanity as seen by my limited people-regarding side, was the source of the passions that seem inevitably involved in any mere discussion of such issues as eugenics and population control.” Again, given that maximisation of related individuals was the principle emanating from inclusive fitness, the “passions” referred to must be altruism and selfishness. Case closed.

Here’s a summary of the twists and turns. Hamilton saw eugenics as a solution to his fear of population growth. Because eugenics was the solution, genes were by definition the problem. Which means that genes-as-problem was a pre-conceived idea, as this was his position prior to developing inclusive fitness. He developed a view of evolution that proposes that the nature of genes is such that their actions will promote social behaviours that lead inevitably to the maximisation of adult offspring. The eugenics virus sits right at the heart of modern evolution studies. Particularly when we recognise that when an explanation of evolution reduces behaviours, emotions and motivations to the interplay of numbers, in this case gene frequencies, those behaviours emotions and motivations have had the life squeezed out of them, they are de-personalised. The way is then clear for “eugenic prescriptions” to come into play.

Of course, the motivation is irrelevant if the science is correct, but a prior agenda is no friend to science. The history of inclusive fitness and its offspring, the selfish gene hypothesis, has been a history of assumptions based on misrepresentations and the exclusion of observed phenomena that do not fit the agenda. [10] As the base positions are false, [11] all that’s left are the endless pages of mathematics that are alleged to verify Hamilton’s Rule. Now I’m no mathematician, but I’m prepared to predict, as all else is wrong, that the calculations are flawed also. There’s a simple logic behind this. Because, with no expectation of reciprocity we help unrelated neighbours more than cousins or second cousins, it seems highly likely to me that diminishing levels of cooperation are based on diminishing levels of physical distance. So for every calculation that is alleged to support inclusive fitness predictions, if the relatedness value is replaced by a physical distance value, the results will be the same. Now where can I find a mathematician?

It might astonish some people, but this very point regarding physical distance was conceded by Hamilton himself:

Thus a mutation causing such discriminatory behaviour (toward kin) itself benefits inclusive fitness and would be selected. In fact, the individual may not need to perform any discrimination so sophisticated as we suggest here; a difference in the generosity of his behaviour according to whether the situations evoking it were encountered near to, or far from, his own home might occasion an advantage of a similar kind. [12]

So much for the importance of relatedness in Hamilton’s Rule.

It’s something of a paradox that Hamilton, who was capable of expressing the most human and endearing of thoughts and emotions, was also capable of expressing thoughts that show a disturbing disconnection from humanity and reality:

First, there had come the realisation that the genome wasn’t the monolithic data bank plus executive team devoted to one project – keeping oneself alive, having babies – that I had hitherto imagined it to be. Instead, it was beginning to seem more a company boardroom, a theatre for a power struggle of egotists and factions. I was having to imagine, in parallel with others, a kind of parliament of the genes… My own conscious and seemingly indivisible self was turning out far from what I had imagined… I was an ambassador ordered abroad by some fragile coalition, a bearer of conflicting orders from the uneasy masters of a divided empire… As I write these words, even so as to be able to write them, I am pretending to a unity that, deep inside myself, I know does not exist. [13]

Disturbing though those passages are, and possibly indicative of mental health issues, I do not believe that they indicate that Hamilton was suffering an identity crisis. It is far more likely that he had simply been swept away on the global tide of enthusiasm for the new field of genetics which was in its infancy, about which little was known, but for which extraordinary claims were being made. (Extraordinary claims are still being made, as in cures for every ailment.) Clearly his line of thinking was conducive to a eugenics belief, but more importantly that thinking was based on the false perception that still lies at the heart of gene-centrism today – that genes have a position above and separate from the organisms that bear them. That position was deliberately engineered by Hamilton into inclusive fitness. Refer back to Steve Jones’ summary of Galton’s work at the beginning of this article, and it’s undeniable that the biased, agenda driven science of Francis Galton lives on in modern evolution studies – the Hamiltonian interpretation of evolution. Has this virus at the heart of evolution studies influenced social policy? It cannot be said with certainty that Margaret Thatcher’s infamous line that there is no society, only individuals and families, came directly from this but the similarities to inclusive fitness concepts is telling. However, Richard Dawkins did confess: “I was mortified to read in The Guardian that The Selfish Gene is the favourite book of Geoff Skilling, CEO of the infamous Enron Corporation, and that he derived inspiration of a Social Darwinist nature from it.” [14] Enough said.

It is important to note at this point that Grafen’s quote above, regarding the explanation of inclusive fitness is an abbreviation of this from Hamilton:

Inclusive fitness may be imagined as the personal fitness that an individual actually expresses in its production of adult offspring as it becomes after it has first been stripped and then augmented in a certain way. It is stripped of all components which can be considered as due to the individual’s social environment, leaving the fitness which he would express if not exposed to any of the harms or benefits of that environment. This quantity is then augmented by certain fractions of the quantities of harm or benefit which the individual causes to the fitness of his neighbours. The fractions in question are simply the co-efficients of relationship appropriate to the neighbours he affects; unity for clonal individuals, one half for sibs, one quarter for half-sibs, one eighth for cousins… and finally zero for all neighbours whose relationship can be considered negligibly small. [15]

As this passage shows, inclusive fitness is concerned with production of adult offspring as discussed above. However, because the concept is “stripped of all components which can be considered as due to the individual’s social environment” but is then augmented by components sourced from close kin only, it becomes clear that inclusive fitness cannot claim to be a comprehensive analysis of the evolutionary process. Other components cannot simply be ignored, because natural selection does not discriminate. So if inclusive fitness is not a significant feature of evolution, if it is not concerned with actually existing natural phenomena complete with all components, what exactly is it? It can only be an incomplete study of gene frequencies. It is incomplete because factors other than kinship contribute to gene frequencies. Inclusive fitness is the analysis of one factor contributing to changes in gene frequencies. It is not an explanation of the evolution of social behaviours. It is not an explanation of the maximisation of offspring.

EXPLANATORY NOTE

In the forerunner to this article, ‘When Science is not Science’, I argued that kin altruism is impossible within the definitions of altruism and fitness that are used in biology. This was based on the impossibility of a mother reducing her fitness (capacity to raise offspring) by feeding offspring. The argument is valid, but it overlooks the only too frequent habit of evolutionary theorists to redefine words to suit simplicity, which is potentially problematical, or to suit an agenda, definitely problematical. In the case of kin altruism, such acts can occur when “kin” refers only to relatives other than offspring, which might take the sting out of my argument. However, when I awoke to the potential for misunderstanding, and fearful that I might have overstated my case, I recalled a passage from The Selfish Gene in which Richard Dawkins took E. O. Wilson to task on the very same matter:

E. O. Wilson defines kin selection as a special case of group selection. He has a diagram that clearly shows that he thinks of it as intermediate between individual selection and group selection in the conventional sense… There is an even more serious shortcoming in Wilson’s definition of kin selection. He deliberately excludes offspring – they don’t count as kin! Now of course he knows perfectly well that offspring are kin to their parents, but he prefers not to invoke the theory of kin selection in order to explain altruistic care by parents of their own offspring. [16]

That was Dawkins’ position in the 1976 edition. Thirty years later he was still pushing the same line.

I expressed the hope that E. O. Wilson would change his definition of kin selection in future writings, so as to include offspring as kin. I am happy to report that in his On Human Nature, the offending phrase “other than offspring” has indeed – I am not claiming any credit for this! – been omitted. He (Wilson) adds, “Although kin are defined so as to include offspring, the term kin selection is ordinarily used only if at least some other relatives… are affected.” This is unfortunately an accurate statement about ordinary usage by biologists, which simply reflects the fact that many still lack a gut understanding of what kin selection is fundamentally all about. [17]

I’m afraid the misunderstanding is all with Dawkins. Let’s dissect this point by point. Wilson was justified in thinking of kin selection as intermediate between individual selection and group selection, after all, it is neither of the two, so based on participant numbers alone it is generally intermediate. Wilson was justified in excluding offspring from kin selection because kin altruism, for the reasons I have argued, is impossible in the case of offspring using the current definitions of altruism and fitness.

In On Human Nature Wilson was justified in explaining that “Although kin are defined so as to include offspring, the term kin selection is ordinarily used only if at least some other relatives are affected.” This is because kin selection is based on indirect fitness benefits. That is in line with the definition of kin selection provided by West, Griffin and Gardner (2007): “process by which traits are favoured because of their beneficial effects on the fitness of relatives.” No mention of offspring, even though the adjoining definitions of direct and indirect fitness referred to “offspring” for direct fitness and “related individuals” for indirect fitness. Wilson was attempting to bring clarity to the matter. Unfortunately, the point went right over the head of Dawkins. His “ordinary usage by biologists” who “lack a gut understanding of what kin selection is fundamentally about” is in fact the correct usage. Dawkins appears to have interpreted Wilson’s explanation as a back-down, but there is nothing in the text to support that assumption. It seems clear that Wilson did not change his position, and that his analysis of kin selection is correct because the kin altruism concept, on which kin selection is based, is flawed. I don’t know if Wilson ever explained it this way, he possibly thought it so obvious as to be unnecessary, but when altruism is defined as an act that decreases fitness, and fitness is defined as the capacity to produce viable offspring, the “altruistic care by parents” referred to by Dawkins is impossible because the capacity to raise offspring cannot be reduced by raising offspring. A demonstration of fitness cannot be seen as a lowering of fitness.

It’s worth noting that Hamilton was also unaware of this fundamental flaw in the inclusive fitness concept, as shown here in describing a particular social arrangement: “Siblings, parents and offspring will still be the individual’s closest relatives… Thus an individual should be more altruistic than usual to his immediate kin.” [18] Hamilton and Dawkins have failed to understand the implications of the inclusive fitness concept.

Let’s dig a little deeper to see if anything else unexpected turns up. Just as parental care cannot be altruistic, the reverse process cannot also. When a worker bee feeds the queen, her mother usually, or feeds pupae, she cannot lower her direct fitness as she has no direct fitness. She is sterile. But she does have indirect fitness as she can contribute to the production of adult offspring. The act of feeding the queen or pupae is an indirect fitness act, a demonstration of indirect fitness as it contributes to the production of offspring of the queen. Because feeding the queen or pupae is a fitness act, a contribution to the fitness of kin, it is a demonstration of fitness. As such it cannot be seen as lowering fitness, therefore such acts are not altruistic. So in the case of eusocial insects, kin altruism is not only inapplicable to offspring of the queen, it is inapplicable entirely because the worker caste, being sterile, cannot lower fitness. Even the act of dying while protecting the colony is a contribution to the production of offspring and is therefore a fitness act devoid of altruism.

No altruism in a bee-hive? Now that’ll set the bees a-buzzin’!

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Endnotes

1. Steve Jones, The Language of the Genes (Flamingo Press, 1994), 12. As Professor of Genetics and Head of the Galton Laboratory, University College London, which was founded by Francis Galton, we can assume that the author can be regarded as having some authority in this matter.

2. R. A. Fisher, The Genetical Theory of Natural Selection (Clarendon Press, 1930).

3. W. D. Hamilton, Narrow Roads of Gene Land Vol. 3 (Oxford University Press, 1996), 423. It’s interesting that Grafen felt the need to deal with Hamilton’s interest in eugenics. If that interest was not linked to his work then there was no need to raise the matter.

4. Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene 30th Anniv. Edition (Oxford University Press, 2006), 94, 291.

5. Hamilton, Narrow Roads of Gene Land Vol. 3, 432.

6. Hamilton, Narrow Roads of Gene Land Vol. 1 (Oxford University Press, 1996), 17.

7. Hamilton, Narrow Roads of Gene Land Vol. 1, 12.

8. Hamilton, Narrow Roads of Gene Land Vol. 3, 80.

9. Hamilton, Narrow Roads of Gene Land Vol. 3, 213.

10. Hamilton, Narrow Roads of Gene Land Vol. 1, 133-135.

11. It is important to keep in mind exactly what the role of genes is in evolution. When language is slightly exaggerated, false perceptions easily become accepted truths. We often read of “gene instructions” for example. Genes do not instruct. Genes function. They function on instructions from the cell. The cell even has processes in place to control genes that function abnormally. For a gene to instruct it has to be a living entity. Genes are not living entities, yet the result of poor language is the perception that they are units of power; in short, alive. The cell is the primary level of life. Gene-centrism is rife with exaggerated language such as this. Another example found throughout Hamiltonian thought, is “a gene for behaviour X.” Following this the unwary reader will be exposed to pages devoted to showing how behaviour X becomes fixed in a population. The disconnection from reality involved here is astounding. For a start, genes are not traits, they do not produce traits, they produce proteins. A protein is not a trait. These proteins merely contribute to traits. And behaviours are traits that are far more fluid than physical traits. Behaviours are subject to a host of environmental influences that have no effect on physical traits. As a result, I can be altruistic today and spiteful tomorrow. Another example is “gene fitness”. Fitness is a quality of living entities as it refers to the capacity to produce viable offspring. Genes do not replicate, they are replicated by the cell, and their continuation depends on the survival of the organism. That is well understood, or should be, but the very use of the term contributes to the misperception that genes are alive.

12. Hamilton, Narrow Roads of Gene Land Vol. 1, 51.

13. Hamilton, Narrow Roads of Gene Land Vol. 1, 38.

14. Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion (Bantam Press, 2006), 215.

15. Hamilton’s Geometry For the Selfish Herd, Narrow Roads of Gene Land Vol. 1, 237, is typical of the incorrect assumptions and preference for mathematics over observed phenomena that characterises gene-centrism. The paper demonstrates a contempt for the scientific method that is astonishing, yet it is frequently cited as authoritative.

16. Dawkins, The Selfish Gene, 291.

17. Dawkins, The Selfish Gene 30th Anniv. Edition (Oxford University Press, 2006), 94.

18. Hamilton, Narrow Roads of Gene Land Vol. 1, 340.

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Steve Davis is the author of Rise Like Lions - The Hijacking of Australian History (Canberra: Ginninderra Press, 2000).

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