| RefNo | EC/1980/12 |
| Previous numbers | Cert XX, 189 |
| Level | Item |
| Title | Hamilton, William Donald: certificate of election to the Royal Society |
| Date | 1978 |
| Description | Citation typed |
| Citation | Distinguished for his contributions to evolutionary biology: using a measure of the genetical correlation of relatives and a new concept named 'inclusive fitness' Hamilton has shown how social behaviour is to be incorporated in Neo-Darwinist theory. While applicable at all levels of organisation and in animals and plants, this theory has been particularly successful in exploring certain complex patterns in the social Hymenoptera. Hamilton has also applied new kinds of theoretical analysis to senescence, bias of sex-ratios, gregarious behaviour, dispersal polymorphism and the varied effects arising from a partially sub-divided population structure. Extending R.A. Fisher's insight on adaptive sex ratios, he has shown linkage between stability against mutation and certain concepts of the theory of games; the same theory made plain the existence of schisms of adaptive interest within the genome and that 'group selection' and 'kin selection' could be considered aspects of a single process. His work on fig wasps has added to an already substantial validation of the sex ratio theory and uncovered new aspects of lethal fighting and male polymorphism. |
| AccessStatus | Closed |
Fellows associated with this archive
| Code | PersonName | Dates |
| NA1250 | Hamilton; William Donald (1936 - 2000) | 1936 - 2000 |