LONDON
As with many of Price's previous academic pursuits, such as working in cancer research developing techniques of fluorescence microscopy, he had no previous involvement in the field."He became interested in the problem of the evolution of the family precisely as he was taking in the meaning of having abandoned his own family," Harman said.Hamilton's kin selection theory offers an explanation for how altruism evolves within the extended family. Drive your sister to the airport and you are ensuring half your genes go safely on holiday, but it's probably not worth getting up at 4 AM for your cousin. Hamilton's rule (rB>C) elegantly describes how a behavioural interaction could evolve, so long as the benefit (B) to the recipient, weighted by their degree of relatedness (r), is larger than the cost (C) to the actor. This explains why bees sting—the cost of sacrificing their own life is smaller than the benefit of protecting the hive.He showed, in essence, that when we think we are behaving lovingly, we are actually working on a carefully calibrated scale of self-interest
THE PRICE EQUATION
The equation allows us to explore the effects of natural selection from different perspectives. For instance, do entire populations compete with one another in the same way the individuals compete? Or, do selfish genes behave similarly to selfish people?Instead of modelling the traits and fitness of individuals, we could model the traits and fitness of a set of groups. The covariance part of the equation (Cov(wi,zi)) now describes the selective pressures occurring between competing groups and the expectation part (E(wi,zi)) describes the factors disrupting those selective pressures. This allows us to model how the behaviour of selfish individuals compromises the fitness of the group much like the behaviour of selfish genes affecting the fitness of the individual.The Price equation explained how all behavioural traits have evolved because they are beneficial to some entity within the biological hierarchy: be it the social group, the family, the individual, or the single gene. He showed, in essence, that when we think we are behaving lovingly, we are actually working on a carefully calibrated scale of self-interest.Price began attracting the attention of some of the biggest names in evolutionary biology. He and Bill Hamilton were beginning to form a formidable working relationship and close friendship. But his behaviour was becoming extremely erratic."The best the natural process can do is a kind of second hand kindness, a selflessness which is not really selfless but rather very much selfish."
"I'VE GOT HOTLINE TO JESUS"
"He thought he had been chosen by a deity to reveal these things to humanity," Harman said. "He tried to convince Hamilton to help him find codes in the Bible because he thought he and Hamilton had a similar type of intelligence, a similar kind of penetration. But Hamilton of course was an atheist, a nonbeliever and loved George very much but thought he was completely crazy.""I think he reached a conclusion that if you could formalize the evolution of trait such as altruism, what it meant is that altruism is never what you think it is," Harman said. "There is that famous quote, 'you scratch an altruist and watch an egoist bleed.' Basically what George thought the equation meant was that since you can explain formally how a trait like altruism evolves, what it means is that the trait is always to the advantage of whatever level in the biological hierarchy that it is evolving within. So the best the natural process can do is a kind of second hand kindness, a selflessness which is not really selfless but rather very much selfish."Price was finally beginning to gain some academic recognition
EVOLUTION AND GAME THEORY
In November 1973, Price and Maynard Smith coauthored a landmark paper called "The Logic of Animal Conflict" introducing the idea of the evolutionary stable strategy, or ESS. An ESS occurs when an entire population adopts a behavioural strategy which no mutant strategy can successfully invade. Just like the Nash equilibrium, this occurs when every individual is making the best decision for themselves based on the decisions made by every other player.The evolutionary stable strategy explained why, for instance, male reindeer have vast unwieldy antlers that are more decorative than dangerous. It shows that ultimately it benefits the individual if the males can engage in skirmishes but not full-blown combat. This mechanism of damage limitation is an example of an evolutionarily stable strategy.The paper completely revolutionised the way biologists thought about behavioural evolution, and Price was finally beginning to gain some academic recognition. Harvard's celebrated evolutionary biologist Richard Lewontin had previously been dismissive when Price had attempted to attract his attention, but he was now writing to Price admitting he had been "too stupid" to understand his work and that he hoped they would communicate in the future."I think George felt that at one point science wasn't enough, that people had to change the world and he was going to do it."
IN PURSUIT OF SELFLESS LOVE
Price had turned away from obsessive Biblical study, deciding to put its teaching into practice, thereby testing the limits of his own altruism. In a letter sent to Maynard Smith in 1972, Price wrote "I am now down to exactly 15 pence… Thus I reassure myself by telling myself that God's standards of disaster will shortly be satisfied. I look forward eagerly to when the 15p will be gone." Soon enough he found himself sleeping on the streets and cleaning toilets in an office off the Euston Road."I wasn't going to marry George, but I never said yes and I never said no."