Innate social aptitudes of man is a controversial paper. As noted in the biographical introduction to it William D. Hamilton states that his friend Robert Trivers referred to it as the "fascist paper" (see Natural Selection and Social Theory for Trivers' perspective on his relationship with Hamilton). Not because Trivers himself thought it was fascist, rather, that was simply the perception of most who read and criticized the paper. The most vociferous critic was the biological anthropologist Sherwood L. Washburn (see Defenders of the Truth for a detailed exposition of Washburn's many critiques of Hamilton's genetic take on ethology). Hamilton found Wasbhurn's hostility bewildering in part because he had introduced Innate social aptitudes of man with a quotation from Washburn's own work. Additionally, he quite admired Washburn's research program in anthropology; the attempt to synthesize both the humane and biological elements of the discipline. Hamilton suggests that perhaps some of the attack was motivated by the tendency of controversial pioneers to "prove" their own basic decency to skeptical peers by anathematizing those who push the envelope even further. But in all honesty I don't think that was the story or the totality of the issue; though Hamilton's paper was not a normative prescription of how humans should be, his Malthusian sensibilities suffuse the speculative comments which make up the bulk of the second half of the paper, and those sensibilities can be shocking in polite company. And if there is something that can be said for modern day anthropologists, they tend to be quite "polite" and correct in both substance & style. Yet whatever issue one might have with the second part of Hamilton's narrative, the first half is a quite elegant exposition of the application of the Price equation to biological questions. In his personal notes Hamilton freely admits that George Price's formalism was both simpler & more general than his earlier more labored derivations of the principle of kin selection. The Price equation is transparent and works with well known formal currency. In Innate social aptitudes of man Hamilton brings his interest in questions demographic and genetic to our own species, and uses the ability of the Price equation to decompose levels of selective effect for the purposes of analysis. Since we're going to be talking about genetics here I'm going to use genetic analogies and terminology instead of describing the parameters within the Price equation in more general terms. Do note that the formalism is easily applicable to questions about culture or society which involve no genetic dimension (see Cultural & Evolutionary Process). To make it simple Hamilton assumes that a population is haploid & asexual, that is, only one copy of a gene. That simplifies the math though the general insights shouldn't be that different. First, a subpopulation is defined by the subscript, s
ns
, number of gene copies (which is equivalent to the number of individuals since this is a single locus treatment)
qs
, frequency of allele, q, on the locus above within the subpopulation s. That is,
