Extraordinary Sex Ratios is the paper that William D. Hamilton seems most proud of if the effusive self-praise in the biographical preface can be trusted. In it Hamilton claims his theoretical insight peaked, and it was within this paper that his ideas exhibited the most pluralism of purpose as he began to perceive the shape of his future research. Extraordinary Sex Ratios also marks the beginning of Hamilton's long utilization of computer simulations to push through the impasses of analytic intractability and empirical unverifiability. On occasion he even claims that in this particular area, sex ratio theory, evolutionary biology comes close to a level of precise certitude and projective power on par with more exact sciences. Here are the main points which are purportedly touched upon within Extraordinary Sex Ratios:
1. The levels-of-selection debate. 2;. The idea of conflict within the genome. 3. The 'evolutionarily stable strategy' or ESS (referred to in this paper as the 'unbeatable strategy'). 4. The initiation of game theoretic ideas in evolutionary biology. 5. Finally and more indirectly, by emphasizing the costliness of male production for females and for population growth, as well as the every-ready 'option' (among small insects, for example) of parthenogensis, it helped to initiate debate over the adaptive function of sex.
I would say that 1 & 5 are implicit within the narrative structure, but 2, 3 and 4 receive explicit treatment. On occasion one stumbles upon primitively expressed concepts and ideas that receive book length treatments in later works by other thinkers, such as Genes in Conflict and Evolution and the Theory of Games. Though I would not class Hamilton with R. A. Fisher in breadth and depth of intellect, in the specific area of evolutionary biology he was clearly an individual of uncommon creative fertility. In describing the self-taught genius George R. Price he says:
