Nature's Oracle

• 'A good candidate for the title of most distinguished Darwinian since Darwin' Professor Richard Dawkins on W.D.Hamilton
• W.D.Hamilton's theory of gene selection revolutionised biology and led to terms such as 'selfish genes' and 'sociobiology' becoming vital currency in both scientific and public debate.
• Segerstrale's detailed research reveals the internal tensions and conflicts behind Hamilton's creative genius, and the narrative is peppered with personal anecdotes of this eccentric scientist and tireless truth-seeker.
• Segerstrale shows how Hamilton throughout his life was a man against the grain, whose iconoclastic views challenged the scientific and medical establishment, and even the Vatican.

Readership: General readers interested in biography, especially scientific biography; those interested in biology, evolution, and natural history. Also both student and professional biologists, and historians and sociologists of science.

Ullica Segerstrale, Professor of Sociology at the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) in Chicago and director of its Camras Scholars Program.

Ullica Segerstrale is Professor of Sociology at Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago and director of its Camras Scholars Program. She holds a PhD in sociology from Harvard, a MA in communication from the University of Pennsylvania, and MS degrees in both organic chemistry and sociology from the University of Helsinki. She has held Guggenheim and Fulbright fellowships, and been supported by the American Philosophical Society, the Rockefeller Foundation and the Sloan Foundation, among others. She is a member of the European Academy of Sciences and Arts, and the Finnish Academy of Sciences and Letters. Segerstrale has written and lectured widely internationally on science and values, the ethics of research, and the debates about what it means to be human. Her books include Defenders of the Truth: The battle for science in the sociobiology debate and beyond, and Beyond the Science Wars: The missing discourse about science and society.

"William Hamilton's name stands above all others in evolutionary biology since the Modern Synthesis of the 1930s and '40s. As John Maynard Smith, with whom he had a troubled relationship, said, "He's the only bloody genius we've got." As geniuses often are, he was a complex character and an exceptional challenge for any biographer. Ullica Segerstrale is ideally qualified to rise to that challenge. She achieves a genuinely affectionate yet warts-and-all portrait of her subject, combined with a good understanding of the deep subtleties of his thinking. Those who loved him, as I did, and those who wish to know more of the astonishing originality and versatility of his contributions to science, will treasure this book." - Richard Dawkins

"This is an outstanding biography of a truly brilliant scientist. Segerstrale beautifully interweaves Hamilton's epic work with the details of his life." - Robert L. Trivers

"Bill Hamilton's remarkable story has now been told: a truly great naturalist, who thought his way to the very heart of evolution by natural selection, completing and expanding the insights of Darwin as he discovered the disorienting and enlightening perspective of the gene itself." - Matt Ridley, author of The Red Queen

Preface
Introduction
1. Growing up at Oaklea
2. Finding Life's Pattern
3. Schoolboy at Tonbridge
4. Fisher Found and Lost
5. The Struggle for Altruism
6. Altruism through the Looking Glass
7. Brazilian Break
8. Sex and Death
9. Challenges of Social Life
10. The Price Effect
11. Creativity in a Tight Spot
12. Priority Matters
13. When Leaving is Better than Staying
14. Encounters with Sociobiology
15. The Parasite Paradigm
16. Cooperation without Kinship
17. The Oxford Move
18. Defending the Queen
19. In Tune With Nature
20. Truth at any Price
21. Creative Strategies
22. Through a Glass Darkly
23. The Final Defiance
24. The Edge of Creativity
Notes
Glossary
References
Index