Researchers have used several different ways of testing Hamilton's rule, the core mathematical formula of kin selection, as an explanation for the evolution of much altruistic behavior in animals.

The dominant evolutionary theory for Earth's most successful creatures, and a proposed influence on human altruism, is under attack. For decades, selflessness -- as exhibited in eusocial insect ...

It's easy to understand why natural selection favors people who help close kin at their own expense: It can increase the odds the family's genes are passed to future generations. But why assist ...

In 1975 Harvard biologist E. O. Wilson published Sociobiology, perhaps the most powerful refinement of evolutionary theory since On the Origin of Species. Darwin’s theory of natural selection ...

Understanding the maintenance of cooperation is of fundamental importance in evolutionary biology. Kin selection is a powerful mechanism that explains altruism (Hamilton, 1964), the principle being ...

How the ultra-cooperative behavior of ants, bees and other social insects could have evolved continues to challenge formal analysis. But a new theory that includes hedging bets against nature’s ...

I promised I'd go over the recent PNAS paper, Group selection and kin selection: Two concepts but one process. This is one of those articles where most of the heavy lifting is in the technical ...

In an article to be published in the January issue of BioScience, two philosophers tackle one of the most divisive arguments in modern biology: the value of the theory of "kin selection." Kin ...