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W. D. Hamilton
William Donald Hamilton (1 August 1936 – 7 March 2000) was a British evolutionary biologist, recognised as one of the most significant evolutionary theorists of the 20th century. Hamilton became known for his theoretical work expounding a rigorous genetic basis for the existence of altruism, an insight that was a key part of the development of the gene-centered view of evolution. He is considered one of the forerunners of sociobiology. Hamilton published important work on sex ratios and the evolution of sex. From 1984 to his death in 2000, he was a Royal Society Research Professor at Oxford University. Richard Dawkins has written that Hamilton was "the greatest Darwinian of my lifetime". Early life Hamilton was born in 1936 in Cairo, Egypt, the second of seven children. His parents were from New Zealand; his father A.M. Hamilton was an engineer, and his mother Bettina Matraves Hamilton (nee Collier) was a physician. Two sisters qualified in medicine: Mary Bliss, w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cairo
Cairo ( ; , ) is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Egypt and the Cairo Governorate, being home to more than 10 million people. It is also part of the List of urban agglomerations in Africa, largest urban agglomeration in Africa, List of largest cities in the Arab world, the Arab world, and List of largest metropolitan areas of the Middle East, the Middle East. The Greater Cairo metropolitan area is List of largest cities, one of the largest in the world by population with over 22.1 million people. The area that would become Cairo was part of ancient Egypt, as the Giza pyramid complex and the ancient cities of Memphis, Egypt, Memphis and Heliopolis (ancient Egypt), Heliopolis are near-by. Located near the Nile Delta, the predecessor settlement was Fustat following the Muslim conquest of Egypt in 641 next to an existing ancient Roman empire, Roman fortress, Babylon Fortress, Babylon. Subsequently, Cairo was founded by the Fatimid Caliphate, Fatimid dynasty in 969. It ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Newcomb Cleveland Prize
The Newcomb Cleveland Prize of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is annually awarded to author(s) of outstanding scientific paper published in the Research Articles or Reports sections of ''Science Science is a systematic discipline that builds and organises knowledge in the form of testable hypotheses and predictions about the universe. Modern science is typically divided into twoor threemajor branches: the natural sciences, which stu ...''. Established in 1923, funded by Newcomb Cleveland who remained anonymous until his death in 1951, and for this period it was known as the AAAS Thousand Dollar Prize. "The prize was inspired by Mr. Cleveland's belief that it was the scientist who counted and who needed the encouragement an unexpected monetary award could give." The present rules were instituted in 1975, previously it had gone to the author(s) of noteworthy papers, representing an outstanding contribution to science, presented in a regular sess ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sociobiology
Sociobiology is a field of biology that aims to explain social behavior in terms of evolution. It draws from disciplines including psychology, ethology, anthropology, evolution, zoology, archaeology, and population genetics. Within the study of human society , societies, sociobiology is closely allied to evolutionary anthropology, human behavioral ecology, evolutionary psychology, and sociology. Sociobiology investigates social behaviors such as mating system , mating patterns, territoriality , territorial fights, pack hunter , pack hunting, and the hive society of social insects. It argues that just as selection pressure led to animals evolving useful ways of interacting with the natural environment, so also it led to the genetic evolution of advantageous social behavior. While the term "sociobiology" originated at least as early as the 1940s; the concept did not gain major recognition until the publication of E. O. Wilson's book ''Sociobiology: The New Synthesis'' in 1975. The ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gene-centered View Of Evolution
The gene-centered view of evolution, gene's eye view, gene selection theory, or selfish gene theory holds that adaptive evolution occurs through the differential survival of competing genes, increasing the allele frequency of those alleles whose phenotypic trait effects successfully promote their own propagation. The proponents of this viewpoint argue that, since heritable information is passed from generation to generation almost exclusively by DNA, natural selection and evolution are best considered from the perspective of genes. Proponents of the gene-centered viewpoint argue that it permits understanding of diverse phenomena such as altruism and intragenomic conflict that are otherwise difficult to explain from an organism-centered viewpoint. Some proponents claim that the gene-centered view is the aspect of evolutionary theory that is the most empirically validated, has the greatest predictive power, and has the broadest applicability. The gene-centered view of evolut ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Altruism (biology)
In biology, altruism refers to behaviour by an individual that increases the fitness of another individual while decreasing their own. Altruism in this sense is different from the philosophical concept of altruism, in which an action would only be called "altruistic" if it was done with the conscious intention of helping another. In the behavioural sense, there is no such requirement. As such, it is not evaluated in moral terms—it is the consequences of an action for reproductive fitness that determine whether the action is considered altruistic, not the intentions, if any, with which the action is performed. The term ''altruism'' was coined by the French philosopher Auguste Comte in French, as ''altruisme'', for an antonym of egoism. He derived it from the Italian ''altrui'', which in turn was derived from Latin ''alteri'', meaning "other people" or "somebody else". Altruistic behaviours appear most obviously in kin relationships, such as in parenting, but may also be eviden ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Genetics
Genetics is the study of genes, genetic variation, and heredity in organisms.Hartl D, Jones E (2005) It is an important branch in biology because heredity is vital to organisms' evolution. Gregor Mendel, a Moravian Augustinians, Augustinian friar working in the 19th century in Brno, was the first to study genetics scientifically. Mendel studied "trait inheritance", patterns in the way traits are handed down from parents to offspring over time. He observed that organisms (pea plants) inherit traits by way of discrete "units of inheritance". This term, still used today, is a somewhat ambiguous definition of what is referred to as a gene. Phenotypic trait, Trait inheritance and Molecular genetics, molecular inheritance mechanisms of genes are still primary principles of genetics in the 21st century, but modern genetics has expanded to study the function and behavior of genes. Gene structure and function, variation, and distribution are studied within the context of the Cell (bi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Theoretical Biology
Mathematical and theoretical biology, or biomathematics, is a branch of biology which employs theoretical analysis, mathematical models and abstractions of living organisms to investigate the principles that govern the structure, development and behavior of the systems, as opposed to experimental biology which deals with the conduction of experiments to test scientific theories. The field is sometimes called mathematical biology or biomathematics to stress the mathematical side, or theoretical biology to stress the biological side. Theoretical biology focuses more on the development of theoretical principles for biology while mathematical biology focuses on the use of mathematical tools to study biological systems, even though the two terms interchange; overlapping as Artificial Immune Systems of Amorphous Computation. Mathematical biology aims at the mathematical representation and modeling of biological processes, using techniques and tools of applied mathematics. It can ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
A Devil's Chaplain
''A Devil's Chaplain: Reflections on Hope, Lies, Science, and Love'' is a 2003 book of selected essays and other writings by Richard Dawkins. Published five years after Dawkins's previous book '' Unweaving the Rainbow'', it contains essays covering subjects including pseudoscience, genetic determinism, memetics, terrorism Terrorism, in its broadest sense, is the use of violence against non-combatants to achieve political or ideological aims. The term is used in this regard primarily to refer to intentional violence during peacetime or in the context of war aga ..., religion and creationism. A section of the book is devoted to Dawkins' late adversary Stephen Jay Gould. The book's title is a reference to a quotation of Charles Darwin, in a letter to Joseph Dalton Hooker, J.D. Hooker dated 13 July 1856, made in reference to Darwin's lack of belief in how "a perfect world" was teleological argument, designed by God (and a reference to Reverend Robert Taylor (Radical), Rober ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Richard Dawkins
Richard Dawkins (born 26 March 1941) is a British evolutionary biology, evolutionary biologist, zoologist, science communicator and author. He is an Oxford fellow, emeritus fellow of New College, Oxford, and was Simonyi Professor for the Public Understanding of Science, Professor for Public Understanding of Science at the University of Oxford from 1995 to 2008, and is on the advisory board of the University of Austin. His book ''The Selfish Gene'' (1976) popularised the gene-centred view of evolution and coined the word ''meme''. Dawkins has won several academic and writing awards. A vocal Atheism, atheist, Dawkins is known for his criticism of creationism and intelligent design. He wrote ''The Blind Watchmaker'' (1986), in which he argues against the watchmaker analogy, an argument for the existence of a creator deity based upon the Evolution of biological complexity, complexity of living organisms. Instead, he describes evolutionary processes as analogous to a ''blind'' watc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Evolution
Evolution is the change in the heritable Phenotypic trait, characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. It occurs when evolutionary processes such as natural selection and genetic drift act on genetic variation, resulting in certain characteristics becoming more or less common within a population over successive generations. The process of evolution has given rise to biodiversity at every level of biological organisation. The scientific theory of evolution by natural selection was conceived independently by two British naturalists, Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace, in the mid-19th century as an explanation for why organisms are adapted to their physical and biological environments. The theory was first set out in detail in Darwin's book ''On the Origin of Species''. Evolution by natural selection is established by observable facts about living organisms: (1) more offspring are often produced than can possibly survive; (2) phenotypic variatio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Evolutionary Biologist
Evolutionary biology is the subfield of biology that studies the evolutionary processes such as natural selection, common descent, and speciation that produced the diversity of life on Earth. In the 1930s, the discipline of evolutionary biology emerged through what Julian Huxley called the modern synthesis of understanding, from previously unrelated fields of biological research, such as genetics and ecology, systematics, and paleontology. The investigational range of current research has widened to encompass the genetic architecture of adaptation, molecular evolution, and the different forces that contribute to evolution, such as sexual selection, genetic drift, and biogeography. The newer field of evolutionary developmental biology ("evo-devo") investigates how embryogenesis is controlled, thus yielding a wider synthesis that integrates developmental biology with the fields of study covered by the earlier evolutionary synthesis. Subfields Evolution is the central un ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sewall Wright Award
ASN Award for Distinguished Achievement in the Conceptual Unification of the Biological Sciences, previously known as the Sewall Wright Award, is given annually by the American Society of Naturalists to a "senior-level" and active investigator making fundamental contributions the conceptual unification of the biological sciences. The award was established in 1991 and named after Sewall Wright. The recipient need not be a member of the Society or an American. A plaque and award of $1,000 are presented at a banquet. Award recipients SourceAmerican Society of Naturalists*1992 Russell Lande *1993 Joseph Felsenstein *1994 Richard C. Lewontin *1995 John Maynard Smith *1996 Robert T. Paine *1997 Douglas J. Futuyma *1998 William D. Hamilton *1999 Janis Antonovics *2000 Montgomery Slatkin *2001 Illkka A. Hanski *2002 Linda Partridge *2003 Mary Jane West-Eberhard *2004 Rudolf Raff *2005 Robert E. Ricklefs *2006 Brian Charlesworth *2007 Dolph Schluter *2008 Spencer Barrett *200 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
