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|signature = |footnotes = }} William Donald "Bill" Hamilton, FRS (1 August 1936 – 7 March 2000) was an English evolutionary biologist, widely recognised as one of the most significant evolutionary theorists of the 20th century.〔"(Obituary by Richard Dawkins )", ''The Independent'', 10 March 2000.〕〔(BBC Radio 4 - ''Great Lives'' - 2 Feb 2010 )〕 Hamilton became famous through his theoretical work expounding a rigorous genetic basis for the existence of altruism, an insight that was a key part of the development of a gene-centric view of evolution. He is considered one of the forerunners of sociobiology, as popularized by E. O. Wilson. Hamilton also 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. ==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 an engineer, and his mother B. M. Hamilton a medical doctor. The Hamilton family settled in Kent. During the Second World War, the young Hamilton was evacuated to Edinburgh. He had an interest in natural history from an early age and would spend his spare time collecting butterflies, and other insects. In 1946 he discovered E. B. Ford's New Naturalist book ''Butterflies'', which introduced him to the principles of evolution by natural selection, genetics, and population genetics. He was educated at Tonbridge School, where he was in Smythe House. As a twelve-year-old he was seriously injured while playing with explosives his father had. These were left over from his making hand grenades for the Home Guard during World War II and he had to have a thoracotomy and fingers on his right hand had to be amputated in King's College Hospital to save his life, and he was left with scarring and needed six months to recover. Before going up to the University of Cambridge he travelled in France and completed two years of national service. As an undergraduate at St. John's College, he was uninspired by the "many biologists () hardly seemed to believe in evolution". He was intrigued by Ronald Fisher's book ''The Genetical Theory of Natural Selection''; but Fisher lacked standing at Cambridge, being viewed as only a statistician. Hamilton was excited by Fisher's chapters on eugenics. In earlier chapters, Fisher provided a mathematical basis for the genetics of evolution and Hamilton later blamed Fisher's book for his getting only a 2:1 degree. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「W. D. Hamilton」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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