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W. D. Hamilton
Sign in to saveAlso known as William Donald Hamilton, William Donald "Bill" Hamilton, William D. Hamilton, William Hamilton, Bill Hamilton
British evolutionary biologist (1936–2000)
OverviewAI-generated
William Hamilton was a British evolutionary biologist, geneticist, zoologist and psychologist, born on 1 August 1936 in Cairo. He was educated at Tonbridge School, St John's College, University College London and the London School of Economics and Political Science, where John Hajnal was his doctoral advisor. He worked at the University of Michigan and the University of São Paulo, and Olivia Judson was among his doctoral students.
Hamilton was a member of the Royal Society and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He received the Darwin Medal, the Newcomb Cleveland Prize, the Linnean Medal, and the ASN Award for Distinguished Achievement in the Conceptual Unification of the Biological Sciences. An atheist, he died of organ dysfunction on 7 March 2000 at Middlesex Hospital in London, and was buried at Wytham.
Synthesized by Vinony from 24 facts across 2 sources: Wikidata, Vinony collections. Generated from structured data (not the Wikipedia text) and checked against those facts — may still contain errors.
Key facts
- Born
- William Donald Hamilton , ( 1936-08-01 ) 1 August 1936, Cairo , Egypt
- Died
- 7 March 2000 (2000-03-07) (aged 63), Fitzrovia , London , United Kingdom
- Education
- St. John's College, Cambridge , London School of Economics , University College London
- Known for
- Kin selection , Hamilton's rule
- Spouse
- Christine Friess
- Children
- Three daughters
- Parent s
- Archibald Milne Hamilton and Bettina Matraves Hamilton née Collier
- Awards
- Newcomb Cleveland Prize (1981), Linnean Medal (1989), Kyoto Prize (1993), Crafoord Prize (1993), Sewall Wright Award (1998)
- Fields
- Evolutionary biology
- Institutions
- Imperial College London , University of Michigan , University of Oxford
- Academic advisors
- John Hajnal , Cedric Smith
- Doctoral students
- Laurence Hurst , Olivia Judson
via Wikipedia infobox
Wikidata facts
- Instance of
- human
- Given name
- William
- Family name
- Hamilton
- Gender
- male
- Citizenship
- United Kingdom
- Place of birth
- Cairo
- Place of death
- Middlesex Hospital
- Father
- A. M. Hamilton
- Educated at
- Tonbridge School
- Employer
- University of São Paulo
- Languages spoken
- English language
- Native language
- English language
- Religion
- atheism
- Academic degree
- professor
- Doctoral student
- Olivia Judson
- Field of work
- sociobiology
- Residence
- United Kingdom
Show 9 more facts
- date of birth
- 1936-08-01
- date of death
- 2000-03-07
- place of burial
- Wytham
- cause of death
- organ dysfunction
- manner of death
- natural causes
- influenced by
- Ronald Fisher
- maintained by WikiProject
- WikiProject Mathematics
- name in native language
- W. D. Hamilton
Sources (7)
via Wikidata · CC0
~19 min read
Encyclopedic overview
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".
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “W. D. Hamilton” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.