““Hamilton puzzled over the apparently altruistic self-sacrifice of worker bees in forsaking the opportunity to breed in favor of caring for the queen’s young. He realized that the hive’s peculiar genetic structure resulted in workers being so closely related to one another that, in slaving for the queen, they were promoting their own gene pool. It follows that the genetic disposition of a human parent to forgo personal advantage for the sake of his or her child is just a special case of genes selfishly looking out for their own best interests, as is their disposing of the individual who carries them to selfsacrifice (ceteris paribus) for the sake of two siblings, four cousins, or eight secondcousins. There””
