A poignant, though entertaining anecdote in Frans de Waal's review of "
The Price of Altruism- George Price and the Search for the Origins of Kindness" by Oren Harman-
"Extremely well researched and written with great love of the subject, “The Price of Altruism” reveals all sorts of personal details of momentous events in the history of science. There is, for example, the delicious fact that John Maynard Smith, the famous British evolutionary biologist, brought to the deathbed of the even more famous J. B. S. Haldane a book arguing that flocks of birds prevent overpopulation by curtailing their own reproduction, in an attempt to give themselves an advantage over other flocks. This idea, known as group selection, was to become the focus of much passionate debate and ridicule over the years. Despite his grave condition, Haldane immediately saw the problem, which he summarized to visitors with a mischievous smile:
“Well, there are these blackcock, you see, and the males are all strutting around, and every so often a female comes along, and one of them mates with her. And they’ve got this stick, and every time they mate with a female, they cut a little notch in it. And when they’ve cut 12 notches, if another female comes along, they say ‘Now, ladies, enough is enough!’ ”
- Book Review - The Price of Altruism - By Oren Harman - NYTimes.com:
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