The Price of Altruism: George Price and the Search for the Origins of Kindness

by Oren Harman

The moving tale of one man's quest to crack the mystery of altruism, an evolutionary enigma that has haunted scientists since Darwin.

Survival of the fittest or survival of the nicest?

Since the dawn of time man has contemplated the mystery of altruism, but it was Darwin who posed the question most starkly. From the selfless ant to the stinging bee to the man laying down his life for a stranger, evolution has yielded a goodness that in theory should never be.

Set against the sweeping tale of 150 years of scientific attempts to explain kindness, The Price of Altruism tells for the first time the moving story of the eccentric American genius George Price (1922–1975), as he strives to answer evolution's greatest riddle. An original and penetrating picture of twentieth century thought, it is also a deeply personal journey. From the heights of the Manhattan Project to the inspired equation that explains altruism to the depths of homelessness and despair, Price's life embodies the paradoxes of Darwin’s enigma. His tragic suicide in a squatter’s flat, among the vagabonds to whom he gave all his possessions, provides the ultimate contemplation on the possibility of genuine benevolence. 24 Illustrations.

Genres: Nonfiction, Science, Biography, History, Philosophy, Psychology, Evolution

451 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2010

About the author

Oren Harman, who has a doctorate from Oxford University, is the Chair of the Graduate Program in Science Technology and Society at Bar Ilan University and a professor of the history of science. He is the author of The Man Who Invented the Chromosome, a documentary film maker, and a frequent contributor to The New Republic. He lives in Tel Aviv and New York.

Reviews

[Cindy · Rating 4 out of 5]

So many concepts in Price of Altruism just blew me away. Did you know that fMRI images of people being generous light up the same area of the brain as food and sex? Being generous gives us pleasure, and is rewarded in the great evolutionary game of reproduction. Also, female worker bees and ants are more related to their sisters than they would be to children had they had any? And my new word from the book is pabulum: material for intellectual nourishment.

At first blush, you might think altruism? Sacrificing of one’s self for the good of the group? But, but, that’s not survival of the fittest! Evolution is selfish; it’s all about passing on your genes! The second part of that statement is certainly true, but don’t forget that if your family or your group dies, no genes will be passed on to those legions of descendants.

It turns out that the study of behavioral evolution (altruism included) has been a delicate and politically wrought subject. In half of the book (alternating every chapter), Harman takes the reader on a winding historical journey. From Victorian scientists through to Price’s development of his eponymous equation, which models the outcome of a given trait on future generations, we learn about the arguments of relatedness, kinship, and group selection theories. The historical detail and cast of characters is staggering; at times the reader is left wondering if Harman has taken too large of a bite from the evolutionary pie. While all the stories and asides are fascinating, it seems that the author might have included some because “dammit I did the research, so it’s going in!” Frequently the connections between our various actors and their works are not clearly drawn for the reader. Jargon is frequently not explained, and unfortunately there are unclear explanations of some mathematical principles.

Nonetheless, there were so many instances where I had to just put the book down to think about the issues and let them coalesce in my mind before continuing. This is certainly an intellectually rewarding book.

The second half of the story, interwoven between the scientific history is the story of the life of George Price. Luckily these sections flow much better. An emotionally flawed but intellectually brilliant man, Price went from chemist and father, through various professions to estranged loner and religious zealot. Yet Price was able to put together pieces of a mathematical puzzle to explain inheritance of traits that was independent of genetic or kinship attributes. Now known as Price’s equation, it’s an elegant model that can be applied not just to altruism, but also to inheritable traits, economic systems and biological systems. Price solved the problem of altruism in kin selection, but he himself was a failed parent, husband and colleague. Eventually the story has a tragic end, but Price’s equation lives on.

This is just a tough book to rate because I am so conflicted: the ideas, concepts, and history are brilliant and mind-expanding. The writing style – lack of connections between ideas, very large cast of characters, lots of side-tracked stories, unclear target audience – was at times confusing and downright painful. But not all the time, luckily. At the end of the day, I can confidently say the book is delicious, tasty pabulum.

[Philipp · Rating 4 out of 5]

Highly interesting book - in a way, the title is slightly misleading, only about half of the book details the live of the now mostly forgotten George Price (was he ever known in the first place?), the other half describes the history of "modern Darwinism" - the fusion of math and biology at the hands of Fisher, Wright, Haldane, Hamilton etc. For starters, who knew Haldane was such a crazy war hero?

2 things annoyed me about this book:
a) The book is chronologically roughly ordered along the life of Price, but sometimes jumps wildly in time (mostly to introduce the life history of a new person in Price's life, or of a new important scientist, sometimes it feels the author "forgot" to mention a fact earlier).
b) The author seems to be a big fan of group selection, a now mostly dead concept that was already in its last breaths in 2010 when this book was published. Especially the second to last chapter feels more like an essay "pro group selection" than a chapter in a biography. Mentioning the introduction of myxomatosis to Australia with subsequent loss of lethality as a sign of group selection is weird - the more virulent individuals just died faster, leaving the less virulent individuals alive, you don't need to invoke group selection for that (remember Occam's razor?).

Anyway, highly recommended.

[Ann · Rating 1 out of 5]

I am really interested in the subject matter, and so I started the book three times. And I never made it past the first 50 pages. Trying to read this book was an unprofitable, even unpleasant experience. I thought long and hard about what made this book so hard to read. I came to the conclusion that the author's desire to show off his erudition trumped his desire to explain and educate. For instance, the book is loaded with details that serve no function at all. For instance, one section starts by saying that Mady Huxley died of pneumonia, with the full date of her death and the detail that the famous physician Charcot had tried to treat her. But Mady plays no role in the book. The fact that her death caused her father, biologist Huxley, great pain, is perhaps relevant to a biography of Huxley, but has nothing to do with the subject at hand. The book is stuffed full of details like that, and it is simply distracting.

Second, the writing style is inconsistent. The book starts by the author trying to imagine the thoughts of Kropotkin on the night he is arrested. Who is Kropotkin? Why is he the first person mentioned in a biography of George Price? And how do we know that memories of the talk he gave the day before still lingered in his head as he packed his valise? Are we reading historical fiction or biography? And why do we need to read several pages about Kropotkin's life as a an aristocrat, courtier and military man in pre-Revolutionary Russia before we figure out, on page 20, that he was a biologist who noted instances of animal behavior that seemed to contradict Darwin's theories?. But then the next paragraph is about him becoming an anarchist. And then suddenly we are in Victorian England, where Darwin, Huxley and Spencer are laying the foundations of evolutionary biology. And then we're back with Kropotkin. And then we're back in London. And then back in Russia.

I also feel that the author was too liberal in his use of quotes. On page 27, there were about 16 quotes in 36 lines. But the archaic language used by the Victorians is not always easy to understand. So all of these quotes don't really help to understand any of the theories that they were expounding. A simple explanation would have been more helpful.

I repeat that I never made it past 50 pages. What I did manage to get through, did not read like a biography, nor like an explanation of the science of altruism. It read like a science historian's attempt to write a book for a larger audience that was unfortunately derailed by his insistence on inserting any little tidbit he had in his notes.

[Ilinca · Rating 3 out of 5]

I expected to be blown away. I heard the book reviewed on some podcast, and it, and Price himself, sounded incredibly interesting. Now... I don't know if it's the author's fault or Price's, but I was most definitely not blown away.
First of all, the book is very uneven. Harman moves erratically between decades, back and forth, in a very exhausting and hard-to-follow attempt to cover both the history of altruism and the birth of Price at the same time. Why-oh-why?
Then he continues this confusing dance, throwing various scientists and theories into the mix - but again, along a very confusing timeline. It straightens out towards the end, when things become simple and the Harman has made his (dubious) point.
Which brings me to the second complaint - after reading this book, I am unconvinced that Price's contribution was such a great deal. I must have missed some essential bit of maths or biology, but it just sounds like he threw in an equation and an idea, and that was pretty much it.
Which finally brings me to Price himself. With all due respect, he comes off as a bit of a loser and a bit of a jerk. I'd say he was one of the countless people who are very smart and yet unable to focus their smarts. He drifted here and there, possibly thought himself a lot smarter than he was, and failed to pin anything down. Emotionally he was either autistic or very much a jerk, and in the end his turn to Jesus sounds like a very moronic surrender to the impossibility of succeeding on his own. The "coincidences" that led him to faith are so strained they make your head hurt, and his second conversion to the good life, despite at least one affair with a married woman, left me questioning whether this guy, like I said, might have just been a jerk.
Anyhow, the author fails to explain how Price's increasing mental instability has anything to do with altruism or even kindness. I see no connection. And I'm sorely disappointed.

[Elliot Ratzman · Rating 3 out of 5]

If evolution suggests that life is a struggle for survival, how does science account for selfless behavior in the natural world? From amoebae to antelopes, living creatures sacrifice themselves for the good of…what? Since Darwin, scientists have puzzled over the mechanisms of sacrifice. Is it genes? Species? Family? The cunning of Nature? George Price was a vagabond scientist, one of those mad geniuses who combined arrogance with chronic life mismanagement. Harman weaves the history of the pursuit for a quantified account of altruism with Price’s Forrest Gump-like life—from the Manhattan Project to pop science writer and debunker of the supernatural in the 50s to toiler in Bell Labs to homeless born-again Christian altruist. While fascinating reading, the book doesn’t make clear the significance of Price’s contribution until the end. I’m still not sure how to explain it besides to say that evolution works both on the level of the group and the individual to explain altruistic behavior.

[Jayesh · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book jumps around a lot in narrative (introducing "forgotten" important scientist). Interesting book nevertheless. And like The Dream Machine: J.C.R. Licklider and the Revolution That Made Computing Personal, less about the eponymous scientist and more about the idea complex they contributed to - in this case, "modern Darwinism". Fisher, Wright, Haldane, Hamilton, Maynard-Smith etc, everyone makes an appearance.

[Elly · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book desperately needed another pass from an editor—it keeps skipping over stuff that seems important and then going into five pages of detail about an unrelated property rights court case or something, and some of the sentences are so long that by the time you get to the end you forget where they started. Also, as sometimes happens with male authors writing biographies of male geniuses, the author clearly hates every woman in Price’s life and it’s coming off pretty homoerotic. If you talk this much about his gentle eyes and his unrequited love it feels like you’re typing this with one hand and daydreaming that you would have treated him right

[Sabina Bonio · Rating 3 out of 5]

2,5

[Nina · Rating 4 out of 5]

A challenging read! The math was over my head, but the biological and genetic concepts were fascinating. Brilliant scientists, starting with Darwin, scratched their heads searching for the origins of kindness. "Where did altruism come from: Could it have been borne by the invisible hand of natural selection working direction on genes, on individuals, perhaps, on communities, on groups? Each had a hunch, and each had an answer. Still in awe, still in admiration, no one came up with an entirely convincing solution." There were some highly interesting research findings. When students were genotyped there was found to be a significant correction between the degree of giving by the students and a tiny DNA microsatellite in and around a gene encoding for a receptor of the neurotransmitter ocytocin in the brain, as it was for vasopressin. What? Altruism is in our genes? The author wove the science around the story of one particularly brilliant man, George Price, who is all but forgotten now; a 20th century American buried in an unmarked pauper's grave in England. George took altruism to the extreme, giving away all he had and living among the homeless while he pursued his science and his religion simultaneously. Lots of thought-provoking material here!

[Carol · Rating 4 out of 5]

Harman writes what felt like a parody of the life of George Price. Price was a mathematic genius who struggled with the effects of his studies. He reduced his studies of the human mind to theorems studying animal life for comparisons of how minds work. Never able to continue in one line of work, Price worked on the Manhattan Project as well as other technical endeavors. While attempting to understand the relevance of genetics to environment in human relationships, he ostracised his mother, divorced his wife, and did not support his 2 daughters. In the end, he heard the call to follow Jesus and without any sensical knowledge of what he was doing gave all worldly goods to the down and out without actually helping anyone and eventually in despair committed suicide. The book is very technically written for scientists and philosophers, but lends to those like me who are interested in genetics and environment.

[Meir Brooks · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book tries to weave together two, perhaps two and a half strands. The first is a biography of George Price, an eccentric and fascinating figure. The second is exploring the evolutionary underpinnings of altruism, with a "half strand" dedicated to the story of how the evolutionary theories about altruism developed, down to the biographical backgrounds of each of a dozen scientists in the field. The first of these strands is interesting and worth reading; the other strands do not leave much of an impression, and fail at the key point of describing Price's contribution. And the whole book is overwritten and full of odd writing choices that make the final result confusing and at times annoying. Moreover, the link the author tries to make between these strands ends up feeling very forced.

Price's life is of great interest. His personality is one that feels familiar from many stories (and life): an autodidact with some genuinely brilliant capabilities in certain areas with an extreme personality that leads him to change his life radically at multiple points. He considers himself a genius in multiple areas despite little experience, and it seems that in at least one case he had a legitimate claim to be one. There are all sorts of interesting insights to be had from this story, especially for our age of "wikipedia intellectuals" who consider themselves brilliant at every turn (and many of them may well be), as well as some meditation on the costs of being a "total intellectual" so immersed in intellectual pursuits that they lose touch with their surroundings. Price's religious conversions are themselves very interesting. All these would have made for a good biography and I considered giving three stars just on that merit.

The book tries to link this to a broader discussion of evolutionary biology and altruism, but here it fails on multiple counts. Most importantly, the substantive "climax" of the book is where Price arrives at an equation that makes a great contribution to our understanding of evolutionary theory and the levels at which natural selection operates. The book points to this moment in countless places before and after. Yet the explanation itself is fumbled. I'm no expert, but I've read The Selfish Gene, I've studied statistics and economics, and have researched the game theoretical underpinnings of altruism. Yet I still didn't understand the explanation of the "covariance equation," so I can't see how a general audience with less background in these topics would. There were only about 5 variables in the equation and the book didn't even explain them all. It didn't explain first what covariance even meant, so someone without any statistics background may be confused.

This problem is compounded by a second: the book is oddly overwritten. It's hard to describe without mentioning many examples, but the overall effect is that the book is frequently vague at critical points, especially when describing the nitty-gritty of evolutionary theory. The author seems much more eager to describe in superlative terms the drama or personality behind each twist and turn of each contribution than to make the science itself clear. Some parts seemed like they could use serious editing. One sentence, which I still scarce believe appeared in a serious work of nonfiction, reads "The ideas swam in his head like drunken piranhas" (no, the context doesn't help). At one point the book notes that Adam Smith, a "seventeenth century Edinburgh economist" had "softened up" when he wrote his Theory of Moral Sentiments, relative to the earlier mentioned passages from The Wealth of Nations. Yet Smith was an 18th century economist whose life mostly revolved around Glasgow (not Edinburgh) and "Sentiments" was written 17 years before "Wealth." These are small examples that come to mind but do believe me when I say that the writing is elaborate to the point of being hard to understand at times (and the superlatives annoying and mostly meaningless).

This is not helped by the large number of pages dedicated to the biographies of various evolutionary theorists and their ideas. It makes sense to describe the background leading up to Price's equation, but it's hard to buy the author's arguments for the necessity of knowing the blow-by-blow trajectory of each of these predecessors, many of which have only a tenuous relationship to the rest. Later in the book these figures are referred to constantly, but I'd be surprised if the casual reader is able to keep track well enough to really get anything out of these references. In the first third or so, the book jumps between these biographical tidbits and Price's own story in a disjointed way that felt rather unpleasant.

There's one last odd aspect of the book that further makes it hard to appreciate Price's contribution. I accept that his equation is significant primarily because a few other characters quoted in the book seem to think as much; he published (as far as I can tell) no more than a paper and a half and there's no objective measure of its significance in research, such as citations. But the really crucial issue is that as far as I can tell Price wrote an equation related to natural selection generally, and the focus on altruism specifically is entirely the author's. It makes for a neat tie-in with Price's own life, and clearly altruism is one possible application of Price's ideas, but it seems the book is trying to plant in the reader's mind the idea that Price himself was obsessed with altruism, without actually showing it. Perhaps there were such connections made in the book, but if so I missed them, and that's saying something too. The two threads making up the book, which are right there in the title, are never convincingly connected.

Overall, as a biography of Price the book is an interesting if annoyingly written account of a fascinating life. On just about all other counts it fails. For the evolutionary biology and its relation to altruism and game theory, pick up The Selfish Gene (or a better account, but not this).

[Jayme · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a really good biography of a little known scientist, George Price, interwoven with the history of the search for a scientific understanding of altruism. This booked covered everything. Starting with Darwin and his theory of evolution and going all the way to Richard Dawkins with altruism linked to genes. It even spent a little time with modern techniques such as the use of MRI's to pinpoint altruism in the brain.

Harman could have made this a much better book in a couple different ways though. First, it was a little all over the place in the beginning, jumping from historical science, to Price's life story without seeming to connect until much later in the book. Second, it cold have been a little more accessible. The writing was dry at times and parts of the book really dragged for me.

[Alex Gelinas · Rating 2 out of 5]

Interesting subject but poorly constructed

It took reaching about the halfway point of the book to finally start enjoying it. The structure of everything prior to that was dizzying with just how meandering and seemingly non-sequitur it was. Once you reach the point where it's relatively linear and sensible, the book is okay; but I can't recommend it.

[Nicholas Ames · Rating 2 out of 5]

Needs an editor.

[Cheryl · Rating 2 out of 5]

About halfway, really struggling, but feeling too stubborn to dnf. Starts off before Darwin. Bounces around timelines and 'characters' and arguments of theory. Far too many names of scientists and details of their theories to keep track of. Not nearly enough Price. Illustrations are photos of the scientists, so, not helpful. Maybe if I already were familiar with Fisher, Hamilton, Maynard Smith, Haldane, etc. etc. I would not be so confused. It's like the author wanted to put everything he knew into the book.
---
Ok done. I blame the editor(s). Especially in the epilogue, there were some good ideas and some good lines. But I still regret giving up so many hours, and getting such a headache, to trying to decipher this.

I mean, in the beginning of the book there was something about the ideas of Mendel and Darwin seeming to be incompatible, and not reconciled until Fisher, 1918. I almost understood the discussion at the time I read it, but now I look back and feel as lost, skimming, as if I'd never read it at all. So, interesting, but nothing I'll be able to use in further readings or discussions.

At about the same time the pacifist Quakers were trying to make the US gov't accept "relief and reconstruction" as noncombat alternatives to conscription. The author points out that those citizens most cognizant of and passionate about individual liberties were also the ones mostt likely to abuse conscientious objectors. Does this hypocrisy ring a bell? A century later and we're still that confused.

And those were the only two passages that I marked. :sigh:

Harman does acknowledge other biographies of Price, and I'd rather recommend one of them than this... if anything at all.

As for the main thrust of the book, it turns out to be a history of the search for the evolutionary basis for altruism. That is probably best understood by reading some of the works of the players themselves, rather than this collation.

Harman does say one more thing, and this I do agree with: science may never be able to fully answer the questions it has asked about the development of altruism. It may not even be asking the most helpful questions. The moral lesson we all should consider is indeed that, though humans are animals, we can, and should, overcome our biological imperatives to act in the manner that we deem best... that we can, and should, use our advantages to achieve the goal of real altruism, of true love.

Anyway, sorry my review isn't methodical. I can't marshal my thoughts right now. Too corrupted by the awkwardness of the book.

[Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is full of gems about evolutionary psychology, game theory, and the historical paths concerning the evolution of theories and applications of altruism and egoism since the era of Darwin. You will learn about how early minds tried to apply the methods of cooperation they observed in nature to inform what type of government should be instilled, you will come across the birth and maturation of the theories of evolution and genetics, the skepticism movement's interaction with the paranormal from the 50's and 60's, group selection vs kin selection, computer modeling of genetic variance and the birth of CAD, the research of Zahavian traits, the development of limited and restrained combat and how it emerges differently across nature as well as many other things.

It is also an extremely frustrating and superfluous read which is especially noticeable in the first 40%.

I cannot necessarily urge readers to not pick up this book or even to skip the first 100+ pages because there is some really great information in there and I can see what the author was going for with their writing style, material organization and attempt at informing the development of the understanding of altruism. That being said, I don't think they were quite successful a lot of these choices early on.

Be prepared to jump around from continent to continent, decade to decade and person to person every page and a half. Be prepared to know what his collegiate roommate did for fun, what color his mother's wallpaper was and how his father's business slowly failed before you really learn anything about George himself. Be prepared to trudge through the majority of George's education and career which happens to be wholly unrelated to his work on altruism.

In retrospect, I think the formatting struggle derived from the book being unable to decide if it wanted to be an exposition on the history of altruism or a biography of George Price. As a result it does both albeit in a rather disjointed matter. I sympathize with the author because you can tell that they did an enormous amount of research and did their best to paint a large picture flowing through time, culminating with Price's contribution and ironic demise.

Definitely give this book a read if you're into the subject matter but be prepared to work for it.

[Rick Elinson · Rating 2 out of 5]

George Price is the personification of the adage that there is a thin line between genius and madness. After contributions in several fields, Price published a group of important papers on evolutionary theory, often with famous co-authors. At the same time, he became an evangelical Christian searching for ways to understand and to deserve the love of Christ. He gave away his possessions and money to alcoholics and others living on the street. He ended up living in a squat, neglecting his eating and health, and finally committing suicide. There are many parts of the book where Harman could have done better, but Price's life was like an automobile wreck. You couldn't stop looking.

The book deals with the problem of altruism in evolution. Since evolution is often characterized by "survival of the fittest", how can the theory of evolution explain why members of a group help others in the group at a cost to themselves? Harman's explanations of the various ideas were too difficult to sort out, and I skipped over many of them. Harman tried to engage the reader using metaphorical scenarios, but then it took too much effort to see how the metaphors fit the evolutionary ideas. The book would have benefitted greatly from colorful illustrations of these ideas.

More painful were Harman's over-the-top statements, often portraying scientists as if they were at war over Darwin's theory of evolution and that the theory was in grave danger of being destroyed. Examples of this are:
p.61 - "... Darwin's great theory was wrong."
p.141- "Modern science will have to come up with an explanation: if it couldn't, its entire edifice would collapse."
p.156- It was an idea, some thought, that flew smack in the face of Darwinism."
p.172- "Finally 'Wynne" had been felled, though , like Sisyphus, he would keep on fighting this battle."

The reality is that Darwin's theory of evolution, with random variation and natural selection at its core, has survived more that 160 years of scrutiny. How many other scientific theories have been so robust?

[Ralph Lieberman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Harman explores the life and career of George Price (1922-1975). Price was not a professional biologist, having trained in mathematics and computer science. He developed the Price Equation renowned for its power and simplicity - but which ironically also highlighted the problem of altruism and troubled him personally. He collaborated with some of the greatest names in evolution (including two rivals, John Maynard Smith and William Hamilton). Ultimately, his untreated thyroid issues (causing depression), his obsession with altruism, and his conversion to born-again Christianity all contributed to a downward spiral. He gave away all his possessions to the homeless, walked the streets of London with an aluminum foil cross on his chest, and lived in abandoned buildings. He died by suicide, his funeral attended by Hamiton and Maynard Smith and a few homeless people. The book documents his life, as well as the key theoretical disputes on evolution and altruism that he contributed to.

Excellent writing - often reads like a novel … a psychological history of Price, together with many of the primary theorists of the time (including the personal and professional rivalries).

[Anmar · Rating 4 out of 5]

An intellectually rewarding book should one accept the fact that considerable research will need to be done to explain some chapters and events. The writing style is disjointed and difficult to follow as paragraphs jump timelines and events as if written for a movie script rather than for a book.
Take away message:
1. Outlines the biography and achievements of George Price although it attempts to deal with evolutionary game theory and the Price equation it fails to expand on the derivation and the mathematics therefore leaves the matter seem rather trivial and confusing.
2. Highlights the influence of the theory of evolution on political ideology Anarchism, Communism, National Socialism, Capitalism and consequently the shaping of political events.
3. Follows the character and achievement of those who contributed to the evolutionary theory of altruism.
4. Leaves to the reader the impact of the idea of the illusion of free will and determinism as a function of the genes eye point of view of evolution, Price struggled with this thought on an intensely personal level.

[Jeff Duda · Rating 3 out of 5]

Debated giving this a ** review, but the epilogue brought the overall quality back up a bit.

While I suspect some readers may absolutely adore this book, I found it a struggle to really get into the story. I think the writing style didn't help; the book is rife with long, swollen sentences containing three, four, or even five or more "detail clauses"/appositives to add information to the narrative that I feel was simply unnecessary. I found it difficult to follow the trajectory of the narrative most of the time. Generally, I think this book could have made its point in substantially less time...maybe half as long would still have been enough.

Then again, maybe I'm just kinda dumb - I did have to look up quite a few words in the dictionary, after all.

[Fabio Almeida · Rating 5 out of 5]

Marvelous piece

The book alternates between George Price's life history and the history of evolutionary science with the role of altruism in it. Well written and with an incredibly deep research the book brings together both the science prodigies and the humanity of the minds behind it. George Price's behavior, history and relationships are eccentric to the point of testing our capacity of empathy and it evolves through the narrative to blossom in a person as human as anyone can be with its inherent beauty displayed over his aspirations, beliefs, actions, delusions and sorrows.
Masterpiece

[Travis · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wanted to like this more. It was part biography, part nonfiction exploration of biological altruism. The biography portion was 2-3 stars -- the sort of biography that drones on about how the subject's grandparents met, the history of the boarding school he attended, etc -- the sort of thing I hate in a biography. The science explanations were 2-4 stars -- there were some cool parts, sure, but lots of sections were intensely (and surely unnecessarily) dry and confusing and technical. Biological altruism is a complicated subject certainly, but I'm sure it could have been presented much more clearly and engagingly.

[Ivi · Rating 3 out of 5]

I struggled with this book review....the subject is fascinating as is the life of George Price. But the author does not transition well between describing the life of George Price and the actual scientific research in evolution / genetics as it relates to the origins of altruism. The book is filled with interesting tidbits of research and information, but it doesn't fully come together. Also, as someone who is not an expert in this field, I felt that you needed some knowledge of the subject before reading the book.

[Eliyahu Grietzer · Rating 3 out of 5]

לא חיבבתי את הספר.
ארכני, חוזר על עצמו, קופץ ללא חן בין עתיד לעבר ובין דמויות, מרבה בשאר רוח היכן שרצוי דיווח פשוט ומובן, לא תמיד הרעיונות המדעיים ׁ(המוכרים לי בחלקם, יש לציין) מצליחים לזקק את הנקודות החשובות, וגם לא לנסח אותן היטב. נראה שלכותב היו רוב המרכיבים הדרושים - היסטוריה רלוונטית, פסיכולוגיה, גנטיקה, מתמטיקה, אך אלו עורבבו בכמויות הלא נכונות ובתהליכי בישול לא מתאימים.
מדוע בכ"ז שלושה כוכבים? כי אולי זה אני שהיה קצר רוח, שכבר מכיר כבר יותר מדי חלק מן הנושאים, ואולי היתה זו השעה המאוחרת שגרמה לי לאבד קשב לפחות פעמיים בכל עמוד.

[Charles Bookman · Rating 4 out of 5]

The strange tale of George Price, who explained how caring for others (altruism) fits neatly into the “Survival of the fittest” theory of evolution is a real-life Forrest Gump story. The author has done a masterful job of turning an obscure story compelling, the story of a polymath driven eventually to a life of personal sacrifice, who eventually committed suicide. He has a gift for explaining the evolution of the theory of evolution itself, and for bringing to life the many contributors and collaborators along the way. Read more at bookmanreader.blogspot.,com

[Yuganka Sharan · Rating 2 out of 5]

A haphazard book that swings between enlightening scientific discussions and, mostly, utterly mediocre coverage of the biographical aspects of George Price in a way that makes me want to tear my hair.

[Jena · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really wanted to like this book but although I finished it I couldn't really get as involved in the story as I had hoped. George Price comes off as rather lost and pathetic and I found myself thinking that he wasted his life and talent.

[Kalan · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very well written book that has a unique build up of both Price's personal narrative juxtaposed with the progression of evolutionary biology and the study of altruism. A fascinating, tragic story.

[Steve Allen]

well done.

[Philip Brouard · Rating 4 out of 5]

A moving and dramatic account of a George Prices’ journey to find the origin of human altruism.
( When is the movie coming out ? )