"Tim Tyler"  wrote in message
news:cogfj0$2ba6$1{at}darwin.ediacara.org...
> For another example, Hamilton's rule totally fails to take into
> consideration the age of the recipient of the altruism.
>
> A post menopausal-female relative with no kids is not normally
> worth being nice to - but that is ignored in Hamilton's rule.
>
> Similarly other factors affecting fertility are also neglected.
>
> Should resources be expected to be allocated to a gay brother or a
> younger sister?  Hamilton's rule gets this wrong.
>
> Your youngest daugher has had her tubes tied.  How much should you give
> her in your will?  Hamilton's rule gives an answer that can be
> expected to be a poor match for reality here as well.

Actually, Hamilton's rule can be construed to cover these cases.  If the
recipient is an organism with low reproductive value, then "b" -
the fitness
benefit to the recipient - is likely to be low.

Of course, this observation doesn't apply in simplified derivations of the
rule in which it is assumed that every instance of the social behavior in
question has the same benefit to the recipient.  But if the benefit is taken
to be a random variable with "b" as the mean, then further assumptions are
needed that the random benefit is uncorrelated with the random cost and the
random relatedness.
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