ArticleeLife2018
Can Hamilton's rule be violated?
Article in eLife, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
4 citing papers in PubMed.
- The general version of Hamilton's rule.eLife · 2025Article
- The cancellation effect at the group level.Evolution; international journal of organic evolution · 2020Article
- The problem with the Price equation.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2020Article
- The group selection-inclusive fitness equivalence claim: not true and not relevant.Evolutionary human sciences · 2020Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
1 author.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
How generally Hamilton's rule holds is a much debated question. The answer to that question depends on how costs and benefits are defined. When using the regression method to define costs and benefits, there is no scope for violations of Hamilton's rule. We introduce a general model for assortative group compositions to show that, when using the counterfactual method for computing costs and benefits, there is room for violations. The model also shows that there are limitations to observing violations in equilibrium, as the discrepancies between Hamilton's rule and the direction of selection may imply that selection will take the population out of the region of disagreement, precluding observations of violations in equilibrium. Given what it takes to create a violation, empirical tests of Hamilton's rule, both in and out of equilibrium, require the use of statistical models that allow for identifying non-linearities in the fitness function.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.