What is Inclusive Fitness?
Inclusive fitness provides an evolutionary explanation for altruistic behavior among animal communities. When we think of “survival of the fittest,” we associate selfish behaviors with organisms that are always seeking to live longer and reproduce more successfully. But inclusive fitness takes into account close genetic relatives in the greater mission of passing on common genes, rather than just one organism’s genes. The tenets of Darwinian evolution aren’t violated. When W.D. Hamilton conceived of inclusive fitness in 1964, he was thinking of reasons that some animals seem to do things that benefit someone above themselves. Perhaps he considered ant colonies where sterile workers labor endlessly to benefit the queen and the colony at large, without any hope of reproducing. Didn’t this contradict the fundamental tenet of evolution that an organism’s goal is to live long enough to reproduce, and that the reproducers represent the strongest of the bunch? Instead of restricting an organi
