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Speaker 1: Welcome to Unexplained Extra with me Richard McClain smith. For
Speaker 1: the weeks in between episodes, we look at the stories that,
Speaker 1: for one reason or other, didn't make it into the show.
Speaker 1: In last week's episode, Demons in Suburbia, we looked at
Speaker 1: the tragic story of Michael Taylor, and in the process
Speaker 1: touched on the notion of free will. The degree to
Speaker 1: which any of us can be truly held accountable for
Speaker 1: our actions is a complex and controversial subject. For one
Speaker 1: man in particular, it became an obsession for which he
Speaker 1: would ultimately give his life. The story of Maverick academic
Speaker 1: George R. Price is nothing short of astonishing. Born close
Speaker 1: to New York City in nineteen twenty two, George was
Speaker 1: raised single handedly by his mother after the premature death
Speaker 1: of his father when George was only four years old.
Speaker 1: Despite an impoverished childhood exacerbated by the Great Depression, the
Speaker 1: precocious George went on to graduate with a degree in
Speaker 1: chemistry from the University of Chicago before taking a teaching
Speaker 1: post at Harvard. At some point, George met and fell
Speaker 1: in love with Julia Madigan, a devout Roman Catholic. The
Speaker 1: pair were married and later had two daughters, Anne Marie
Speaker 1: and Kathleen. For many, the relationship seemed a strange fit
Speaker 1: due to George's equally devout atheism. It was a contention
Speaker 1: that would ultimately prove irreconcilable, and the pair divorced in
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty five. By his mid forties, George had become
Speaker 1: deeply unsatisfied, despite working a number of prestigious jobs. What
Speaker 1: drove George more than anything, according to author Arren Harmon,
Speaker 1: was a desperate desire to achieve greatness. For George, his
Speaker 1: was an obviously superior intellect, but one that had yet
Speaker 1: to establish the notoriety it deserved. But all that was
Speaker 1: about to change. Whilst working for ib M, George became
Speaker 1: convinced that colleagues were unfairly profiting from his ideas. Then,
Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty six, George was left paralyzed after a
Speaker 1: botched operation to remove a tumor from his thyroid. One night,
Speaker 1: lying in bed, George became convinced that something had to change.
Speaker 1: In nineteen sixty seven, George decided to abandon his family
Speaker 1: and New York City, brought a flight to London, and
Speaker 1: went in search of greatness three and a half thousand
Speaker 1: miles away. A shy and lonely evolutionary biologist was spending
Speaker 1: his night sat on a bench at London's Waterloo Station,
Speaker 1: scribbling furiously into a notebook. Now a widely celebrated academic
Speaker 1: considered by Richard Dawkins to be the greatest biologist since Darwin,
Speaker 1: at the time, William Donald Hamilton was an impoverished academic
Speaker 1: with little more than a two one degree in genetics
Speaker 1: to his name. He had chosen to work in the
Speaker 1: station because being surrounded by all the waiting passengers made
Speaker 1: him feel less alone. From that humble bench in the station,
Speaker 1: Hamilton devised what would later become one of the greatest
Speaker 1: vindications of Darwinism. Although somewhat crude and unpolished, Hamilton's early
Speaker 1: equations suggest as something truly startling in an idea later
Speaker 1: popularized Dawkins's a selfish gene Hamilton had discovered that altruistic
Speaker 1: behavior was nothing but a biological function designed to better
Speaker 1: the survival of your own personal gene pool. The theory
Speaker 1: known as kin selection helps to demonstrate, for example, why
Speaker 1: colonies of bees are largely populated by sterile workers that
Speaker 1: would otherwise be expected to die out or indeed why
Speaker 1: a bee will decide to sting, sacrificing its life in
Speaker 1: the process. Are you always taking care of your family?
Speaker 1: Do you often take care of others and not yourself.
Speaker 1: Now it's time to take care of yourself, to make
Speaker 1: time for you deserve it. Teledoc gives you access to
Speaker 1: a licensed therapist to help you get back to feeling
Speaker 1: your best to feeling like yourself again. With teledoc, you
Speaker 1: can speak to a licensed therapist by phone or video.
Speaker 1: Therapy appointments are available seven days a week from seven
Speaker 1: am to nine pm local time. If you feel overwhelmed
Speaker 1: sometimes maybe you feel stressed or anxious, depressed or lonely,
Speaker 1: or you might be struggling with a personal or family issue,
Speaker 1: teledoc can help. Teledoc is committed to facilitating great therapeutic matches,
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Speaker 1: For free teledoc therapy is available through most insurance or employers.
Speaker 1: Download the app or visit teledoc dot com Forward slash
Speaker 1: Unexplained podcast today to get started. That's teladoc dot com
Speaker 1: slash Unexplained podcast. Having arrived in London some months before.
Speaker 1: According to arn Harmon, Price had been living a solitary existence,
Speaker 1: shuffling around from one late library to another when he
Speaker 1: came across Hamilton's equations. What he discovered shocked him. Deeply
Speaker 1: Convinced there must have been a flaw in his reasoning,
Speaker 1: Price quietly set about disproving Hamilton's theory. Much to his horror,
Speaker 1: not only did he find the theory correct, but he
Speaker 1: also found a way to improve it. At an extension
Speaker 1: of Darwin's survival of the Fittest theory, what is now
Speaker 1: known as the Price equation allows us to understand the
Speaker 1: competition between groups rather than individuals, but most specifically, how
Speaker 1: the behavior of selfish individuals will compromise the fitness of
Speaker 1: the group overall. Furthermore, it could be suggested that all
Speaker 1: behavioral traits are merely mechanisms that ensure the survival of
Speaker 1: that group, be it your family or the genes that
Speaker 1: make up the individual. In other words, what we think
Speaker 1: of as love may be nothing more than a carefully
Speaker 1: orchestrated process of self interest. Within months of formulating Price's equation,
Speaker 1: Georges granted a fellowship at the University College London, who
Speaker 1: became a well respected member in his new field of
Speaker 1: evolutionary biology. Price also began to work closely with William Hamilton,
Speaker 1: whose work he had originally set out to disprove, and
Speaker 1: later Price would team up with acclaimed biologist John Maynard
Speaker 1: Smith to develop the evolutionary stable strategy commonly known as
Speaker 1: E S S. Drawing on the earlier work of the
Speaker 1: mathematician John Nash. The strategy helps to explain why some
Speaker 1: species of snakes tend not to use their poisonous fangs
Speaker 1: on each other, or why male reindeers antlers are more
Speaker 1: decorative than dangerous. Price had, without doubt, achieved everything he
Speaker 1: had craved. Not only had he gained the respect of
Speaker 1: his peers, but his legacy was also secured. But something
Speaker 1: was deeply wrong. Perhaps it was the guilt of abandoning
Speaker 1: his own family on the other side of the Atlantic,
Speaker 1: or merely the enormity of his discovery, but Price had
Speaker 1: become profoundly unsettled. If altruism was just a biological conceit,
Speaker 1: then a true love and kindness, what many would consider
Speaker 1: the fundamental elements of what is good, are essentially meaningless.
Speaker 1: It isn't known exactly when or how it happened, but
Speaker 1: one night, walking past a church in the area of
Speaker 1: Marylebone in London. The atheist George Price found himself entering
Speaker 1: the building. By the time he came out, he was
Speaker 1: a completely changed man. From that moment, George devoted himself
Speaker 1: to a severe form of Christian asceticism, believing he had
Speaker 1: been put on earth by God to teach human beings
Speaker 1: the true meaning of love. He proceeded to rid himself
Speaker 1: of all money and possessions. Everything he had he gave
Speaker 1: to those whom he felt needed it more, even offering
Speaker 1: up his apartment to the homeless. In essence, George wanted
Speaker 1: to disprove his own theory, to show that kindness and
Speaker 1: love could transcend genetic predisposition, but self sacrifice was possible
Speaker 1: without ulterior motive, and that his will was ultimately his own. Hamilton,
Speaker 1: who had grown close to Price, was quick to notice
Speaker 1: the worrying signs of mental deterioration. The descent was rapid.
Speaker 1: On January sixth, nineteen seventy five, George sat alone in
Speaker 1: a North London squad surrounded by little more than a
Speaker 1: solitary mattress. In a final act of defiance, the fifty
Speaker 1: two year old George took a pair of nail scissors
Speaker 1: to his throat. Minutes later, this strange, brilliant and extraordinary
Speaker 1: man was dead in what is no doubt a tragic
Speaker 1: end to a deeply troubled mind. It is nonetheless a
Speaker 1: story of startling relevance, living as we do in a
Speaker 1: time where iron Randian notions praising the benefit It's a
Speaker 1: self interest and greed have never been more questionable. And
Speaker 1: what then, of selfless love? For those who might also
Speaker 1: despair at the implication of Price's equation. You could do
Speaker 1: worse than to take a quiet stroll down to a
Speaker 1: small corner of the city of London. Hidden part way
Speaker 1: between Saint Paul's Cathedral and the Museum of London, you
Speaker 1: may find yourself stumbling upon Postman's Park. Once inside, towards
Speaker 1: the back, you'll find the Watts Memorial to Heroic self Sacrifice.
Speaker 1: Unveiled in nineteen hundred, the beautiful monument commemorates the lives
Speaker 1: of sixty two selfless individuals who sacrifice themselves attempting to
Speaker 1: save others, people such as twelve year old David Selves
Speaker 1: from Woolwich. On September twelfth, eighteen eighty six, David fought
Speaker 1: desperately to save his playfellow from drowning when he too succumbed,
Speaker 1: sinking below the waters, clasping his friend in his arms.
Speaker 1: All elements of Unexplained are produced by me Richard McClain smith.
Speaker 1: Please subscribe and rate the show on iTunes, and feel
Speaker 1: free to get in touch with any thoughts or ideas
Speaker 1: regarding the stories you've heard on the show. Perhaps you
Speaker 1: have an explanation of your own you'd like to share.
Speaker 1: You can reach us online at Unexplained podcast dot com
Speaker 1: or on Twitter at Unexplained Pod. Now. It's time to
Speaker 1: take care of yourself. To make time for you. Teledoc
Speaker 1: gives you access to a licensed therapist to help you
Speaker 1: get back to feeling your best. Speak to a licensed
Speaker 1: therapist by phone or video any time between seven a
Speaker 1: m To nine p m Local time, seven days a week.
Speaker 1: Teledoc Therapy is available through most insurance or employers. Download
Speaker 1: the app or visit teledoc dot com. Forward Slash Unexplained
Speaker 1: Podcast to day to get started. That's t e l
Speaker 1: a d oc dot com Slash Unexplained Podcast