Parasites and altruism: converging roads.

W.D. Hamilton was most known for his work on two topics: social evolution and parasites. Although at first glance these seem to be disparate interests, they share many attributes and have logical connections within evolutionary biology. Nevertheless, Hamilton's contributions in these areas met with very different receptions, with his place in the field of social evolution assured, but his work on the role of parasites perceived as more specialized. We take an historical approach to examine the reasons for this difference.