Professor Oren Harman teaches at the Science Technology and Society Graduate Program at Bar Ilan University, and is a senior research fellow at the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute Harman, where he hosts the lecture series ‘Talking about Science in the 21st Century‘. He sings bass in the Tel Aviv Chamber Choir.

On his relationship with Tolmers Village, Oren writes:

‘I first learned of the Price Equation as a third year biology student at the Hebrew University. Some years later, while working on a doctorate at Oxford University, I came across a mention of the man responsible for the equation, George Price, and learned that he had killed himself for reasons to do with his interpretation of the equation. I found that incredibly intriguing, and set out around 2007 to uncover George’s story – a journey which led to the publication of the book ‘The Price of Altruism: George Price and the Search for the Origins of Kindness’ (W.W. Norton/Bodley Head, 2010) which was a New York Times Book of the Year, was nominated for a Pulitzer, and won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize.

‘I came across Tolmers Village during my research, which drew heavily from George’s personal papers, many of which were rescued by the great evolutionist Bill Hamilton from the squat at 164 Drummond Street where George committed suicide at the beginning of January 1975. Through them I learned of George’s involvement and friendships with, among others, Peg Leg Pete, Ches Chesney, Paul Nicholson, Tim Davies, Carla Drayton, Sylvia Stevens, and Elisabeth Mansell, the manager of an old people’s home not far from Tolmers. Mansell remembered his entrance to the SOS House on Christmas Eve 1973 being “like an angel coming in”. George, you see, had taken his mathematical equation – which deals with the evolution of traits such as altruism – quite literally, and had set out to help down-and-outs and the less fortunate, until he himself was left with no cash, found himself sleeping in the streets, and finally taking his life in the Drummond Street squat.

‘The tombstone on George’s grave in St. Pancras Cemetery, erected through the efforts of his daughters Kathleen and Anna Marie, reads: ‘In Loving Memory of GEORGE ROBERT PRICE, 16th October 1922 – 5th January 1975. Father. Altruist. Friend. A Brilliant Scientist Noted for the Price Equation for Evolution: