Sociobiology is often considered a branch of the Biology and Sociology disciplines, although it uses techniques from a plethora of sciences, including Ethology, Evolution, Zoology, archeology, Population genetics, and many others. Within the study of human societies, sociobiology is closely related to the fields of Human ecology and Evolutionary psychology.
The term "sociobiology" was coined by Edward O. Wilson in 1975 with the publication of his landmark book, Sociobiology: The New Synthesis. In the work, Wilson pioneered the attempt to explain the evolutionary mechanics behind social behaviours such as Altruism, Aggression, and nurturance. Although Wilson's book spent the majority of its time discussing animals, especially his own research with ants, he discussed the possible applications to humans on the last few pages. In doing so, Wilson sparked one of the greatest scientific controversies of the 20th century.
Sociobiology was roundly criticized for contending (without providing much evidence) that genes play a decisive role in human behavior, suggesting there is little we can do to eliminate things like human aggression. The most notable critics of sociobiology have been Franz Boas, Richard Lewontin and Stephen Jay Gould, who formed the Sociobiology Study Group (SSG) at Harvard to debunk and reply to the claims of the sociobiologists.
Sociobiologists are often interested in instinctive, or intuitive behaviour. They are interested in explaining the similarities, rather than the differences, between cultures. They are interested in how behaviours that are often taken for granted can be explained logically by examining selection pressures in the history of a species.
For example, mothers within many species of mammals – including humans – are very protective of their Offspring. Sociobiologists reason that this protective behavior likely evolved over time because it helped the species survive. Over time, those individuals in the species that did not exhibit such protective behaviors likely lost their offspring and ultimately died out. In this way, the social behavior is believed to have evolved in a fashion similar to other types of non-behavioral adaptations, such as (for example) fur or the sense of smell. Sociobiologists may therefore argue that the evolutionary mechanism behind the behavior is genetic.
Individual genetic advantage often fails to explain more complex social behaviours. However, genetic evolution appears to act on social groups. The mechanisms responsible for selection in groups are statistical and can be harder to grasp than those that determine individual selection (such as the above example). When explaining behavior in its social groups, the analytical processes of sociobiology use paradigms and population statistics similar to actuarial analyses of the Insurance industry or Game theory.
Anthropologist Colin Turnbull found another supporting example (described in The Mountain People, 1972) about an African Tribe, the "Ik," which he said so lacked altruism that the society lost battles with neighboring tribes. His controversial conclusions raised responses among anthropologists and journalists.
E.O. Wilson demonstrated through logic that altruists must reproduce their own altruistic genetic traits for altruism to survive. When altruists lavish their resources on nonaltruists at the expense of their own kind, the altruists tend to die out and the others tend to grow. In other words, altruists must practice the ethic that "charity begins at home."
An important concept in sociobiology is that temperamental traits within a gene pool and between gene pools exist in an ecological balance. Just as an expansion of a Sheep population might encourage the expansion of a wolf population, an expansion of altruistic traits within a gene pool may also encourage the expansion of individuals with dependent traits.
Other critics believed that Wilson's theories, as well as the works of subsequent admirers were not supported scientifically. Objections were raised to many of the ethnocentric assumptions of early sociobiology and to the sampling and mathematical methods used in forming conclusions. Many of the sloppier early conclusions were attacked. Sociobiologists were accused of being "super" adaptationists, believing that every aspect of Morphology and behaviour must necessarily be an evolutionarily beneficial adaptation. Philosophical debates raged about the nature of scientific truth and the applicability of any human Reason to a subject so complex as human behaviour, considering past failures. Furthermore, from a philosophical standpoint, science is distinguished from other pseudo-sciences, such as alchemy or astrology, by the falsifiability of new scientific theories. Critics believe that proponents of sociobiology do not allow their theories to be falsifiable, rendering it a pseudo-science.
Wilson and his admirers countered these criticisms by denying that Wilson had a political agenda, still less a right wing one. They pointed out that Wilson had personally adopted a number of Liberal political stances and had attracted progressive sympathy for his outspoken Environmentalism. They argued that as scientists they had a duty to uncover the "truth" whether that was politically correct or not. They argued that sociobiology does not necessarily lead to any particular political Ideology as many critics implied. Many subsequent sociobiologists, including Robert Wright, Anne Campbell, Frans de Waal and Sarah Blaffer Hrdy, have used sociobiology to argue quite separate points.
Noam Chomsky surprised some by coming to the defense of sociobiology's methodology, noting that it was the same methodology he used in his work on linguistics. However, he roundly criticized the sociobiologists actual conclusions about humans as lacking substance. He also noted that the anarchist Peter Kropotkin had made similar arguments in his book Mutual aid: A Factor of Evolution, although focusing more on altruism than aggression, suggesting that anarchist societies were feasible because of an inborn human nature to do good. He further argues that the claims of sociobiologists have been stretched far beyond what the evidence can support -- which is not much. "The only interesting question about the fascination with these topics is what function it serves, a question that is -- again -- not to hard to answer."
Wilson's defenders also claimed that the critics had greatly overstated the degree of his biological determinism. Wilson's claims that he had never meant to imply what ought to be, only what is the case are supported by his writings, which are descriptive, not prescriptive.
Here's how scientific sociobiology usually proceeds: A social behaviour is first explained as a sociobiological Hypothesis by finding an Evolutionarily stable strategy that matches the observed behaviour. Stability can be difficult to prove, but usually, a well-formed strategy will predict gene frequencies. The hypothesis can be confirmed by establishing a correlation between the gene frequencies predicted by the strategy, and those expressed in a population. Measurement of genes and gene-frequencies can also be problematic, because a simple statistical correlation can be open to charges of circularity. Circularity can occur if the measurement of gene frequency indirectly uses the same measurements that describe the strategy. Though difficult, this overall process finds favour.
As a successful example, altruism between social insects and litter-mates was first satisfactorily explained by these means, and it was correlated to the degree of Genome shared by the altruists, as predicted. Another successful example was a quantitative description of Infanticide by male harem-mating animals when the alpha male is displaced. Female infanticide and fetal resorption are active areas of study. In general, females with more bearing opportunities may value offspring less. Also, females may arrange bearing opportunities to maximize the Food and protection from mates.
Criminality is actively under study, but extremely controversial. There are persuasive arguments that in some environments criminal behavior might be adaptive . Some authorities say that Capital punishment may be the traditional way to weed criminal traits from the gene pool.
Some types of sociobiological results could justify mass oppression of innocent human beings. Most people therefore find them very suspect. For example, Dr. Norman Hall wrote an article "Zoological Subspecies in Man" (Mankind Quarterly, 1960) that argued that "Racism" actually exists in most mammalian species, because racial groups within mammalian species (such as Moose, rats, and Reindeer) tend to compete for space and fight rather than mate and form offspring. Hence, "racism" could have an instinctive component in humans as well as other mammalian species. Further, Sir Arthur Keith (in A New Theory of Evolution) said that "racism" could be adaptive because it enables groups with superior genetic characteristics to inbreed and preserve genetic advantages. If these arguments are right, racism might be adaptive.
Such theories are bound to draw fire, both on political and scientific grounds. The usual political argument is that even if racism were adaptive, that still would not make it ethically acceptable, because the ethical considerations should be based on the harm racism causes for those who are the target of it. Scientific criticism of this kind of research usually centers on pointing out that these theories often include only those aspects of the processes they are dealing with which can best be used to come to "politically preferred" conclusions. For example, including the complete genetic dynamics of in- and outbreeding might lead to completely different conclusions in the above-mentioned theories of the adaptive nature of racism. Also, it is widely known in the scientific community that when a certain outcome of research is expected or preferred by the researchers, researchers are often likely to subconsciously incorporate the Bias into their interpretation of the results. Therefore, any research which has serious political implications should be met with rigorous criticism, and not least by the researchers themselves. In other words, in order to make good Science, it would be necessary for the scientists themselves to be highly aware and critical of their own biases, and this kind of self-criticism is often conspiciously absent from these controversial studies. (Current sociobiological thinking on race is exemplified by Richard Dawkins' Race and Creation).
Sociobiology must be distinguished from the still more controversial study of Memetics. In sociobiology the evolving entities are genes, while in memetics they are memes. Sociobiology is primarily concerned with the biological basis of human behaviours (without denying the fact that other factors exist), while memetics treats humans as products both of biological and cultural evolution.
Well-known sociobiologists:
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