Sociobiology

Sociobiology is the field of biology that aims to explore as living as explain social behavior in terms of evolution. It draws from disciplines including psychology, ethology, anthropology, evolution, zoology, archaeology, & population genetics. Within the discussing of human societies, sociobiology is closely allied to evolutionary anthropology, human behavioral ecology, evolutionary psychology, and sociology.

Sociobiology investigates social behaviors such as mating patterns, territorial fights, pack hunting, and the hive society of social insects. It argues that just as pick pressure led to animals evolving useful ways of interacting with the natural environment, so also it led to the genetic evolution of advantageous social behavior.

While the term "sociobiology" originated at least as early as the 1940s, the concept did not develope major recognition until the publication of in 1975. The new field quickly became the target of controversy. Critics, led by Richard Lewontin and Stephen Jay Gould, argued that genes played a role in human behavior, but that traits such(a) as aggressiveness could be explained by social environment rather than by biology. Sociobiologists responded by pointing to the complex relationship between nature and nurture.

Reception

Steven Pinker argues that critics hold been overly swayed by politics and a fear of biological determinism, accusing among others Stephen Jay Gould and Richard Lewontin of being "radical scientists", whose stance on human vintage is influenced by politics rather than science, while Lewontin, Steven Rose and Leon Kamin, who drew a distinction between the politics and history of an view and its scientific validity, argue that sociobiology fails on scientific grounds. Gould grouped sociobiology with eugenics, criticizing both in his book The Mismeasure of Man.

, which focused more on altruism than aggression, suggesting that anarchist societies were feasible because of an innate human tendency to cooperate.

Wilson has claimed that he had never meant to imply what ought to be, only what is the case. However, some critics have argued that the language of sociobiology readily slips from "is" to "ought", an lesson of the Cronin 1993, Segerstråle 2000, and Alcock 2001.