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Sociobiology is a field of scientific study which is based on the assumption that social behavior has resulted from evolution and attempts to explain and examine social behavior within that context. Often considered a branch of biology and sociology, it also draws from ethology, anthropology, evolution, zoology, archaeology, population genetics, and other disciplines. Within the study of human societies, sociobiology is very closely allied to the fields of Darwinian anthropology, human behavioral ecology and evolutionary psychology.

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

While the term "sociobiology" can be traced to the 1940s, the concept didn't gain major recognition until 1975 with the publication of Edward O. Wilson's book, Sociobiology: The New Synthesis. The new field quickly became the subject of heated controversy. Criticism, most notably made by Richard Lewontin and Stephen Jay Gould, centered on sociobiology's contention that genes play an ultimate role in human behavior and that traits such as aggressiveness can be explained by biology rather than a person's social environment. Sociobiologists generally responded to the criticism by pointing to the complex relationship between nature and nurture. In response to some of the potentially fractious implications sociobiology had for human biodiversity, anthropologist John Tooby and psychologist Leda Cosmides founded the field of evolutionary psychology.

Definition[link]

E.O. Wilson defines sociobiology as: “The extension of population biology and evolutionary theory to social organization”^[1]

Sociobiology is based on the premise that some behaviors (both social and individual) are at least partly inherited and can be affected by natural selection. It begins with the idea that behaviors have evolved over time, similar to the way that physical traits are thought to have evolved. It predicts therefore that animals will act in ways that have proven to be evolutionarily successful over time, which can among other things result in the formation of complex social processes conducive to evolutionary fitness.

The discipline seeks to explain behavior as a product of natural selection. Behavior is therefore seen as an effort to preserve one's genes in the population. Inherent in sociobiological reasoning is the idea that certain genes or gene combinations that influence particular behavioral traits can be inherited from generation to generation.^{[citation needed]}

Introductory examples[link]

For example, newly dominant male lions often will kill cubs in the pride that were not sired by them. This behaviour is adaptive in evolutionary terms because killing the cubs eliminates competition for their own offspring and causes the nursing females to come into heat faster, thus allowing more of his genes to enter into the population. Sociobiologists would view this instinctual cub-killing behavior as being inherited through the genes of successfully reproducing male lions, whereas non-killing behaviour may have "died out" as those lions were less successful in reproducing.

Genetic mouse mutants have now been harnessed to illustrate the power that genes exert on behaviour. For example, the transcription factor FEV (aka Pet1) has been shown, through its role in maintaining the serotonergic system in the brain, to be required for normal aggressive and anxiety-like behavior.^[2] Thus, when FEV is genetically deleted from the mouse genome, male mice will instantly attack other males, whereas their wild-type counterparts take significantly longer to initiate violent behaviour. In addition, FEV has been shown to be required for correct maternal behaviour in mice, such that their offspring do not survive unless cross-fostered to other wild-type female mice.^[3]

A genetic basis for instinctive behavioural traits among non-human species, such as in the above example, is commonly accepted among many biologists; however, attempting to use a genetic basis to explain complex behaviours in human societies has remained extremely controversial.

History[link]

E. O. Wilson, a central figure in the history of sociobiology.

According to the OED, John Paul Scott coined the word "sociobiology" at a 1946 conference on genetics and social behaviour, and became widely used after it was popularized by Edward O. Wilson in his 1975 book, Sociobiology: The New Synthesis. However, the influence of evolution on behavior has been of interest to biologists and philosophers since soon after the discovery of evolution itself. Peter Kropotkin's Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution, written in the early 1890s, is a popular example. Antecedents of modern sociobiological thinking can be traced to the 1960s and the work of such biologists as Richard D. Alexander, Robert Trivers and William D. Hamilton. The idea of the inheritance of behaviour arose from J B S Haldane's idea about how "altruistic behaviour" (see Altruism) could be passed from generation to -generation ^[4] Nonetheless, it was Wilson's book that pioneered and popularized the attempt to explain the evolutionary mechanics behind social behaviors such as altruism, aggression, and nurturence, primarily in ants (Wilson's own research specialty) but also in other animals (bees, wasps and termites).^[5] The final chapter of the book is devoted to sociobiological explanations of human behavior, and Wilson later wrote a Pulitzer Prize winning book, On Human Nature, that addressed human behavior specifically.

Edward H. Hagen writes in The Handbook of Evolutionary Psychology that sociobiology is, despite the public controversy regarding the applications to humans, "one of the scientific triumphs of the twentieth century." "Sociobiology is now part of the core research and curriculum of virtually all biology departments, and it is a foundation of the work of almost all field biologists" Sociobiological research on nonhuman organisms has increased dramatically and appears continuously in the world's top scientific journals such as Nature and Science.The more general term behavioral ecology is commonly used as substitute for the term sociobiology in order to avoid the public controversy.^[6]

Sociobiological theory[link]

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Sociobiologists believe that human behavior, as well as nonhuman animal behavior, can be partly explained as the outcome of natural selection. They contend that in order to fully understand behavior, it must be analyzed in terms of evolutionary considerations.

Natural selection is fundamental to evolutionary theory. Variants of hereditary traits which increase an organism's ability to survive and reproduce will be more greatly represented in subsequent generations, i.e., they will be "selected for". Thus, inherited behavioral mechanisms that allowed an organism a greater chance of surviving and/or reproducing in the past are more likely to survive in present organisms. That inherited adaptive behaviors are present in nonhuman animal species has been multiply demonstrated by biologists, and it has become a foundation of evolutionary biology. However, there is continued resistance by some researchers over the application of evolutionary models to humans, particularly from within the social sciences, where culture has long been assumed to be the predominant driver of behavior.

Sociobiology is based upon two fundamental premises:

• Certain behavioral traits are inherited,
• Inherited behavioral traits have been honed by natural selection. Therefore, these traits were probably "adaptive" in the species` evolutionarily evolved environment.

Sociobiology uses Nikolaas Tinbergen's four categories of questions and explanations of animal behavior. Two categories are at the species level; two, at the individual level. The species-level categories (often called “ultimate explanations”) are

• the function (i.e., adaptation) that a behavior serves and
• the evolutionary process (i.e., phylogeny) that resulted in this functionality.

The individual-level categories (often called “proximate explanations”) are

• the development of the individual (i.e., ontogeny) and
• the proximate mechanism (e.g., brain anatomy and hormones).

Sociobiologists are interested in how behavior can be explained logically as a result of selective pressures in the history of a species. Thus, they are often interested in instinctive, or intuitive behavior, and in explaining the similarities, rather than the differences, between cultures. 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 those individuals which had the characteristic to survive and reproduce. Over time, individuals who exhibited such protective behaviours would have had more surviving offspring than did those who did not display such behaviours, such that this parental protection would increase in frequency in the population. In this way, the social behavior is believed to have evolved in a fashion similar to other types of nonbehavioral adaptations, such as (for example) fur or the sense of smell.

Individual genetic advantage often fails to explain certain social behaviors as a result of gene-centred selection, and evolution may also act upon groups.^{[citation needed]} The mechanisms responsible for group selection employ paradigms and population statistics borrowed from game theory. E.O. Wilson argued that altruistic individuals must reproduce their own altruistic genetic traits for altruism to survive. When altruists lavish their resources on non-altruists at the expense of their own kind, the altruists tend to die out and the others tend to grow. In other words, altruism is more likely to survive if altruists practice the ethic that "charity begins at home."Altruism is defined as "a concern for the welfare of others." An extreme example of altruism involves a soldier risking his life to help a fellow soldier. This example raises questions about how altruistic genes can be passed on if this soldier dies without having any children to exhibit the same altruistic traits.^[7]

Within sociobiology, a social behavior is first explained as a sociobiological hypothesis by finding an evolutionarily stable strategy that matches the observed behavior. Stability of a strategy can be difficult to prove, but usually, a well-formed strategy will predict gene frequencies. The hypothesis can be supported by establishing a correlation between the gene frequencies predicted by the strategy, and those expressed in a population. However, such an approach can be methodologically problematic, as a statistical correlation could be due to circularity if the measurement of gene frequency indirectly uses the same measurements that describe the strategy.

Altruism between social insects and littermates has been explained in such a way. Altruistic behavior, behavior that increases the reproductive fitness of others at the apparent expense of the altruist,^[8] in some animals has been correlated to the degree of genome shared between altruistic individuals. A quantitative description of infanticide by male harem-mating animals when the alpha male is displaced as well as rodent female infanticide and fetal resorption are active areas of study. In general, females with more bearing opportunities may value offspring less, and may also arrange bearing opportunities to maximize the food and protection from mates.

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.

Sociobiology is sometimes associated with arguments over the "genetic" basis of intelligence. While sociobiology is predicated on the observation that genes do affect behavior, it is perfectly consistent to be a sociobiologist while arguing that measured IQ variations between individuals reflect mainly cultural or economic rather than genetic factors. However, many critics point out that the usefulness of sociobiology as an explanatory tool breaks down once a trait is so variable as to no longer be exposed to selective pressures. In order to explain aspects of human intelligence as the outcome of selective pressures, it must be demonstrated that those aspects are inherited, or genetic, but this does not necessarily imply differences among individuals: a common genetic inheritance could be shared by all humans, just as the genes responsible for number of limbs are shared by all individuals.

Researchers performing twin studies have argued that differences between people on behavioral traits such as creativity, extroversion and aggressiveness are between 45% to 75% due to genetic differences, and intelligence is said by some to be about 80% genetic after one matures (discussed at Intelligence quotient#Shared_family_environment).

Criminality is actively under study, but extremely controversial. There are arguments that in some environments criminal behavior might be adaptive.^[9]

Differences from evolutionary psychology[link]

Sociobiology differs in important ways from evolutionary psychology. Evolutionary psychology studies the animal nervous system from an evolutionary perspective, including aspects such as vision and navigation that are not necessarily related to social behavior. Sociobiology is restricted to the biology of social behavior but also studies organisms like plants. Evolutionary psychologists focus on the neural mechanisms that cause behavior whereas sociobiologists usually study only behavior. Evolutionary psychology emphasizes that, for humans, neural mechanisms evolved in an ancestral environment that differed from the current environment whereas animal sociobiologists look at animal adaptions to the current environment.^[6]

Criticism[link]

In the decades after World War II, eugenics became increasingly unpopular within academic science. Many organizations and journals that had their origins in the eugenics movement began to distance themselves from the philosophy, as when Eugenics Quarterly became Social Biology in 1969.

Many critics draw an intellectual link between sociobiology and biological determinism, the belief that most human differences can be traced to specific genes rather than differences in culture or social environments. Critics also see parallels between sociobiology and biological determinism as a philosophy underlying the social Darwinian and eugenics movements of the early 20th century, and controversies in the history of intelligence testing. Steven Pinker argues that critics have been overly swayed by politics and a fear of biological determinism.^[10] However, all these critics have claimed that sociobiology fails on scientific grounds, independent of their political critiques. In particular, Lewontin, Rose & Kamin drew a detailed distinction between the politics and history of an idea and its scientific validity,^[11] as has Stephen Jay Gould.^[12]

Wilson and his supporters counter the intellectual link 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 roundly criticized sociobiology and many of its proponents, saying "Even if we grant every factual conclusion for which some shred of evidence is claimed, nothing of interest follows, except on assumptions that reflect ideological fanaticism, not science." He also noted that the anarchist Peter Kropotkin had touched on the ideas of sociobiology (he claims that Kropotkin rather than E.O. Wilson had actually founded the field) 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 innate human tendency to cooperate.^[13]

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. However, some critics have argued that the language of sociobiology sometimes slips from "is" to "ought",^[11] leading sociobiologists to make arguments against social reform on the basis that socially progressive societies are at odds with our innermost nature.^{[citation needed]} Views such as this, however, are often criticized as examples of the naturalistic fallacy, when reasoning jumps from descriptions about what is to prescriptions about what ought to be. (A common example is the justification of militarism if scientific evidence showed warfare was part of human nature.) It has also been argued that opposition to stances considered anti-social, such as ethnic nepotism, are based on moral assumptions, not bioscientific assumptions, meaning that it is not vulnerable to being disproved by bioscientific advances.^[10]:145 The history of this debate, and others related to it, are covered in detail by Cronin (1992), Segerstråle (2000), Alcock (2001),^[14][15][16] and most recently by Griffith (2011).^[17]

See also[link]

Books

• Sociobiology: The New Synthesis by E. O. Wilson, 1975
• The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature by Steven Pinker
• The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins
• Biology, Ideology and Human Nature: Not In Our Genes by Richard Lewontin, Steven Rose & Leon Kamin

References[link]

Notes[link]

Bibliography[link]

This article includes a list of references, related reading or external links, but its sources remain unclear because it lacks inline citations. Please improve this article by introducing more precise citations. (May 2007)

External links[link]

• Sociobiology (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy) - Harmon Holcomb & Jason Byron
• The Sociobiology of Sociopathy, Mealey, 1995
• Speak, Darwinists! Interviews with leading sociobiologists.
• Race and Creation - Richard Dawkins
• Genetic Similarity and Ethnic Nationalism - An Attempted Sociobiological Explanation of the scientific basis for Political Group Formation.
• A brief history on sociobiology

Richard Machalek (born April 12, 1946) is a social theorist, sociobiologist, and professor of sociology.

A student and colleague of sociobiologist E.O. Wilson, Machalek is best known for using traditional sociological frameworks and theories to explain complex social behavior and structures in non-human societies, with a special emphasis on ant populations.

Machalek has repeatedly – and only half jokingly – called for a “one-hundred year moratorium on studying humans within the field of sociology” and he thus believes that the bedrock of sociological knowledge lies in explaining social phenomena that are exhibited across many different types of species. He can be, and often is, considered a radical sociological theorist in this regard. As such, Machalek also applies knowledge from the fields of evolutionary theory, zoology, and biology and is especially concerned with the trans-species social behaviors of cheating, cooperation, and division of labor, among others.

Besides teaching at a number of universities, in 1986 he was a visiting professor at Harvard University’s Museum of Comparative Zoology under the tutelage of E.O. Wilson, and currently teaches sociology at the University Of Wyoming.

External links[link]

• Machalek's University of Wyoming Faculty page - Including Vita, publications, and contact info.

This biography of an American sociologist is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. v t e

Edward
15th century painting of Edward
King of Portugal and the Algarve
Reign	14 August 1433 – 9 September 1438
Predecessor	John I
Successor	Afonso V
Spouse	Eleanor of Aragon
Issue
Afonso V of Portugal Infante Ferdinand, Duke of Viseu Eleanor, Holy Roman Empress Infanta Catherine Joan, Queen of Castile
House	House of Aviz
Father	John I
Mother	Philippa of Lancaster
Born	(1391-10-31)31 October 1391 Viseu, Kingdom of Portugal
Died	9 September 1438(1438-09-09) (aged 46) Tomar, Kingdom of Portugal
Burial	Imperfect Chapels, Monastery of Batalha, Batalha, District of Leiria, Portugal
Religion	Roman Catholicism

Edward, KG, Portuguese: Duarte (Portuguese pronunciation: [duˈaɾt(ɨ)]; 31 October 1391 – 9 September 1438), called the Philosopher or the Eloquent, was King of Portugal and the Algarve and second Lord of Ceuta from 1433 until his death. He was born in Viseu, the son of John I of Portugal and his wife, Philippa of Lancaster, a daughter of John of Gaunt. He was named in honor of his great-grandfather, King Edward III of England. Edward was the oldest member of the Ínclita Geração.

Biography[link]

King Duarte of Portugal

As an infante, Edward always followed his father in the affairs of the kingdom. He was knighted in 1415, after the Portuguese capture of the city of Ceuta in North Africa, across from Gibraltar. He became king in 1433 when his father died of the plague. He soon showed interest in building internal political consensus. During his short reign of five years, Edward called the Portuguese Cortes (the national assembly) no less than five times to discuss the political affairs of his kingdom. He also followed the politics of his father concerning the maritime exploration of Africa. He encouraged and financed his famous brother, Henry the Navigator, who initiated many expeditions on the west coast of Africa. That of Gil Eanes in 1434 first rounded Cape Bojador on the northwestern coast of Africa, leading the way for further exploration southward along the African coast.

The colony at Ceuta rapidly became a drain on the Portuguese treasury, and it was realised that without the city of Tangier, possession of Ceuta was worthless. When Ceuta was captured by the Portuguese, the camel caravans that were part of the overland trade routes began to use Tangier as their new destination. This deprived Ceuta of the materials and goods that made it an attractive market and a vibrant trading locale, and it became an isolated community.

In 1437, Edward's brothers Henry and Ferdinand persuaded him to launch an attack on the Marinid sultanate of Morocco. The expedition was not unanimously supported: Infante Peter, Duke of Coimbra, and the Infante John were both against the initiative; they preferred to avoid conflict with the king of Morocco. Their instincts proved to be justified. The resulting attack on Tangier, led by Henry, was a debacle. Failing to take the city in a series of assaults, the Portuguese siege camp was soon itself surrounded and starved into submission by a Moroccan relief army. In the resulting treaty, Henry promised to deliver Ceuta back to the Marinids in return for allowing the Portuguese army to depart unmolested. Edward's youngest brother, Ferdinand, was handed over to the Marinids as a hostage for the final handover of the city.

The debacle at Tangier dominated Edward's final year. Peter and John urged him to fulfill the treaty, yield Ceuta and secure Ferdinand's release, while Henry (who had signed the treaty) urged him to renege on it. Caught in indecision, Edward assembled the Portuguese Cortes at Leiria in early 1438 for consultation. The Cortes refused to ratify the treaty, preferring to hang on to Ceuta and requesting that Edward find some other way of obtaining Ferdinand's release.

Edward died late that summer, in Tomar, of the plague, like his father and mother (and her mother) before him. Popular lore suggested he died of heartbreak over the fate of his hapless brother (Ferdinand would remain in captivity in Fez until his own death in 1443).

Edward's premature death provoked a political crisis in Portugal. Leaving only a young son, Afonso, to inherit the throne, it was generally assumed that Edward's brothers would take over the regency of the realm. But Edward's will appointed his unpopular foreign wife, Eleanor of Aragon, as regent. A popular uprising followed, in which the burghers of the realm, assembled by John of Reguengos, acclaimed Peter of Coimbra as regent. But the nobles backed Eleanor's claim, and threatened civil war. The regency crisis was defused by a complicated and tense power-sharing arrangement between Eleanor and Peter.

Another less political side of Duarte's personality is related to culture. A reflective and scholarly infante, he wrote the treatises O Leal Conselheiro (The Loyal Counsellor) and Livro Da Ensinanca De Bem Cavalgar Toda Sela (The Art of Riding on Every Saddle) as well as several poems. He was in the process of revising the Portuguese law code when he died.

Ancestry[link]

v t e House of Aviz   João I of Portugal Spouse(s) Philippa of Lancaster Children Duarte I Peter, Duke of Coimbra Henry the Navigator Isabella, Duchess of Burgundy João, Lord of Reguengos de Monsaraz Ferdinand the Saint Prince   Duarte I of Portugal Spouse(s) Eleanor of Aragon, Queen of Portugal Children Afonso V Ferdinand, Duke of Viseu Eleanor, Holy Roman Empress Catherine Joan, Queen of Castile   Afonso V of Portugal Spouse(s) Isabella of Coimbra Joanna la Beltraneja Children João, Prince of Portugal Joan, Princess of Portugal João II   João II of Portugal Spouse(s) Eleanor of Viseu Children Prince Afonso Notes The House of Aviz is a cadet branch of the Portuguese House of Burgundy and was succeeded by the House of Aviz-Beja

Marriages and descendants[link]

Duarte married Eleanor of Aragon, a daughter of Ferdinand I of Aragon and Eleanor of Alburquerque, in 1428.

v t e Monarchs of Portugal Portuguese House of Burgundy Afonso I Sancho I Afonso II Sancho II Afonso III Dinis I Afonso IV Pedro I Fernando I House of Aviz João I Duarte I Afonso V João II House of Aviz-Beja Manuel I João III Sebastião I Henrique I Portuguese House of Habsburg Filipe I Filipe II Filipe III House of Braganza João IV Afonso VI Pedro II João V José I Maria I with Pedro III João VI Pedro IV Maria II Miguel I Maria II with Fernando II House of Braganza-Coburg Pedro V Luís I Carlos I Manuel II

Robert L. Trivers ( /ˈtrɪvərz/; born February 19, 1943) is an American evolutionary biologist and sociobiologist, who is a Professor of Anthropology and Biological Sciences at Rutgers University. Trivers proposed the theories of reciprocal altruism (1971), parental investment (1972), facultative sex ratio determination (1973), and parent-offspring conflict (1974). He has also contributed by explaining self-deception as an adaptive evolutionarily strategy (first described in 1976) and discussing intragenomic conflict.

Education[link]