Sociobiology

Sociobiology is a synthesis of scientific disciplines that attempts to explain behaviour in all species by considering the evolutionary advantages of social behaviours.

Sociobiological theory

Sociobiologists believe that animal or human behaviour cannot be satisfactorily explained entirely by "cultural" or "environmental" factors alone. They contend that in order to fully understand behaviour, it must be analyzed with some focus on its evolutionary origins. If Darwin's theory of natural selection is accepted, then inherited behavioural mechanisms that allowed an organism a greater chance of surviving and/or reproducing would be more likely to survive in present organisms. Many biologists accept that these sorts of behaviours are present in animal species. However, there is a great deal of controversy over the application of evolutionary models to human beings.

Related Topics:
Human behaviour - Cultural - Environmental - Darwin - Theory of natural selection - Organism - Biologist - Animal species - Human beings

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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.

Related Topics:
Instinct - Intuitive

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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.

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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). The analytical processes of sociobiology use paradigms and population statistics similar to actuarial analyses of the insurance industry or game theory.

Related Topics:
Social groups - Paradigms - Insurance - Game theory

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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.

Related Topics:
Anthropologist - Colin Turnbull - African - Tribe - Battles

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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."

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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.

Related Topics:
Ecological - Sheep - Wolf

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