Sociobiology

The History of an Idea

The Problem    

     Many great ideas begin with a problem

     If evolution by natural selection is true we are confronted by a very curious problem

w  How can altruism be explained?

w  Altruism defined:

   1. Unselfish concern for the welfare of others; selflessness. 2. Zoology Instinctive cooperative behavior that is detrimental to the individual but contributes to the survival of the species.

A Solution?

    Kin Selection

w  Developed by William Hamilton in 1964

w  If an organism sacrifices itself for another, as long as it shares genes with the other there is a benefit, not to itself, but to the shared genes.

   By helping your kin you are actually helping the genes you share in common.

    The test of any good scientific idea is evidence. . .

The evidence

    The existence of social insects can be well explained by kin selection

w  Social insects are in the order Hymenoptera: bees, ants, wasps, and termites.

w  They have well developed caste systems

w  They have a unique form of reproduction: haplodiploidy

   See one page (front and back) reading from “The Naturalist” for details

E.O.Wilson

    A very smart professor from Harvard took the idea of kin selection and ran with it. . .

    He realized that evolution by natural selection was essentially responsible for the behavior of insects.

    He wondered if other organisms’ behavior could be explained using natural selection?

    The result was his magnum opus. . .

Sociobiology

     In 1975 E.O. Wilson publishes, Sociobiology.

w   The most controversial book written in the last 140 years, since The Origin of Species

w   The writer and essayist, Tom Wolfe, in an essay calls Wilson, Darwin II

w   Wilson argues that the at the root of all animal behavior is the driving force of evolution by natural selection

w   His book wouldn’t have been so controversial except that he decided to include who in the last chapter????

   US!!!! Homo sapiens

 

 

 

Sociobiological Controversy     

     People went ballistic

     Why?

w   Wilson suggested that human behavior was nothing more than the result of natural selection acting on our genes

w   This idea can be interpreted to lead to what is known as “genetic determinism”- the idea that our behavior is “determined” by our genes. It seems to deny human freedom.

w   As for Wilson, he was simply describing a “theory”, an idea that was worth pursuing and testing.

 

The Attack

    E.O. Wilson is attacked by his critics

w  Unbeknownst to him, Stephen Jay Gould and Richard Lewontin, both colleagues of his at Harvard University, wrote a critical article in the NY Times Review of Books

    Protestors take over the podium at a conference and dump ice water on Wilson’s head, saying “Wilson, you are all wet.”

 

Wilson’s Response

     Wilson was honestly surprised by the response to his work

     He felt that he was “just doing science. . .”

w   He didn’t start this “fire”. . .

“Stephen Jay,

Takes the Day,

Selfish Gene,

Sounds Obscene,

Icy Water on My Head,

Lots of People Want me Dead.”