Animal Traditions: Behavioural Inheritance in Evolution [Hardcover]

Eytan Avital (Author), Eva Jablonka (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0521662737 | ISBN-13: 978-0521662734 | Publication Date: December 11, 2000 | Edition: 1

Despite its almost universal acclaim, the authors contend that evolutionary explanations must take into account the well-established fact that in mammals and birds, the transfer of learned information is both ubiquitous and indispensable. Animal Traditions maintains the assumption that selection of genes supplies both a sufficient explanation of evolution and a true description of its course. The introduction of the behavioral inheritance system into the Darwinian explanatory scheme enables the authors to offer new interpretations for common behaviors such as maternal behaviors, behavioral conflicts within families, adoption, and helping. This approach offers a richer view of heredity and evolution, integrates developmental and evolutionary processes, suggests new lines for research, and provides a constructive alternative to both the selfish gene and meme views of the world. This book will make stimulating reading for all those interested in evolutionary biology, sociobiology, behavioral ecology, and psychology.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Animal Traditions provides a well-written, handsomely bound, multiply indexed, though idiosyncratic, introduction to behavioural ecology...They provide a wealth of references to material consistent with their view." Ethology 2001

"...Animal Traditions is an important book, for it shows that there are more possible (and plausible) explanations for the evolution of animal behaviours than people with a gene-centric view of inheritance are able to consider. So every person interested in evolutionary biology and psychology should read it." Biology and Philosophy

"full of natural history that is fun and interesting to read." SCIENCE July 2001

Book Description

Animal Traditions introduces the behavioural inheritance system into existing evolutionary theory, offering new interpretations of behaviours such as adoption, maternal behaviour and helping. Describing the variety and importance in evolution of the cultural traditions of birds and mammals, it shows how our understanding of behavioural evolution is enriched by considering how the system of passing on information from one generation to the next works. Although firmly set within the Darwinian framework, it offers alternatives to both the 'selfish gene' and 'meme' views of the world for all evolutionary biologists.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 448 pages
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press; 1 edition (December 11, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0521662737
• ISBN-13: 978-0521662734
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.2 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.9 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,718,921 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Some Excellent Stuff Here, September 9, 2001

By 

Herbert Gintis (Northampton, MA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Animal Traditions: Behavioural Inheritance in Evolution (Hardcover)

The message of this book is that in species with significant behavioral plasticity and ability to learn, there is a coevolution of learned behavior and structure of social interaction on the one hand, and genetic development on the other. The authors justify this message empirically and theoretically, while lamenting the tendency of most animal behaviorists to downplay the importance of learning and the causal feedback from social macrostructure to genetic microstructure.
Chapters 8 and 9 constitute the heart of this book, and Chapter 10 (the final chapter) provides an intelligent and thoughtful commentary on the implications of the book for research and even political philosophy. If I taught a course on animal behavior, I would start with a standard account (e.g., Alcock), but spend a fair amount of time at the end of the course on Chapters 8-10 of this book. The discription of the Baldwin effect, Waddington's empirical research, and the niche construction ideas of Odling-Smee and coauthors is particularly clear, important, and difficult to find elsewhere.
I am much less happy with the first 7 chapters of the book. Indeed, I am not sure who the intended audience is. There are many critiques of standard theories (e.g., inclusive fitness, gene-centered evolution, group selection, evolutionary psychology), but the theories they critique are not systematically presented, and what explanation they give generally appears in footnotes. This indicated the material is not for beginners, but for experts. However, the arguments against these "enemies" will appear sloppy and ill-considered to experts in the field---in sharp contrast to the presentation in the final three chapters.
Some of the critiques of standard theories are completely ignorant and off the mark, such as the critique of parental care theory on p. 166. If an undergraduate student had written that drivel, I would have sent the student back to the drawing board.
So careless are the remarks in these chapters that at times I was convinced they were parodying New Age mindlessness. For instance, the criticize Karl Marx for being a sexist when he wrote "from each according to his ability," showing that he didn't care about women!!! If these foolish authors ever read the work of Marx, they would find Marx, like his contemporary J. S. Mill, to be in the forefront of sexual equality.
In general, the first seven chapters treat theory sloppily, treat evidency sloppily, and treat the relationship between the two sloppily. They often do not present alternative interpretations of their data, they treat other theories as straw men, they demand absolute proof of other theories, but accept offhand observation as "proof" of their own, and they routinely fail to qualify their statements. I would not want students to think this is the way scientists think. It is not.
Moreover, the authors have a strong political axe to grind. They hate "sociobiology" and "evolutionary psychology" as applied to humans. In particular, they believe that all differences among "normal" human individuals is environmentally determined (p. 48). This is my own area of expertise, and I can assure them that their position has virtually no evidence in its favor and a ton of evidence against it (they do not even mention the evidence, for or against, in this case).

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great book on evolution of animal cultures, April 5, 2007

By 

Gregory Kohn - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Animal Traditions: Behavioural Inheritance in Evolution (Hardcover)

Ever since the "modern synthesis" other mechanisms in which information can be inherited beyond the gene have been overlooked, or simply under researched. This book is not an outright attack on the importance of the genetics in evolution but an expanded view of the phenotype, inheritance, and how organism can influence there selective environment (see niche constuction). Here Avital and Jablonka present a stimulating look at how behavioral inheritance could drastically change the way we view evolution. Sure to ruffle a few feathers, the authors defend such ideas as group selection and inheritance of "acquired characteristics", yet offer mechanisms for both phenomenon's that are more logical (involving conformist transmission, Baldwin effect and genetic assimilation) then those proposed before (such as Wynne-Edwards model for group selction). A truly groundbreaking book that changed my view of what evolution is, but also how evolution through natural selection can operate. This book will hopefully encourage others to look at animal traditions/cultures more seriously (scientifically and ethically) and lead to exciting new emprical research.