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Sociobiology and Behaviour

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Sociobiology is the study of the evolutionary roots of social behavior. The first major work here was Edward O. Wilson's" Sociobiology: The New Synthesis." David Barash's work was designed to make the subject more accessible to wider audiences. In that, it does pretty well. The key logic for this body of work is encapsulated in the term "inclusive fitness" (Page 392): "The sum of an individual's fitness as measured by personal reproductive success and that of relatives, with those relatives devalued in proportion to their genetic distance, i.e., as they share fewer genes." In other words, if a behavior increases the odds of one's gene's and one's relatives' genes appearing in the next generation, that behavior will more likely be transmitted to one's offspring.

It must be noted that there is criticism of sociobiology. That said, this book does a nice job of outlining the application of the inclusive fitness concept to a variety of social behaviors. The first section of the book discusses the general nature of evolution as well its application to behavior. Part II focuses on theoretical issues, such as question like: How can altruism evolve, despite the individual risking its life to save another creature? Can sociobiology be applied to humans? What is the nature of the "Evolutionarily Stable Strategy" (ESS) and its applicability to behavior?

Part III takes the framework from the first two parts of the book and applies it to a variety of social behaviors, such as sociality itself, sexual and reproductive behavior, mate selection, ecology of social systems, parenting, social competition and dominance and aggression, and territoriality.

Overall, the book works well. For those who are not convinced about the validity of evolutionary theory, of course, the book will not work. For those, however, who accept evolution, this book is a very well done entree to the literature of sociobiology, written in an accessible manner.