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Topic: Sociobiologists

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	True Love
		If humans had collectively shared the greater degree of genetic relatedness common to many of the social insects (haplodiploidy), then we might already "naturally" be able to love each other with greater enthusiasm.
		Sociobiologists would then explain why we all loved each other so deeply, not so little.
		Happily, in the future it will be possible to mimic, and then magnify out of all recognition, the kind of altruistic devotion to each other that might have arisen if were we all 100% genetically-related clones.
	www.hedweb.com /heaven/heaven16.htm (409 words)

	AAAS - AAAS Evolution Resources
		The sociobiologists' argument is that human ethical norms are socioculrural correlates of behaviors fostered by biological evolution.
		The sociobiologists sometimes reiterate their conviction that science and ethics belong to separate logical realms, that one may not infer what is morally right or wrong from a determination of how things are or are not in nature.
		Sociobiologists point out that many of the moral norms commonly accepted in human societies sanction behaviors also promoted by natural selection (which promotion becomes apparent only when the inclusive fitness of genes is taken into account).
	www.aaas.org /spp/dser/03_Areas/evolution/perspectives/Ayala_1994.shtml (7027 words)

	Encyclopedia (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-14)
		Sociobiologists believe that behavior patterns come into being, are modified, and even disappear through the process of natural selection.
		The work of sociobiologists has been most successful in helping to understand the evolution of the behavior patterns of social insects, patterns that are hard to account for in terms of the survival of individual animals alone.
		In attempting to reconcile altruism with natural selection, Darwin foreshadowed the thesis later developed by sociobiologists: that the performer of an altruistic act, though forfeiting some part of its own contribution to the gene pool of the next generation, nevertheless contributes to the survival of others of the species.
	history.com /encyclopedia.do?vendorId=FWNE.fw..so139700.a#FWNE.fw..s... (693 words)

	PROPOSAL Audience Organization Current Working Group Relation to AAA Purposes
		According to sociobiologists, these strategies are the result of the differences in the biology of males and females, in particular the disparity in the investment men and women must make in the rearing of children to ensure the child’s survival and the survival of their own genes.
		That sociobiologists and evolutionary psychologists use themselves and the behaviors found in their own societies as a universal reference point is revealed by how strikingly similar the characteristics attributed to all males and females in their accounts are to those that exist today in Britain and the United States.
		Sociobiologists and evolutionary psychologists have not yet produced studies measuring the differential energy required in the maturation of eggs versus the production of sperm, even though, as we have seen, they base their entire explanation of the evolution of gender roles and behaviors on this assumption.
	www.nyu.edu /fas/ihpk/CultureMatters/Mascia-Lees.htm (8254 words)

	[No title]
		In contrast to the sociobiologists' favoring of the theories of sex evolution, there are arguments that assert that there is no true scientific basis for this assumption, and that it is merely a theory/ philosophy created by sexist, androgeno-centric (male centered) men.
		Fausto- Sterling argues that sociobiologists say that their purpose is to find out why things are, so that they can facilitate social change, but then they end up endorsing the fact that things actually aren't so bad the way that they are.
		Sociobiologists argue that the theory of evolution illustrates that rape is understood to be one of the reproductive strategies that have evolved, and that we have to use the knowledge we gain from sociobiology in order for society to begin to help the problem.
	www.wesleyan.edu /synthesis/FRIDAY/frifinal/artml.htm (3811 words)

	RIP Article
		Where sociobiologists differ from other people is just that they also say, over and over again, things which imply that genes are conscious purposeful agents; and agents, at that, of so much intelligence and power that human beings are merely among the tools they make and use.
		Sociobiologists have consciously and avowedly revived the doctrine of the ‘immortality of the germ-plasm’ (or of the ‘germ-line’), which August Weismann first published about a hundred years ago.
		Yet if the sociobiologists are right, science has actually now brought us what the human heart has always yearned for but never before achieved: knowledge of beings which, in virtue of their immense superiority to ourselves, are proper objects of our reverence and worship.
	www.royalinstitutephilosophy.org /articles/article.php?id=27 (2825 words)

	Science of Humanity - Part 1
		Sociobiologists today are using biological research as metaphor on which to hang their own pet theories about humanity.
		Sociobiologists get Nature back into science but they claim the keys to the mysteries of life are locked deep in the genetic code.
		This is important to remember because sociobiologists are going to use this objective stance as the platform from which to claim their truths.
	www.sonic.net /~lhd/democracy/dubois/scienceofhumanity1.html (8246 words)

	Sociobiology - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
		Sociobiologists believe that animal or human behaviour cannot be satisfactorily explained entirely by "cultural", "environmental", "[ethnic]", or "[individualistic]" factors alone.
		Sociobiologists are often interested in instinctive, or intuitive behaviour.
		Sociobiologists may therefore argue that the evolutionary mechanism behind the behavior is genetic.
	en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Sociobiology (2085 words)

	Deviancy Social Evolution
		Kaye warns that this biological, reductionist view of culture, buttressed as it is by unwarranted claims of scientific objectivity, may prove "dangerously" attractive and "dehumanizing" to a culture "fearful" of its own survival.
		Sociobiologists are illustrating that aggressiveness is far less characteristic of animal societies than was once thought.
		The sociobiologists ask the question of why should animals be social and come up with similar responses to sociologists.
	www.vernonjohns.org /nonracists/dvsocevl.html (3578 words)

	Morality and Ideologies from Evolutionary Perspective: Introduction 1/5 (KurdishMedia.com) (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-14)
		Sociobiologists, in whose work I find a good ground for the ideas I suggest in chapter three, assume that the unit of selection or what nature selects is the genes, though indirectly, through selecting individuals that bear the competitive gene.
		From this point of view sociobiologists assume that the altruism that favours the reproduction of the genes is an adaptive characteristic.
		Sociobiologists differentiate between, on the one hand, ultimate causation, the condition of the environment that renders certain traits adaptive.
	www.kurdmedia.com /reports.asp?id=172 (3747 words)

	Metaphor, Sociobiology, and Nature vs. Nurture
		Before the nurturers respond to the sociobiologists, they first define biological determinism as the belief that "all human behavior—hence all human society—is governed by a chain of determinants that runs from the gene to the individual to the sum of the behaviors of all individuals" (180).
		Yet the sociobiologists simply turn back to their champion, E.O. Wilson, who answers that "in sociobiology, there is a heavy emphasis on the comparison of societies of different kinds of animals and of man, not so much to draw analogies.
		Thus, the both the sociobiologists and the anti-sociobiologists attempt to answer how an organism is organized with theory—and neither have produced a hypothesis that is agreed upon by a consensus.
	ww2.lafayette.edu /~vast/whitnell.html (2076 words)

	The Biology of Gender Roles
		In other words, Sociobiologists simply construct their world and then express any inconsistencies with their theories as variances based on the degree of the application in the particular instance.
		"Sociobiologists constantly 'prove' the validity and predictive values of their theories by 'predicting' what they and everyone else already know to be demonstrated fact." (Bleier) Plus they simply don't know what the precise conditions were at the time that they are hypothesizing about.
		The Sociobiologists claim that earlier humans in small tribes would act on their biological truths assumes the members of these tribes have no rational ability.
	www.ellipsis.cx /~dcluloff/bio.html (2275 words)

	The New Atlantis - A Journal of Technology and Society
		The sociobiologists say that our sociality is a natural or programmed trait; we are gregarious like the chimps are gregarious; everything about us can be explained through evolutionary biology.
		Sociobiologists should rightly criticize these hyper-modern individualists for neglecting their natural sources of happiness and obsessing about “staying fit” long after their natural purposes (spreading their genes) have been fulfilled.
		Sociobiologists, who have benefited us greatly by reflecting on the meaning of evolution, could do us an even greater service if they stopped believing that a materialist understanding of evolution explains everything, especially when the facts suggest otherwise.
	www.thenewatlantis.com /archive/1/lawler.htm (5261 words)

	Good Natured (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-14)
		De Waal suggests that sociobiologists such as Wright such often employ the rhetoric of early evolutionary thought, with its continual reference to brutal intraspecies competition, without realizing how that rhetoric was shaped by a now-outmoded view of evolution.
		Sociobiologists like Wright take a perverse pleasure in denying this, describing every altruistic behavior as if it were "really" -- way down deep -- selfish.
		His suggestion is that sociobiologists, rather than moving science beyond the ancient prejudice that animals are basically wicked, have merely provided a new vocabulary for expressing that prejudice.
	bostonphoenix.com /alt1/archive/books/reviews/07-96/GOOD_NATURED.html (1414 words)

	EP09. MORALITY AND RELIGION INTERSECT BIOLOGY: Altruism and Sociobiology (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-14)
		Sociobiologists are easy targets for critics to bludgeon with their own points of view.
		Sociobiologists define their scheme so comprehensively and creatively - e.g., over altruism with "altruism," "reciprocal altruism," and so on - that it removes the threat of there being any genuine altruism.
		This problem is not unique to sociobiologists, however; everyone and all vocations and systems of thought share this moral ambiguity.
	www.ksharpe.com /word/ep09.htm (8908 words)

	Science of Humanity - Part II
		That is why sociobiologists are so intent upon destroying the left wing focus of sociology and leaving only a dead remnant of the discipline to serve the needs of the masters.
		Sociobiologist Steven Pinker (2002) rants at this as the cornerstone of the modern denial of human nature -- it is the liberal "denial of imperfectability." Rejected Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork (1996), who remains a darling of ultraconservatives, heads straight for it in Slouching Towards Gomorrah: Modern Liberalism and American Decline.
		It is unfortunate the word human "nature" allowed sociobiologists to be distracted from the crucial point that human beings are not things and must be studied with different methods than those used in the physical sciences.
	www.sonic.net /~lhd/democracy/dubois/scienceofhumanity2.html (5859 words)

	American Scientist Online - Triumphalism in Science (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-14)
		And Alcock has not been one of those sociobiologists who have garnered publicity for their speculations about human behavior, so I was hoping for a dispassionate analysis of this 25-year public debate.
		Sociobiologists themselves have not infrequently had to do just this as new evidence has emerged.
		Although sociobiologists admitted that human traits based in evolution are still subject to change by the influence of environment, culture and history, some pretended to know just how much change is possible.
	www.americanscientist.org /template/BookReviewTypeDetail/assetid/14648 (778 words)

	The Evolution of Evolutionary Psychology (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-14)
		Sociobiologists must first decide how the evolution of an organism is to be divided.
		Buss (1995) begins by saying, "Although sociobiologists and evolutionary psychologists do share the same basic evolutionary theory in its modern instantiation as inclusive fitness theory, they depart in ways that are crucial for psychology" (p.
		Specifically, sociobiologists believe that the main goal of humans is to increase reproductive success, to be "fitness maximizers." However, evolutionary psychologists believe humans to be "adaptation executors" or "mechanism activators." They believe the main goal of human beings is to solve the problems of survival that aid in reproduction and improve fitness.
	www.personalityresearch.org /papers/seltin.html (2603 words)

	[No title]
		Thus, sociobiologists use modern evolutionary theory to explain why social behavior is adaptive and how it evolved through the process of natural selection.
		Sociobiologists assume that social behavior has a heritable component sufficient to allow natural selection to operate on individual behavioral variation and that social behavior is adapted to meet environmental dictates.
		This concept is quite opposed to that of sociobiologists who interpret behavior as benefiting the individual and evolving as a consequence of fitness maximization.
	www.holycross.edu /departments/biology/whealy/notes_text/l.text (3255 words)

	[No title]
		Sociobiologists assume (1) that social behavior has a heritable component sufficient to allow natural selection to operate on individual behavioral variation and (2) that social behavior is adapted to meet environmental dictates.
		Whereas both ethology and psychology once leaned toward the view that behavior is determined either by genes (ethology) or past experience (psychology), sociobiologists adopt the position that behavior is only influenced (rather than determined) by both; consequently, individuals are never fated to behave in a particular way and genetic dispositions can be modified by learning.
		Given some degree of heritability underlying behavior, natural selection will preserve those behavioral variants best adapted to the environmental conditions under which the species lives and so over a period of time a response to that environment will evolve which appears to be a strategy for survival and reproduction.
	www.holycross.edu /departments/biology/whealy/notes_text/bv.text (2105 words)

	Sociobiology: Evolution, Genes and Morality
		These sociobiologists, otherwise known as evolutionary ethicists, claim to be able to explain the existence of every major world religion or belief system, including Christianity, Judaism, Islam, and even Marxism and secular humanism, in terms of natural selection and evolution.
		Since sociobiologists claim that all behavior is ultimately selfish, that an organism's only goal or purpose is to survive and reproduce, and that it is species survival, not individual survival, that is ultimately required, personal worth and dignity quickly disappear.
		The responses of sociobiologists when they are confronted with this conclusion have always been curious to me. I distinctly remember posing a question about hope and purpose to a graduate seminar composed of biology students and faculty.
	www.leaderu.com /orgs/probe/docs/sociobio.html (2680 words)

	Peter Augustine Lawler on Human Nature on National Review Online
		Sociobiologists do speak of human nature, but they also deny that there is any fundamental break between nonhuman and human nature.
		The sociobiologists agree with the social constructionists that there is no such thing as a distinctively human nature.
		But the sociobiologists also say that the idea of free construction of gender — and the idea of human freedom generally — is an illusion.
	www.nationalreview.com /comment/comment-lawler042602.asp (1753 words)

	Metanexus Institute
		Likewise, the Sociobiologists contend that ideas are reducible to the genes, but they never really explore how the origination of novelty can arise in a biologically predestined organism.
		Sociobiologists might claim that the genetic "component" allows for a reductionism of the origination and propagation of cultural ideas to evolutionary theory based on natural selection.
		In light of these findings, it appears that the Sociobiologists must acknowledge that the origination of ideas must stem from epigenetic factors or, at least, epigenetic factors in harmony with genetic factors.
	www.metanexus.net /metanexus_online/show_article2.asp?ID=3035 (2599 words)

	The Epigenetic View:
		The extent to which sociobiologists adopt a view that could be called "SB of the strong kind," namely, that genes are the dominant cause of human behavior, is the extent to which they expose themselves to criticism from this paper.
		The sociobiologist, however, must rise to higher aspirations for the very fact that if genes are the final (and material) cause of behavior then they must have material consequences.
		For the sociobiologist to respond to behavioral conundrums with the claim that the causal relation between our genes and our behavior is limited to a description of the range of behaviors allowed by the resulting morphology is to cede an enormous amount of ground to the forces of culture.
	home.cfl.rr.com /jessehenson/SOCIOB.html (4019 words)

	Juvenile Delinquency, is it all about falling into the wrong crowd, or is it about the way one was raised, their ... (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-14)
		This can be seen in studies which prove that adopted children tend to bear closer resemblance in IQ to their biological parents, than to their adoptive ones, and the resemblance to biological parents becomes stronger as the child grows older.
		Sociobiologists also stress that, individuals tend to shape their own environments.
		Most sociobiologists admit this, but they do believe that delinquency is more associated with genetics then upbringing and family style.
	www.umm.maine.edu /resources/beharchive/bexstudents/TammyBernier/tb330.html (4078 words)

	Not in Our Genes - Dawkins Review
		Rose et al cannot substantiate their allegation about sociobiologists believing in inevitable genetic determination, because the allegation is a simple lie.
		Sociobiologists, such as myself (much as I have always disliked the name, this book finally provokes me to stand up and be counted), are in the business of trying to work out the conditions under which Darwinian theory might be applicable to behaviour.
		Sahlins, in a book described as "a withering attack" on sociobiology, thinks that the theory of kin selection cannot work be cause only a minority of human cultures have developed the concept of the fraction (necessary, you see, in order for people to calculate their coefficients of relatedness!).
	www.simonyi.ox.ac.uk /dawkins/WorldOfDawkins-archive/Dawkins/Work/Reviews/1985-01-24notinourgenes.shtml (1716 words)

	Sociobiology
		Sociobiologists have the same explanation for this as for everything else, based on the archetypal question "why is sugar sweet?" We should be sexually attracted to others whose characteristics would maximize our genetic success, that is, would give us many healthy, long-lived, fertile children.
		Sociobiologists suggest that, while men find youth and physical form most attractive, women tend to look for indications of success, solvency, savoir-faire.
		Sociobiologists predict that animals that are poorly equipt for aggression are unlikely to have developed surrender signals.
	www.ship.edu /~cgboeree/sociobiology.html (4043 words)

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