Encyclopedia of Evolution.pdf - Online Reading Center

this, too, is a genetically based universal trait. As more supposedly
universal characteristics were added to the list, it
became clear that most aspects of human thoughts, feelings,
and behavior may have been influenced by evolution. Therefore
sociobiology has come to incorporate evolutionary psychology.
Sociologists had long assumed that all human behavior
was learned and culturally conditioned. One of the most
extensive sets of observations that appeared to confirm this
came from anthropologist Margaret Mead, who studied
Samoan societies, in which moral standards that Western
observers assumed to be universal were, in fact, not. Mead’s
work has been criticized, particularly by sociologist Derek
Freeman, because it was based on a relatively small number
of informants and had problems of statistical analysis. Freeman
even claims that some of Mead’s informants were playing
tricks on her.
One nearly unavoidable problem with the detection of
most universal behaviors is that no truly primitive societies
remain. Even the Samoans that Mead studied in the early
20th century, and especially the American Samoans studied
later by Freeman, had been in contact with Western cultures
for centuries before being studied. Did women of these cultures
prefer men with resources because of innate behavior
patterns selected by evolution, or because their culture had
been influenced by Western cash societies?
Probably the best way around this problem has been
to study the native cultures of Amazonia, such as the Yanomamö
studied by anthropologist Napoleon Chagnon and
others. Many of these cultures had no known direct contact
with civilization until the 20th century. However, indirect
contact, in which they may have heard about civilizations
from neighboring tribes, may have influenced their cultures.
Recent evidence further suggests that these allegedly primitive
tribes descended from ancestors who lived in cities until
their populations were ravaged by European diseases, which
arrived before the Europeans did.
Many critics of sociobiology have pointed out shortcomings,
including:
• Natural selection (and probably sexual selection as well)
undoubtedly favored the evolution of the gigantic human
brain (see intelligence, evolution of). This huge brain
is now capable of a tremendous range of behaviors. The
potential for these behaviors evolved, but not the behaviors
themselves. These critics admit that some behaviors such as
smiling and the preference for certain sugars may be influenced
by genes, but this is not much of a basis for deriving
a full-scale evolutionary psychology. One evolutionary biologist
(see Gould, Stephen Jay) wrote that sociobiologists
“… reify the human repertory of behaviors into ‘things’
(aggression, xenophobia, homosexuality), posit selective
advantages for each item (usually by telling a speculative
story), and complete a circle of invalid inference by postulating
genes, nurtured by natural selection, ‘for’ each trait.”
• Even genetically identical twins are not identical in their
social development. Geneticist Richard Lewontin (see
Lewontin, Richard) cites the example of quintuplets
sociobiology
whose parents capitalized upon them by enforcing the same
style of dress and hair, and took them on tour. At adolescence,
each child was allowed to choose her own path in life.
The quintuplets promptly followed different paths. Three
married and had families, two did not; two went to college,
three did not; three were attracted to a religious vocation,
but only one made it a career, and she died in a convent at
age 20—of epilepsy, which the others did not have. Lewontin
says that “… each of their unhappy adulthoods was
unhappy in its own way.” This line of reasoning does not
show that there is no genetic influence upon behavior but
reminds all observers that social forces are important and
can in some cases overwhelm genetic proclivities.
Future work in sociobiology will undoubtedly be based
upon brain studies made possible by such techniques as positron-emission
tomography (PET scans), which reveal, in three
dimensions, the parts of the brain that are active during various
mental processes and emotions. So far, these studies have
revealed both broad and seemingly universal patterns as well
as individual differences.
Further Reading
Barash, David P. Madame Bovary’s Ovaries: A Darwinian Look At
Literature. New York: Random House, 2006.
Beckstrom, John H. Sociobiology and the Law: The Biology of Altruism
in the Courtroom of the Future. Urbana: University of Illinois
Press, 1985.
Berreby, David. Us and Them: Understanding Your Tribal Mind.
New York: Little, Brown, 2005.
Buller, David J. Adapting Minds: Evolutionary Psychology and the
Persistent Quest for Human Nature. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT
Press, 2005.
Cosmides, Leda, and John Tooby. What Is Evolutionary Psychology?
Explaining the New Science of the Mind. New Haven, Conn.:
Yale University Press, 2005.
Darwin, Charles. The Expression of Emotions in Man and Animals.
London: John Murray, 1872. Reprinted with introduction by Paul
Ekman. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002.
De Waal, Frans. Our Inner Ape: A Leading Primatologist Explains
Why We Are Who We Are. New York: Penguin, 2005.
Francis, Richard C. Why Men Won’t Ask for Directions: The Seductions
of Sociobiology. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press,
2006.
Freeman, Derek. Margaret Mead and the Heretic: The Making and
Unmaking of an Anthropological Myth. New York: Penguin, 1997.
Gould, Stephen Jay. “The ghost of Protagoras.” Chap. 4 in An
Urchin in the Storm: Essays about Books and Ideas. New York:
Norton, 1987.
Lewontin, Richard, Steven Rose, and Leon J. Kamin. Not in Our
Genes. New York: Pantheon, 1985.
Mead, Margaret. Coming of Age in Samoa: A Psychological Study
of Primitive Youth for Western Civilization. New York: William
Morrow, 1928. Reprint, New York: Penguin, 2001.
Olsson, Andreas, et al. “The role of social groups in the persistence
of learned fear.” Science 309 (2005): 785–787.
Wilson, Edward O. Sociobiology: The New Synthesis. Cambridge,
Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1975.