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ES 3217: Loss of Childhood Sociobiology An introduction to Edward O. Wilson’s ‘new synthesis’.
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ES 3217: Loss of Childhood Sociobiology An introduction to Edward O. Wilson’s ‘new synthesis’.
E. O. Wilson’s book, Sociobiology: the new synthesis, was first published in 1975. Wilson had already made his name in the 1960’s with a study of the social insects entitled, The Insect Societies. And although his later book covered all forms of animal sociality, including that of humans, his approach to the biology of social groups was essentially the same as that deployed in the earlier book. This in itself posed a problem for students of human nature.
With the benefit of hindsight, it can be said that if Wilson had not included human societies in the scope of his account of sociobiology it is likely that it would simply have merged with an existing flow of publications that all pointed towards the same general conclusion: population statistics, coupled with an understanding of genetic inheritance, can explain many aspects of social behaviour. But in Wilson’s case, this is not what happened!
In the introduction to the 25th. Anniversary publication of Sociobiology: the new synthesis, Wilson took the opportunity to justify his previous approach. He deplored the many ‘non-scientific’ arguments that had been used against him. What follows is largely taken from this introduction. An account of the controversy, and Wilson’s work in general, is very well supported by academic and journalistic material on the web – study it – but with care!
Wilson’s ‘Introduction’ gave the following timeline:- • 1950s and 60s, a growing number of studies featured the social insects as objects of study, i.e., model types: ‘because the social insects obey rigid instincts, there was little of the interplay of heredity and environment that confounds the study of vertebrates’. • 1963, W. D. Hamilton published his ideas on kin selection; they became key organising concepts; • a rich database of over 12,000 species of social insects awaited theoretical integration and were available for studies of the adaptativeness of colonial life.
during the 60s and into the start of the 70s, researchers achieved significant advances in population biology. They devised richer models of the genetics and growth dynamics of populations, and linked demographics to competition and symbiosis (compare this with Malthus – Darwin’s equivalent source of mathematical insight). • in 1967, Wilson and Robert MacArthur linked population biology with patterns of species diversity and distribution – detailed in their joint publication, The Theory of Island Biogeography. • and so to Sociobiology – via The Insect Societies.
Wilson identified ‘two grievous flaws’ his critics had charged him with in relation to humans: • inappropriate reductionism, i.e., the proposal that human social behaviour is ultimately reducible to biology; • genetic determinism, i.e., the proposal that human nature is ‘rooted’ in our genes.
Having ‘reduced’ the arguments of his critics to straw-men, Wilson then proceeded to demolish their objections. You should read some of these criticisms for yourself; they are nearly all on the web, e.g. those by Gould, Lewontin, Rose, Kamin. They all raise objections to what they see as Wilson’s willingness to ignore that which is not amenable to calcuable (testable) outcomes, and in Gould’s case, object also to his version of evolution.
For the record, Wilson’s refutation consisted of saying that his theory was not reductive or deterministic; it was interactionist:- • No serious scholar would think that human behaviour is controlled the way animal instinct is, without the intervention of culture. In the interactionist view held by virtually all who study the subject, genomics biases mental development but cannot abolish culture • (Wilson, p. vi).
From our perspective, the theoretical synthesis of sociobiology is important for the following reasons:- • it implies that many aspects of human social life are constrained by our biological origins and natures; • it implies that many features of family life, birth, and the nurturing of children, are similarly constrained; • it further implies that radical attempts to change the nature of social life will fail unless they can bring into play existing biological propensities and characteristics.
The following are much abridged explanations of the vocabulary of sociobiological ideas that Wilson gives at the start of his book. We will discuss some of these during the lecture, but beyond this, dipping into Wilson’s book will, generally, be found rewarding and is your best source of reference for further explanation. Wilson, like Darwin before him, provides many illustrations. At the very least, and thinking purely in terms of the assignment, note the complexity of contemporary understandings of the social when compared to the accounts given by Piaget and Vygotsky, let alone Locke and Rousseau.
The ‘morality’ of the gene (page 3, et seq.): • In evolutionary time the individual organism counts for almost nothing. In a Darwinist sense the organism does not live for itself. Its primary function is not even to reproduce other organisms; it reproduces genes, and it serves as their temporary carrier. Each organism generated by sexual reproduction is a unique, accidental subset of all the genes constituting the species. Natural selection is the process whereby certain genes gain representation in the following generations superior to that of other genes located at the same chromosome positions. ---- the individual organism is only their vehicle, part of an elaborate device to preserve and spread them with the least possible biochemical perturbation.
Elementary Concepts of Sociobiology • The Multiplier effect (p.11) • Social organisation is the class of phenotypes furthest removed from the gene. It is derived jointly from the behaviour of individuals and the demographic properties of the population, both of which are themselves highly synthetic properties. A small evolutionary change in the behaviour patterns of individuals can be amplified into a major social effect by the expanding upward distribution of the effect into multiple facets of social life.
Elementary Concepts, cont. • Evolutionary pacemakers and social drift (p. 13; Wilson’s italics) • The multiplier effect, whether purely genetic in basis or reinforced by socialisation and other forms of learning, makes behaviour the part of the phenotype most likely to change in response to long-term changes in the environment. It follows that when evolution involves both structure and behaviour, behaviour should change first and then structure. In other words, behaviour should be the evolutionary pacemaker. • … • The relative lability of behaviour leads inevitably to social drift, the random divergence in the behaviour and mode of organisation of societies or groups of societies. The term random means that the behavioural differences are not the result of adaptation to the particular conditions by which the habitats of one society differ from those of other societies.
Elementary Concepts, cont. • Adaptive demography (p. 14) • All true societies are differentiated populations. When co-operative behaviour evolves it is put to service by one kind of individual on behalf of another, either unilaterally or mutually. A male and a female co-operate to hold a territory, a parent feeds its young, two nurse workers groom a honeybee queen, and so forth. This being the case, the behaviour of the society as a whole can be said to be defined by its demography. The breeding females of a bird flock, the helpless infants of a baboon troop, and the middle-aged soldiers of a termite colony are examples of demographic classes whose relative proportions help determine the mass behaviour of the group to which they belong.
Elementary Concepts, cont. • Kinds and degrees of sociality (p. 16 – my list of qualities). • All previous attempts to classify animal societies have failed. The reason is very simple: classification depends on the qualities chosen to specify the sets, and no two authors have agreed on which qualities of sociality are essential. The more kinds of social traits employed, the more complex the classification … . I have compiled the following set of ten qualities of sociality, which I believe can be measured and ultimately incorporated into models of particular social systems. • These are: group size, demographic distributions, cohesiveness, amount and pattern of connectedness, permeability, compartmentalisation, differentiation of roles, integration of behaviour, information flow, fraction of time devoted to social behaviour.
Elementary Concepts, cont. • Behavioural scaling (p. 19) • Behavioural scaling is variation in the magnitude or in the qualitative state of a behaviour which is correlated with stages of the life cycle, population density, or certain parameters of the environment. It is a useful working hypothesis to suppose that in each case the scaling is adaptive, meaning that it is genetically programmed to provide the individual with the particular response more or less precisely appropriate to its situation at any moment of time. In other words, the entire scale, not isolated points on it, is the genetically based trait that has been fixed by natural selection.
Elementary Concepts, cont. • Dualities of evolutionary biology (p. 21; my listing) • The theories of behavioural biology are riddled with semantic ambiguities. … In the special case of sociobiology, the unknown substratum is usually evolutionary theory. We should therefore set out to map the soft areas in the relevant parts of evolutionary biology:- • Adaptive versus non-adaptive traits; monoadaptive versus polyadaptive; reinforcing versus counteracting selection; ultimate versus proximate causation; ideal versus optimum permissable traits; potential versus operational factors; preferred versus realised niche; deep versus shallow convergence; grades versus clades; instinct versus learned behaviour.
Elementary Concepts, cont. • Reasoning in sociobiology (p. 27) • Wilson ends this first chapter of his book by reflecting on what he considers to be the key features of thinking and analysis in the new theoretical domain that he has created. He indicates the following:-
Real theory is postulational-deductive. To formulate it we first identify the parameters, then we define the relations between them as precisely as we can, and finally we construct models in order to relentlessly extend and to test the postulates. Good theory is either quantitative or at least cleanly qualitative in the sense that it produces easily recognised inequalities. Its results are often nonobvious or even counter-intuitive. The important thing is that they exceed the capacity of unaided intuition. Good theory produces results that attract our attention as scientists and stimulates us to match them with phenomena not easily classified by previous themes. Above all, good theory is testable. Its results can be translated into hypotheses subject to falsification by appropriate experiments and field studies.
As a level 6 module in Education Studies you know by now that you are expected to demonstrate a capacity for critique; this does not mean, however, simply copying someone else’s critique – you can be critical of critics, just as much as you can be critical of some theory or description that seems to be accepted without much serious questioning. Although you may be irritated by Wilson’s, at times, magisterial style, there is much evidence in his book that he is very much aware of the complexities with which he deals. But he is also a scientist, and he sticks to his guns in usually restricting his own theory-making to those aspects of his study material that he considers are ‘testable’. But it must also be conceded that sometimes he sounds overly optimistic, even gleeful, in relegating much of the humanities to the dustbin of history!
You must decide for yourself. Apart from the web-based material, and the various books on sociobiology and evolution in the library, there are also the two short photocopies from Wilson’s book – read them carefully as you weigh up your evidence for the evaluation asked of you by the first assignment. But consider also, this last sample – it comes in two parts:-
The Field of Righteousness (adapted from Wilson, p. 129). • … although the theory of group selection is still rudimentary, it has already provided insights into some of the least understood and most disturbing qualities of social behaviour. Above all, it predicts ambivalence as a way of life in social creatures. Like Arjuna faltering on the Field of Righteousness, the individual is forced to make imperfect choices based on irreconcilable loyalties – between the ‘rights’ and ‘duties’ of self and those of family, tribe, and other units of selection, each of which involves its own code of honour. … Arjuna agonised, “ Restless is the mind, O Krishna, turbulent, forceful, and stubborn; I think it no more easily to be controlled than is the wind.” And Krishna replied, “For one who is uncontrolled, I agree the Rule is hard to attain; but by the obedient spirits who will strive for it, it may be won by following the proper way.”
Wilson then reminds his readers of one of his introductory remarks:- • In the opening chapter of this book, I suggested that a science of sociobiology, if coupled with neurophysiology, might transform the insights of ancient religions into a precise account of the evolutionary origin of ethics and hence explain the reasons why we make certain moral choices instead of others at particular times. Whether such understanding will then produce the Rule remains to be seen. For the moment, perhaps it is enough to establish that a single strong thread does indeed run from the conduct of termite colonies and turkey brotherhoods to the social behaviour of man.
