THE EXPLANATORY FAILURE OF SOCIOBIOLOGY
by
Glenn Statile
Saint John’s University
1)
SOCIOBIOLOGY – THE NEW SYNTHESIS
Although evolutionary biology and issues of
social concern were first brought together
in an inflammatory way by Herbert Spencer
under the banner of Social Darwinism in the
19th century, this combustible
mixture of interests has only recently been
rekindled to the point of public prominence
as the result of the publication of Edward
Wilson’s Sociobiology: The New Synthesis
in 1975. What is purportedly new in the
branch of science known as sociobiology is
the way in which various scientific
disciplines, such as ethology, ecology, and
population genetics are bound together in a
powerful interpretive synthesis so as to
enable a genetically enhanced Darwinism to
encompass both human behavior and culture
within its scope. According to
sociobiological dogma there is a biological
basis to the social behavior of both humans
and animals. Wilson began to expand upon
this doctrine for the case of human behavior
systematically for the first time in On
Human Nature (1978), although he did
briefly address the topic at the end of
Sociobiology.