https://peertube.wtf/videos/watch/e3ecf601-7727-4ed9-be2c-9a769131eb73 In this video Sociobiology, as championed by Edward Wilson of Harvard, is addressed. Wilson tries to explain social behaviour through evolutionary biology and to extend the findings from animals to humans. Sociobiology as a scientific endeavour was highly controversial in the 1970s and 80s. In fact, the attempts to formulate evolutionary explanations of human behaviour led to scientific and political controversy that continues to this day. Wilson begins with social insects such as ants and bees. Their colonies show extraordinary cooperation, though individual insects are simple, almost robotic creatures. Because the sterile workers are very closely related to the queen, helping her reproduce is also a way of passing on their own genes. As we move up to birds and then mammals, cooperation declines and individual interests, sexual competition and personal relationships take over. Primates such as baboons use grooming and appeasement mainly to reduce conflict rather than to foster active cooperation. Sociobiologists apply the same logic to humans, treating family life, marriage and kinship as strategies for passing on genes. Polygamy and the sharing of one wife by brothers, for example, are seen as adaptations to local conditions. Studies of the Yanomamo suggest that villages split once they grow too large for close kinship to hold them together, though humans can also transcend kin loyalty through language, gift exchange and alliances. The central claim is that genes shape social behaviour. Wilson stresses that this means a range of potentials rather than one gene per behaviour. Critics respond that there is no evidence linking genes to any normal human social trait, that the theory is so flexible it can hardly be disproved, and that terms like ‘aggression’ are borrowed from human history. They also stress that culture changes far faster than genes ever could. The Israeli kibbutz is offered as a test case. Children raised together in the same peer group almost never marry one another, which suggests a natural inhibition against incest. Despite the founders' egalitarian ideals, women also drifted back towards family roles, hinting at limits to what ideology can change. Even so, critics such as Lewontin warn against confusing biological and social truth, since claims about human nature have often been used to justify political ends. Wilson's position is that evolutionary biology could ultimately explain even our ethics. Source: Sociobiology, The Human Animal by WGBH (Television station : Boston, Mass.), Time Life Films; Publication: 1977; Topics nova (television program); Note: Transferred from 1/2 in videocassette, University of Washington; via The Internet Archive, date added: 27.08.2018 Mon, 26 Oct 2026 09:31:50 GMT https://validator.w3.org/feed/docs/rss2.html PeerTube - https://peertube.wtf https://peertube.wtf/lazy-static/avatars/45856119-df14-4b5f-bff8-4807ae2cfbd2.png https://peertube.wtf/videos/watch/e3ecf601-7727-4ed9-be2c-9a769131eb73 All rights reserved, unless otherwise specified in the terms specified at https://peertube.wtf/about and potential licenses granted by each content's rightholder.