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SOCIOBIOLOGY: A NEW PARADIGM FOR THE BEHAVIORAL SGIENGES?'

PIERRE L. VAN DEN BERGHE University of Washington

T HE PUBLICATION OF W I L S O N ' S MASTERLY SYNTHESIS, " S O C I O B I O L O G Y "

(1975), confronts the social and indeed, even more broadly, the behavioral sciences with the necessity to reassess the biological

bases of human behavior. The ideas contained therein had been devel- oping during the preceding decade, and the data underlying them had slowly accumulated through several decades of field and experimental studies in ethology, ecology, developmental psychology and other fields, but Wilson wove the multifarious strands of biological evidence and argument into a general paradigm for the evolution of social behavior.

Social scientists have reacted to this new challenge from biology in predominantly negative terms, ranging from outright dismissal to polite skepticism (Sahlins, 1976). The basic questions, so far as I can see, are: (1) Is this emerging paradigm applicable to human behavior? and (2) Do the social sciences have a better competing paradigm?

The bulk of this short paper will suggest a positive answer to the first question, though one surrounded by caveats. The second question can briefly be answered in the negative. After a century of claim to scientific status, the social sciences still lack all the hallmarks of a real science. We have numerous sects, each with its cult language, but no dominant paradigms except to some extent in linguistics and economics. At most, the social sciences can claim a few crude prototheories that bear some demonstrable relationship to actual behavior, that provide reasonably parsimonious if crude descriptions of past sequences of events and that have a modicum of predictive power. The most suc- cessful of these are classical and neoclassical economics, behaviorism, exchange theory, dialetical materialism and game theory. I would like to suggest that, to the limited extent that these prototheories "work," they do so largely because they share a fundamentally correct assump- tion about human behavior—namely, that much behavior is selfish.

What about self-sacrifical altruism, then? This is where sociobiology comes in, by providing an elegant answer to the conundrum of altruism in terms of biological evolutionary theory. If organisms are selected to behave in ways that maximize their fitness (i.e., their reproductive suc- cess) in a given environment, then how can altruism (which, by de- finition, entails, a fitness reduction to the altruist) evolve? The answer

1 An earlier version of this paper was read at the 1977 annual meeting of the American Sociological Association under the title "Sociology and Sociobiology."

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is deceptively simple: altruism can be expected to the extent that in- dividuals are biologically related (Barash, 1976; Hamilton, 1964; Wil- son, 1975). More precisely, altruism can be expected if the cost-benefit ratio of the altruistic act is smaller than the coeflBcient of relatedness (i.e., the proportion of genes shared by common descent) between altruist and recipient. Increasing the fitness of a relative is an indirect way of passing on your own genes by proxy.̂ Altruism, in short, is a misnomer; it is but another form of selfishness. More precisely, the ultimate unit of selfishness is not the organism, but the gene of which the organism is but a transitory survival machine (Dawkins, 1976).

There is more to sociobiology than the theory of "inclusive fitness," or "kin selection," just outlined. Sociobiology is basically the applica- tion of evolutionary theory to behavior, and especially to social be- havior. It puts social behavior, including that of our own species, in the context of biological evolution, and in comparative perspective. Darwinian natural selection theory combined with population genetics gives us the most parsimonious model to explain not only morphology but also behavior, and there is no a priori reason to exclude our species from its scope.

To most social scientists, who are inclined to be highly suspicious of any form of reductionism, sociobiology appears as a revival of tau- tological instinct theory and as another crude mechanistic scheme to impose on the complex and largely culturally determined behavior of our species. Such a view can only be sustained through ignorance of modern biological thinking. Until such time as social scientists discard their dogmatic bias against reductionism, and their antiquated false antinomies between heredity and environment, nature and nurture, they cannot hope even to understand what biologists are talking about, much less to argue intelligently against them.

Although the basic postulates of natural selection are elegantly parsimonious, their application to social behavior in general, and to human social behavior in particular, is enormously complex. Phenotypes, whether morphological or behavioral, are the product of the inter- action of genotype and environment. Many, if not most, behavioral traits are probably controlled by a multiplicity of genes, and many genes probably have multiple effects. As for "environment," the word

2 Another, far less parsimonious and, on the whole, far less satisfactory solution to the evolution of altruism has been suggested in terms of group selection (Wynne- Edwards, 1962). The theory goes that, even though altruism reduces by definition the individual fitness of the altruist, it could still evolve because groups with high levels of altruism would do better than selfish groups. Arguments about group selec- tion versus individual selection would take us too far afield here, and are nicely sum- marized in Wilson (1975). Most biologists agree that, while group selection is pos- sible, the conditions it presupposes are unlikely to be realized, and that nearly all natural selection is far more easily and convincingly explained in terms of individual selection in the broadened sense of inclusive fitness and kin selection a la Hamilton (1964).

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is but a shorthand term that subsumes a vast array of factors includ- ing the complex interaction effect of genes (which constitute a kind of internal environment for each other), the physical milieu, the biotic environment (including our own endoparasites) and, last but not least for humans, the sociocultural environment.

There is, thus, nothing in sociobiology that denies the importance of the environment, the uniqueness of humans in some crucial respects or the flexibility of individual adaptation through culture. Sociobiology is sometimes misrepresented as advocating a rigidly deterministic model of human behavior in response to a narrow repertoire of "instincts," whereas, in fact, it merely urges us to look at ourselves as one biological species among many, with our unique evolutionary history of adapta- tion to specific ecological niches. It rejects a dualistic view of heredity versus environment, nature versus nurture, and substitutes an integrated view of human behavior as the complex product of the interaction between genotype and environment in response to a multiplicity of selective pressures, many of them manmade. Sociobiology sees human language and culture as extremely important, but as being themselves the outcome of a process of biological evolution. Culture, to be sure, is partially independent of our genotype, but continues to interact reciprocally with both our genotype and our physical and biotic en- vironment.

To a biologist, all this is trite in the extreme. My guess and my hope are that, within the next decade, the evolutionary perspective on human behavior—whether it be called sociobiology, biosociology or whatever —will become equally trite to the social scientist. This is not to say that the reductionism of sociobiology is ever going to be the most useful framework to explain all human behavior at all levels. Far from it. In particular, the complex historical sequences of collective events (e.g., the French Revolution, the Second World War, the Feminist Move- ment) are probably least amenable to biological reductionism or indeed to any kind of nomothetic treatment. Historical sociology stands in relation to sociobiology much as, say, meteorology does to physics. Complex sequences of collective social events are much like hurricanes or snowstorms: they are amenable to empirical generalizations and probabilistic statements, but not to elegant theorizing. The level of reductionism to be adopted in the conduct of scientific inquiry is dic- tated pragmatically by the nature of the problem, not by theoretical dogma or sectarianism.

The limited format of this paper allows for little more than the barest statement of a position witiiout much supporting evidence. Let me, however, illustrate the application of sociobiological notions to ideology and ethics. These are almost certainly cultural products, keep- ing again in mind that culture itself is the evolutionary product of the unique phylogeny of our species. I am not suggesting that we have genes for socialism, nationalism, racism, honesty, fairness and what

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have you; nevertheless, ethical precepts, ideologies, norms and values are only comprehensible against a biological background of natural selection. A human group has yet to be found that does not exhibit rampant ethnocentrism, and, at the lower level, nepotism. A few large- scale contemporary societies, both capitalist and socialist, have paid lip service to universalism and internationalism, and some of the world religions, notably Islam, Christianity and Buddhism, have advocated universal brotherhood and altruism, at least within the fold. These attempts have had very limited success when put to the test of a con- flict of interests, and they largely reflect recent endeavors to widen the scope of cooperation as the scale of human societies has steadily grown over the past few millennia. Even so, no large-scale, politically centralized and stratified human society has ever been held together without a considerable measure of coercion. Brotherly love and selfless altruism have definite limits: they only work with our intimates, and even then they break down under conditions of severe competition for resources (Chagnon, 1977; Turnbull, 1972). The golden rule of sur- vival is: charity begins at home.

Cooperative behavior, in short, conforms remarkably well to the theoretical expectations of sociobiology. So, for that matter, does con- flictual, or agonistic, behavior. We care for ourselves first, then for our close relatives (and spouses, as actual or potential producers of joint children), then for more distantly related people. At the limit, our sol- idarity may extend, however weakly, to larger collectivities such as tribes, nations or "races," and even then it is generally rationalized through some belief in common ancestry. Alliances and conflicts are often predictable from the structural position of the parties to a con- test, and the lines of cleavage in social structure are excellent predic- tors of the locus of conflict. In many instances, these lines follow real or at least putative descent.

There is one important complication with humans, however, that makes them extend ostensibly altruistic forms of behavior beyond their biological kin. Humans have evolved a sufficiently high level of intel- ligence to recognize each other as individuals and to remember each other's behavior for long periods of time. That is, they are intelligent enough to engage in "reciprocal altruism" (Trivers, 1971). "Reciprocal altruism" is, again, a misnomer; it means, in fact, enlightened self- interest. Favors are extended in the expectation of return. The catch to reciprocity is that it presupposes "trust," or, put the opposite way, it invites cheating and freeloading. Unless cheaters can be detected and excluded from the benefits of the system, the latter breaks down. In turn, this puts a premium on more and more ingenious and undetec- table forms of cheating, and on more and more sophisticated detection. It may well be that once humans had reached the intellectual threshold necessary to develop reciprocal altruism, the temptation to cheat and the need to detect cheaters became one of the main evolutionary pres-

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sures toward the further cerebral development of our species. The pen- alty for being dumb rises in an increasingly subtle game of wits. The development of computer technology, for instance, has opened new horizons for imaginative cheating and skillful detection, so the selective pressures for intelligence are still with us.

There is nothing in sociobiology to deny the ability of humans to play very complex games in the pursuit of self-interest, and to develop elaborate norms and ideologies, such as nationalism, racism and reli- gious intolerance, to rationalize their egoistic conduct. All of these norms, values, games and ideologies are obviously cultural creations subject to conscious manipulation and to rapid change. The issue, then, is not the importance of culture as distinguished from heredity, or the adaptive capability of humans through deliberate action. We obviously are a self-conscious animal who finely tunes behavior to that of his or her conspecifics, and who has an impressive ability to communicate abstractly, and therefore to manipulate and deceive.

We even have the capability of conceiving of genuinely altruistic codes of ethics, but, so far, societies and individuals who actually prac- ticed the golden rule have been selected against. "Mistrust strangers and take care of yourself and your family" has always been a rule of thumb practiced by nearly everyone.

A methodological conclusion may be drawn from all this. In the practice of our craft, we social scientists have learned to rely almost exclusively on verbal behavior and on aggregate data far removed from what people actually do. We pay inordinate attention to norms and values and take them very seriously; we also spend much time in the speculative reconstruction of motives; but precious few of us still get our feet wet in the field, systematically observing how people act. That is, we do very little human ethology. Anthropologists do much better in this respect, but even they often attach too exclusive an im- portance to norms. My plea, then, is for more and better observation of actual behavior, especially in naturalistic settings.

In summary, sociobiology does not offer a simple, mechanical key to the understanding of human behavior, nor does it suggest that the latter is anything but the product of an extraordinarily complex blend of genetic and environmental factors. Sociobiology does, however, put human behavior in the much wider perspective of the phylogeny of our species, as one among many species that adapted over millions of years to a multiplicity of changing environmental conditions. It puts human behavior in a comparative perspective, and provides us with a general explanation of why our behavior evolved in some respects like that of many other species, in some respects like that of a few other species and in some respects in uniquely human ways. It does not deny the importance of cultural variability, nor the increasing role of tech- nology in widening the limits of our biological constraints.

Sociobiology offers us the best existing answer of why animals stick

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together: they do so to the extent that it contributes to their individual fitness. This is also true for humans, but, for humans, it is not a com- plete answer. In addition to kin selection, which, of course, implies no rational, conscious calculus of individual gain, humans have developed in succession two other bases of sociability. One is reciprocity, the co- operation of individuals for their mutual benefit, irrespective of bio- logical relatedness. This could only develop after cerebral development had proceeded to the point of long-term memory and recognition of in- dividual conspecifics. A number of more intelligent mammals (primates, carnivores) seem to have developed that double capability, and may yet be shown to have evolved at least the rudiments of non-kin-based "altruism." However, human reciprocity arrangements greatly overshad- ow in complexity anything known in the rest of the animal kingdom.

The third main element of human sociability is the most recently evolved one; it has only become important with the rise of states in the last few thousand years. Complex symbolic speech has made pos- sible the development of forms of cooperation among humans wherein the few profit at the expense of the many by means of systematic, planned coercion. In other words, the development of human culture has made possible a florescence ot intraspecific parasitism unparalleled in other species. Other species have dominance orders regulating access to resources, but only man has systematically used violence or the threat thereof to create, perpetuate or challenge systems of exploitation and inequality.

I should like to suggest here that human social organization is reducible to the many elaborations and combinations of kin selection, reciprocity and coercion. The three are in clear evolutionary sequence. Kin selection we share with all social species. Reciprocity is uniquely important in our species, though it probably is not totally absent in some of the more intelligent mammals. Conscious, collective, intra- specific parasitism through organized coercion is so recent a develop- ment that only in the last century or so was virtually the whole of humanity brought within the fold of state societies. So far, coercion (and its attendant inequalities and exploitation) has proved the only workable basis for integrating more than a few thousand humans, al- though many small-scale stateless human societies have managed to do quite well on the basis of kin selection and reciprocity, and with a minimum of coercion outside family groups. For better and for worse, the history of the last few thousand years has demonstrated the selec- tive advantage of large, coercively organized societies over small, state- less societies.

One final word about ideology. Much of the opposition to socio- biology is, of course, ideological. It is held to be an antihumanistic, reactionary doctrine, justifying the status quo and extolling success, violence and tyranny, a revival of social Darwinism if not outright racism. All scientific theories have a rich potential for social misapplica-

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tion, and sociobiology is no exception. If, however, a scientific theory is seen as a model of reality and an ideology a model for the alteration of reality, effective ideology presupposes good theory. Effective radicals must know what they are up against rather than let wishful thinking color their perception of reality. Many people, including biologists, believe that human culture has created environmental conditions catas- trophically at variance with those prevailing during our previous bio- logical evolution. If we are to survive much longer as a species, we must develop an ethic antithetical to most of the principles by that we have evolved. Our population explosion alone has made the entire planet an overgrazed common. The individual calculus of fitness max- imization must result in our common extinction. We are the victims of our own success and cleverness. Perhaps the ultimate challenge of sociobiology is how to extend the enlightened self-interest of reciprocal altruism to all living forms in a saturated environment. We must see ourselves as a fragile strand in a complex web of life in a tenuous planetary ecosystem, or we must perish through the destruction of our habitat. Sheer survival impels us to look at ourselves sociobiologically.

REFERENCES

Barash, David. 1977. Sociobiology and Behavior (New York: Elsevier).

Chagnon, Napolean. 1977. Yanomo, The Fierce People (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston).

Dawkins, Robert. The Selfish Gene (London: Oxford University Press).

Hamilton, W. D. 1964. "The Genetical Evolution of Social Behaviour," Journal of Theoretical Biology, 7: 1-52.

Sahlins, Marshall. 1976. The Use and Abuse of Biology (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press).

Trivers, Robert. 1971. "The Evolution of Reciprocal Altruism," Quarterly Review of Biology, 46: 35-57.

Tumbull, Colin. 1972. The Mountain People (New York: Simon and Schuster).

Wilson, Edward O. 1975. Sociobiology, The New Synthesis (Cambridge, Mass.: Har- vard University Press).

Wynne-Edwards, V. C. 1962. Animal Dispersion in Relation to Social Behaviour (Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd).