The Darwinian Setting

Sociobiology is the term used to describe a relatively recent stage in the continuing development of evolutionary biology. It systematically brings the study of social behavior under the umbrella of the Synthetic Theory (or the Modern Synthesis) that, starting in the 1920s, arose from the marriage of Darwinian theory and Mendelian, or genetic, science (Huxley 1942). The most challenging aspect of the new elaboration concerns a decisive step into human behavior. Sociologists (and social scientists in general) have not responded with enthusiasm; the old anthropocentrism with its extreme stress on culture and socialization (environmentalism) is still dominant. Resistance, however, is slowly breaking down, and one may speak of a human sociobiology taking the form of "evolutionary anthropology," "evolutionary psychology," "evolutionary sociology", and so forth. It can even be stated that human sociobiology may represent the beginning of the long-desired synthesis of the social sciences...