| Edition |
Twenty-fifth anniversary edition. |
| Description |
xiii, 697 pages : illustrations ; 26 cm |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references (pages 599-663). |
| Contents |
The morality of the gene -- Elementary concepts of sociobiology -- The prime movers of social evolution -- The relevant principles of population biology -- Group selection and altruism -- Group size, reproduction, and time-energy budgets -- The development and modification of social behavior -- Communication: basic principles -- Communication: functions and complex systems -- Communication: origins and evolution -- Aggression -- Social spacing, including territory -- Dominance systems -- Roles and castes -- Sex and society -- Parental care -- Social symbioses -- The four pinnacles of social evolution -- The colonial microorganisms and invertebrates -- The social insects -- The cold-blooded vertebrates -- The birds -- Evolutionary trends within the mammals -- The ungulates and elephants -- The carnivores -- The nonhuman primates -- Man: from sociobiology to sociology. |
| Summary |
When this classic work was first published in 1975, it created a new discipline and started a tumultuous round in the age-old nature versus nurture debate. Although voted by officers and fellows of the international Animal Behavior Society the most important book on animal behavior of all time, Sociobiology is probably more widely known as the object of bitter attacks by social scientists and other scholars who opposed its claim that human social behavior, indeed human nature, has a biological foundation. The controversy surrounding the publication of the book reverberates to the present day. In the introduction to this edition, Edward O. Wilson shows how research in human genetics and neuroscience has strengthened the case for a biological understanding of human nature. Human sociobiology, now often called evolutionary psychology, has in the last quarter of a century emerged as its own field of study, drawing on theory and data from both biology and the social sciences. For its still fresh and beautifully illustrated descriptions of animal societies, and its importance as a crucial step forward in the understanding of human beings, this anniversary edition of Sociobiology: the new synthesis will be welcomed by a new generation of students and scholars in all branches of learning. |
| Subject |
Social behavior in animals.
|
|
Sociobiology.
|
| ISBN |
0674000897 |
|
0674002350 paperback |
|
