Excerpt

Since the mid-1960s, inclusive fitness theory has revolutionized the study of animal behavior, and it now promises far-reaching changes for the social sciences (DeVore, chapter 5 this volume). A synthesis will not come easily, however. On the one hand, biologists tend to trivialize the complexities introduced by features such as language, culture, symbolism, ideology, and intricate social networks. On the other hand, most social scientists have a strong aversion to reductionism even within their own fields, let alone when imported from the alien culture of biology. A shotgun marriage of biologists and social scientists is more likely to engender mutual hostility and deformed offspring than hybrid vigor.

Adding to the difficulties, the biological analysis of animal behavior, though surging forward, is still at a primitive stage. One of the areas with the firmest body of theory, for instance, is the study of sex ratios in maternal broods (Charnov 1982). Elegant models predict different ratios under different conditions. In some cases, the models work beautifully, but in others they fail. This will not surprise anyone familiar with the complexity of living systems. It stresses, however, that inclusive fitness theory is still feeling its way even within the mathematically tractable areas of biology. Skeptics in social science can therefore afford their doubts. Partly for this reason, I want to discuss a topic where the biological component, while seeming in some ways to be unimportant, is nevertheless so striking that it cannot be ignored.

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