Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-x5gtn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-06-01T18:10:23.972Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Sociobiology: Sound Science or Muddled Metaphysics?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2022

Michael Ruse
Michael Ruse*
Affiliation:
University of Guelph
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The public image of science is that of an enterprise of dispassionate, cool objectivity: something involving sober, emotion-free, white-coated people, as they battle collectively to wrest secrets from the stubborn universe. Nor is this an image entirely unacceptable to scientists themselves. Witness, for example, the great fondness they have for Sir Karl Popper's philosophy of science, with its scenario of men of science ruthlessly discarding favoured brain-children in the face of ugly but falsifying facts. Even biologists avidly swallow and regurgitate this picture, despite the fact that Popper calmly tells them that their most important theory is but a collection of half-baked truisms.

However, as historians of science know only too well, much of the actual activity of science descends right down to (metaphorical) bare-knuckle fighting of the most bloody kind.

Type
Part I. Sociobiology
Information
PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association , Volume 1976 , Issue 2: Volume Two: Symposia and Invited Papers 1976 , 1976 , pp. 48 - 73
Copyright
Copyright © 1977 by the Philosophy of Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

1

This paper was supposed to be a commentary in a symposium on sociobiology, with lead papers by R.D. Alexander and R.C. Lewontin. However, although both main speakers kindly sent me some of their writings on sociobiology, neither was able to let me have a copy of the paper to be given in the symposium. This is the reason for the somewhat independent nature of this paper; although, assuming that neither Alexander nor Lewontin change too much in what they write here from what they said in Chicago, what I write here will in fact be a commentary on their basic positions.

References

[1] Adams, M.S., and Neel, J.V. “Children of Incest.” Pediatrics 40 (1967): 55–62.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
[2] Alexander, R.D. “The Search for an Evolutionary Philosophy.” Proceedings of the Royal Society Of Victoria Australia 84 (1971): 99–120.Google Scholar
[3] Alexander, R.D. “The Evolution of Social Behavior.” Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics 5 (1974): 325-84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[4] Alexander, R.D. “The Search for a General Theory of Behavior.” Behavioral Science 20 (1975): 77–100.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[5] Allen, E., et.al. “Letter to Editor.” New York Review of Books 22, 18 (1975): 43-4.Google Scholar
[6] Allen, E.. “Sociobiology: Another Biological Determinism.” BioScience 26 (1976): 182-6.Google Scholar
[7] Flew, A.G.N. Evolutionary Ethics. London: Macmillan, 1967.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[8] Fox, R. “The Cultural Animal.” In Man and Beast: Comparative Social Behavior. Edited by Eisenberg, J.F. and Dillon, W.S.. Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1971. Pages 275–296.Google Scholar
[9] Lewontin, R.C. The Genetic Basis of Evolutionary Change. New York: Columbia University Press, 1974.Google Scholar
[10] Lewontin, R.C., and Feldman, M.W. “The Heritability Hang-up.” Science 190 (1975): 1163-8.Google Scholar
[11] McClearn, G.E., and De Fries, J.C. Introduction to Behavioral Genetics. San Francisco: Freeman, 1973.Google Scholar
[12] Quinton, A. “Ethics and the Theory of Evolution.” In Biology and Personality. Edited by Ramsey, I.T.. Oxford: Blackwell, 1966. Pages 107–130.Google Scholar
[13] Raphael, D.D. “Darwinism and Ethics.” In A Century of Darwin. Edited by Barnett, S.A.. London: Heinemann, 1958. Pages 334–359.Google Scholar
[14] Ruse, M. “Is the Theory of Evolution Different.” Scientia 106 (1972): 765-83; 1069-93. ScientiaGoogle Scholar
[15] Ruse, M. The Philosophy of Biology. London: Hutchinson, 1973.Google Scholar
[16] Ruse, M. “Is Biology Different?” In Laws, Logic, Life (Pittsburgh Series in the Philosophy of Science). Edited by Colodny, R.. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, in press.Google Scholar
[17] Sheppard, P.M. Natural Selection and Heredity. 4th edition. London: Hutchinson, 1975.Google Scholar
[18] Simpson, G.G. Tempo and Mode in Evolution. New York: Columbia University Press, 1944.Google Scholar
[19] Sociobiology Study Group of Boston. “Sociobiology.” In Biology as a Social Weapon. Edited by the Sociobiology Study Group of Boston. Boston, in press.Google Scholar
[20] Townes, B.D., Ferguson, W.D., and Gillam, S. “Differences in Psychological Sex Adjustment and Familial Influences Among Homosexual and Non-Homosexual Populations.” Journal of Homosexuality. 1 (1976): 261-72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[21] Trivers, R.L. “The Evolution of Reciprocal Altruism.” Quarterly Review of Biology. 46 (1971): 35–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[22] Trivers, R.L. “Parental Investment and Sexual Selection.” In Sexual Selection and the Descent of Man, 1871-1971. Edited by Campbell, B.. Chicago: Aldine, 1972. Pages 136–179.Google Scholar
[23] Trivers, R.L. “Parent-Offspring Conflict.” American Zoologist 14 (1974): 249-64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[24] Wade, N. “Sociobiology: Troubled Birth for New Discipline.” Science 191 (1976): 1151-5.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
[25] Walsh, J. “Science for the People: Comes the Revolution.” Science 191 (1976): 1033-5.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[26] Williams, G.C. Adaptation and Natural Selection: A Critique of Some Current Evolutionary Thought. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1966.Google Scholar
[27] Wilson, E.O. Sociobiology: The New Synthesis. Cambridge : Harvard University Press, 1975.Google Scholar
[28] Wilson, E.O. “Human Decency is Animal.” The New York Times Magazine (12, October, 1975): 38–50.Google Scholar
[29] Wilson, E.O. “Letter to Editor.” New York Review of Books 22, 20 (1975): 60-1.Google Scholar
[30] Wilson, E.O. “Academic Vigilantism and the Political Significance of Sociobiology.” BioScience 26 (1976): 183-90.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
[31] Wynne-Edwards, V.C. Animal Dispersion in Relation to Social Behaviour. Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, 1962.Google Scholar