Customer Reviews (1)

One of the first fine textbooks in sociobiology
Sociobiology is the study of the evolutionary roots of social behavior. The first major work here was Edward O. Wilson's" Sociobiology: The New Synthesis." David Barash's work was designed to make the subject more accessible to wider audiences. In that, it does pretty well. The key logic for this body of work is encapsulated in the term "inclusive fitness" (Page 392): "The sum of an individual's fitness as measured by personal reproductive success and that of relatives, with those relatives devalued in proportion to their genetic distance, i.e., as they share fewer genes." In other words, if a behavior increases the odds of one's gene's and one's relatives' genes appearing in the next generation, that behavior will more likely be transmitted to one's offspring.

It must be noted that there is criticism of sociobiology. That said, this book does a nice job of outlining the application of the inclusive fitness concept to a variety of social behaviors. The first section of the book discusses the general nature of evolution as well its application to behavior. Part II focuses on theoretical issues, such as question like: How can altruism evolve, despite the individual risking its life to save another creature? Can sociobiology be applied to humans? What is the nature of the "Evolutionarily Stable Strategy" (ESS) and its applicability to behavior?

Part III takes the framework from the first two parts of the book and applies it to a variety of social behaviors, such as sociality itself, sexual and reproductive behavior, mate selection, ecology of social systems, parenting, social competition and dominance and aggression, and territoriality.

Overall, the book works well. For those who are not convinced about the validity of evolutionary theory, of course, the book will not work. For those, however, who accept evolution, this book is a very well done entree to the literature of sociobiology, written in an accessible manner.
... Read more

Product Description
Examines the theory of animal behavior called sociobiology, how it emerged, what it says about animal cooperation, and why its application to human evolution and behavior has raised such controversy. ... Read more

Product Description
The book has two subjects, first the ethical theory of the economic order, and secondly the critique of sociobiology and its theory of evolution. The first part, the ethics of capitalism, analyzes the rise of capitalism and the business ethics and moral theory of a capitalist economic order in a perspective from philosophy and economics. The second part, a critique of sociobiology, gives a philosophical assessment of sociobiology's contribution to the theory of the economy and society and of its impact for metaphysics and a general world view. James M. Buchanan, Nobel prize winner in economics, discusses the first part of the book in his comment "The Morality of Capitalism". ... Read more

Product Description
Is society a living organism that seeks deterministic objectives in its evolutionary process? What is the state of finality of this organism when it completes its journey? Is there a theory that expla ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

A Proposition to Theory of History and Social Evolution: Sociobiology
The second edition of this book clarifies the differences between isolated and closed systems in the field of physics. However, such distiction has not been applied to social systems as far as I know. Therefore, the isolated and closed social systems remain equivalent systems as it was intended in the first edition.

Robert Kenoun

Interesting boundary conditions analysis; but some definitional issues.
I ordered the book just a few minutes ago and quickly read the first six Amazon preview pages; a point to note, found thus far, is that, although the author seems to spend a good amount of time introducing thermodynamics and delineating "systems", "boundaries", and "relational bonds" (connections), he equates closed systems (open to energy flow) to isolated systems (closed to energy flow), which is incorrect from thermodynamic terminology perspective. This leads me to question the rest of the book? ... Read more

Product Description
This book presents sociobiological studies which focus on the topic of in-group/out-group behaviour, a topic which includes ethnocentrism, xenophobia, nationalism and racism. In what sense are there biological, particularly evolutionary and genetic, explanations for intolerance of or aggression towards those who are not members of one's group? Such behaviour may be of adaptive advantage in the process of evolution by natural selection. However, particularly in the evolution of human nature and culture, such arguments are problematic. This book develops many relevant themes, covering issues that range from kin selection and altruism to national socialism and race relations. ... Read more