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Extreme POV in this article

This article is incredibly biased against Wilson, Dawkins, etc (all of which are well respoected in their fields). Someone should redo this article and balance out the criticisms of sociobiology with supporters of the idea. If you were to read this article, you'd think sociobiology was a Eugenics movement - and its not. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.114.81.239 (talk) 22:58, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

I agree with this comment. This reads like a paper on why sociobiology is bad. Someone with more of a knowledge on the subject than I should redo this page and make it less about criticism and more about description. --Anthropos65 (talk) 15:23, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

1

Removed link to Dawkin's article "Race and Creation" because this was to an incomplete copy posted to a racist bulletin board. The original article was published in Prospect magazine.

Hey, I changed the lead to what i feel is more straight forward -- with an emphaisis on the interdisciplinarynature and the applicability regarding all species. Hope y'all agree... -Jeffrey

I removed quite a lot of text concerned with how race might shape society. The removed text was not at all about measurements of social behavior, and correlating those with genetic traits. The theories didn't seem like main-stream theories proven with lots of facts, suitable for an encyclopedia, but more like social speculations or research topics. I also removed a lot of verbiage. If you want to restore the text, it's in the history. I suggest putting it a different article, something like "racial philosophy"

User:Ray Van De Walker

Can someone expand this statement. It looks a bit suspicious.

Sociobiology applies strict mathematical models to animal behavior. Therefore its results are recognized more widely than results of any of previous social or ethological theories.

I think what it's trying to say is that since it uses mathematical models it's taken more seriously by "hard" sciences than its predeccessors...

I agree. But it's still nonsense. That's just a claim put about by (some) sociobiologists to advance their cause. Psychlogists claim that they have the keys to human understanding. Economists know that those other disciplines are hocus-pocus, and only a proper understanding of economics can lead to truth. In reality, of course (as I and my colleagues know for a fact), only history can provide the answers. :) Tannin 11:50 May 13, 2003 (UTC)

If I may paraphrase the two sentences at the start of the third paragraph of the controversy section, it says: Wilson is not an authoritarian, he's an environmentalist!. Obviously many people will know what this means sociologically speaking, but it doesn't sound very encyclopedic. -- Alan Peakall 17:14, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)

We can work on the wording if you wish. The point is that he was criticized for promoting an authoritarian "right wing" agenda. Yet, he himself claims not to be an authoriatarian of any kind, and had no intention of promoting such an agenda. His most coherent political stance is pro-environmental.

Wilson and his admirers countered these criticisms by saying that Wilson had no political agenda, and if he had one it was certainly not authoritarian. (Wilson is an outspoken environmentalist.)

Is there a better way of phrasing that?

Peregrine981 23:27, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)

My point is that there is no logical connection being being authoritarian/anti-authoritarian and being environmentalist vs environmentally complacent; of course there is a sociological link. Among right wing sceptics of environmentalist concerns, many are libertarian (which is formally the antonym of authoritarian). Since, in your observation above you introduce the term "right wing" to contextualise the polarity, it would probably suffice to repeat it explicitly in this paragraph. If there is evidence of how people not involved in the controversy placed Wilson on the left/right political spectrum, that would be ideal. Certainly he is right wing in the sense of not being a marxist, but there is plenty of room for in the political spectrum for the non-marxist left.

Assuming that we agree on these points, then maybe something along these lines:

Wilson and his admirers countered these criticisms by denying that Wilson had a political agenda, still less a right wing one. They pointed out that Wilson had personally adopted a number of liberal political stances and had attracted progressive sympathy for his outspoken environmentalism.

-- Alan Peakall 09:27, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)

That seems like an excellent revision. I understand the need to clarify the authoritarian/environmentalist comparison. It is true that they are not necessarily opposed, although it seems to me that his opponents basically had a "good/bad" conception of the world in which environmentalists fell firmly into the good side. Thanks for the clarification, it is a much better text now.

--Peregrine981 16:44, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Could someone please explain why group selection is espoused (hugh cringe)?

Clarify one sentence please

This sentence -

Intelligence is said by some to be about 80% genetic after one matures.

- is confusing. How is something genetic after one matures? Doesn't make sense to me. Can this be rephrased?

Thanks

PB

How about "At least one study has found that intelligence is 80% hereditary and 20% environmental." I am cautiaus to do this without having a reference to the exact study. Jruffatto 17:38, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

That's a figure for adults (it's about 45% hereditary in children) in the prevailing conditions of the developed world. The sources can be read here: Intelligence_quotient#Genetics_vs_environment. I'll fix the reference in this article.----Nectar 23:01, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

Darwin's Dangerous Idea by Dennett

Should the book Darwin's Dangerous Idea be listed with Dawkins and Steven Pinker? Dennett does describe sociobiology in the book. —Vespristiano 06:08, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Confusing paragraph

5th graph, under Sociobiological theory, reads:

"Anthropologist Colin Turnbull found another supporting example (described in The Mountain People, 1972) about an African tribe, the "Ik," which he said so lacked altruism that the society lost battles with neighboring tribes. His controversial conclusions raised responses among anthropologists and journalists."

This paragraph needs a lot of explanation. Colin Turnbull's findings were "another supporting example" of what, exactly? Also, what is the connection between altruism and losing battles? Why would a society lacking in altruism lose battles with neighbours? Also, what exactly were his controversial conclusions?

--User:Pariah 05:56, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Memetics

I hope everyone is fine with my minor editing of the last paragraph contasting sociobiology and memetics. Aside from that, doesn't it seem a little odd finishing an article about one thing by denying its connection with another? It seems like memetics steals the scene a bit here, but I could be wrong.Maprovonsha172 29 June 2005 02:49 (UTC)

Branch of Social Evolutionism

I removed the following line (sic), because I believe it needs clarification.

It is one of the more modern branches of the Social evolutionism theory.

Apart from s/more/most, is Sociobiology really a branch of Social evolutionism? The article on Social Evolutionism doesnt seems to make it clear. And more so, what does it means to be one of the most moderns branches of something? --Abu Badali 13:55, July 14, 2005 (UTC)

Franz Boas

Sociobiology as such has existed since the 1970s. How can Franz Boas have criticized it? It is most certainly not to be identified with Social Darwinism or the racial theories that Boas is well known for debunking. Marshall D. Sahlins wrote a frequently cited, albeit rather flawed, critique of sociobiology; why isn't he mentioned here?

--NakedCelt

Come to think of it, where are Robert Trivers, Frans de Waal, Sarah Blaffer Hrdy? Apart from in the edit I've done? Where's Mary Jane West-Eberhard? All these people are leading sociobiologists. This article seems to confuse sociobiology with genetic determinism, which most sociobiologists today, and West-Eberhard in particular, are strongly set against.

Philosophy of Natural Science

The article claims the Popper's falsifiablilty criterion is the clear standard by which science is demarcated from pseudoscience. This is not the case: Quine, Putnam, Lakatos and many contemporary philosophers of natural science disagree. The falsifiability criterion must be explained to present the common criticism of sociobiology, but it should not be stated as a hard fact. This from 138.28.21.142 (talk · contribs)

well, of course it's not a "hard fact", it's a method. when i was in school they called it the "scientific method", the testable hypothesis. disciplines lacking this, i was given to understand, are not science, they are something else. the same problem applies to sociology etc., of course, but sociobiology maketh claims to "hardness" of science which seem to my poor eyes to be merely assertions forcefully made, but not falsifiable or provable as these terms are traditionally understood, however many natural philosophers balancing on the head of a pin may say otherwise. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.64.40.237 (talk) 18:02, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Chomsky quote

I removed the Chomsky quote: "The only interesting question about the fascination with these topics is what function it serves, a question that is -- again -- not too hard to answer." It's not clear to me from reading the article that the quote applies specifically to sociobiology. It seems more likely that he's talking only about correlations between IQ tests and race, since earlier he quotes T.H. Huxley as saying that Kropotkin's equally tenuous sociobiological theories are "important and interesting" or something like that. Then again, I can see both interpretations, so please discuss. If it's clear to everyone else that Chomsky's quote applies to sociobiology, then it's certainly worthy of inclusion. --12.208.117.177 04:59, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

The Anne Campbell link links to a politician's page.

To my reading at least, the Chomsky link is almost entirely irrelevant. Chomsky's mentioned evolutionary psychology elsewhere according to popular rumor, and if anyone wants to dig up where he actually addresses it that would be worthwhile, but the linked article is about (what sounds like) a highly politicized conservative review of sociobiology books and their agenda. It shouldn't surprise anyone that Chomsky disagrees strongly with them and the entire Bell Curve-like quality of the thing. It is, however, also not really relevant to sociobiology itself, at the very least not in the way it's currently mentioned.

If anyone actually wants to include Chomsky, though, my memories of Chomsky mentioning sociobiology and evolutionary psychology amount to the following: Dan Dennet mentioned Chomsky's dismissive opposition during an essay about the sociobiology controversy but said he never went indepth (towards the end here http://bostonreview.net/BR21.5/dennett.html - though, notably, Dennet could be incorrect) and secondly I half-remember Chomsky making a disparaging remark about selfish gene evolution in an interview. No doubt there are others more familiar with Chomsky's writings than I am, and they may be able to find something better. I'm almost tempted to email Chomsky, but I suspect emailing him for clarification on a wikipedia page is both a waste of his time and potentially unlikely to be answered.

If nobody is able to track down something more substantial and my reading of the current reference is correct, however, I really think the Chomsky reference ought to be removed completely.

This is the same person as the edit above- try this reference if anyone wants to quote Chomsky more comprehensively on this: http://www.nybooks.com/articles/1643

Chomsky seems to take a fair degree of adaptation as basically beneath discussion, which isn't really a surprise. The specifics are probably discernible to those more familiar with his writings, specifically the recent ones. Being not among those, I'm using only net citations. Still, the currently used reference for Chomsky only (to my reading) directly attacks hyper-conservative interpretations of those writings, specifically about sociobiology's direct application to modern social phenomenon and the states of people. I imagine Chomsky- just from what I HAVE read- would want to cut back some of the more ridiculous excesses of sociobiology itself in trying to directly explain things, but I haven't seen that. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.29.37.227 (talk) 17:46, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Recent edits / additions by "Dissembly" appear to be negatively biased

There are many errors in this article about what adaptationists do and/or believe. No mention is made of evolutionary exaptations, byproducts, etc. I wish I had the time to correct these errors. Perhaps someone can review Alcock's book "The Triumph of Sociobiology" and include Alock's rebuttals to these criticisms, misunderstandings, and caricatures.

Origin of the word 'sociobiology'

The claim that the word 'sociobiology' was coined by Wilson is incorrect. The word was coined by John Paul Scott in 1949, during annual paper sessions titled "Animal Behavior and Sociobiology". There was also a Section on Animal Behavior and Sociobiology of the Ecological Society of America started in 1956.

http://www.animalbehavior.org/ABS/Stars/Founders/aboutfounders.html

As a new user I don't want to edit the original page myself, but I think this fact should be mentioned in the article. --Silver Pyrogenesis (talk) 15:21, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

Hi, well found! I knew John Paul Scott and he was a very original mind. He should have his own article, at this point the article about John Paul Scott concerns the only prisoner ever to escape from Alcatraz.... Anyway, Silver Pyrogenesis, go ahead and make the change. Make sure to include the reference your provide above. I'll have a look later to see if all went well. Cheers, --Crusio (talk) 17:03, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

Actually, it was in 1946, at a conference on genetics and social behaviour: the reference is given in the OED Online. Ming the Merciless (talk) 13:21, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

Removal of duplicate material from EP

I've redirected the controversy section to Evolutionary psychology controversy since it was essantially a duplicate. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.159.132.253 (talk) 14:35, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Euphemism?

The article reads, 'In response to the controversy, anthropologist John Tooby and psychologist Leda Cosmides launched evolutionary psychology as a branch of sociobiology made less controversial avoiding questions of human biodiversity.' I suspect that 'human biodiversity' is a euphemism. Maybe someone should rewrite this so that it is not euphemistic? This wording is especially objectionable because the article does not even clarify what it really means by 'human biodiversity'.Skoojal (talk) 01:37, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

If by euphemism you mean a euphemism for race, then I think you would be wrong simply because you would be looking at only a specific case of a much more general thing. Many of the comparisons being made seem to be within population groups and not necessarily across populations (e.g. races). It suffices to have differences across genetic makeup, any differences. Many of the people who study this stuff believe races are not genetic in nature... Thus, I would incline to believe that by human biodiversity they mean any differences in genetic traits across populations. Brusegadi (talk) 13:15, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Maybe, but it still looks like a possible euphemism for race. The article shouldn't leave people guessing. Skoojal (talk) 00:21, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

WHAT IS STD —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.27.17.123 (talk) 22:17, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Lewontin and bias

Quote from article: "However, critics (such as the evolutionary geneticist R. C Lewontin) have highlighted serious flaws in twin studies, such as the inability of researchers to separate environmental, genetic, and dialectic effects on twins, and twin studies as a tool for determining the heritability of behavioral traits in humans have been largely abandoned."

Isn't Lewontin known to be ideologically opposed to this subject and thus lie about it? I shall leave it for for someone more knowledgeable than I but if so, then I don't see why his political opinion purporting to be science is relevant. However I think the uncited sentence is false and so I will remove it. 86.42.255.228 (talk) 20:12, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

It is generally unhelpful to look at scientific controversies in such an overly simplistic manner. Both sides try to be on the side of the angels. It's all part of the rhetoric of scientific discourse. Look past that, examine the arguments, make an honest effort to understand everyone's position, and weigh the evidence as best you can. The black-and-white-good-vs.-evil-reductionist-vs.-ideologue-myth-making-storytelling that is portrayed in popular print is all done for mass consumption and show. The whole thing is starting to tire and I hope we can move past it. Best, Miguel Chavez (talk) 09:43, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

John Maynard Smith and Human Sociobiology

This is in regard to labeling Maynard Smith a sociobiologist, which is somewhat applicable, but equally applicable to Stephen Jay Gould. John Maynard Smith has frequently criticized human sociobiology and evolutionary psychology as well. In a revealing interview, he states:

I'm very interested in evolution of social behavior of animals. I think that human beings are actually so different from other animals in the degree of cultural and ethical and mystical and religious and political concepts which influence their behavior that it isn’t widely fruitful to think about them just as if they were another animal. I think that what Ed Wilson has done for us by introducing the term 'sociobiology is to make it harder to think clearly about human behavior. And I suppose I'm showing another aspect of my upbringing. I was a young man when Hitler was in power, I was in Berlin in 1938 just leading up to the Munich Settlement, and the whole of my thinking about the world has been much influenced by belonging to that generation. For me, the application of biology to human beings means Rosenberg and the race theories, so I'm obviously a bit reluctant to get involved in biological applications to human behavior. — "Making it formal" interview with Maynard Smith in Lewis Wolpert and Alison Richards, A Passion for Science, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988, pp. 132-133.

In Maynard Smith's moderately critical review of E. O. Wilson's On Human Nature, he expresses his general skepticism, while displaying some openness to certain cases:

To me, the most interesting question is how far evolutionary biology can contribute to the human sciences. As I have explained, I am a doubter. But I have been wrong on this issue before. Ten years ago I regarded incest avoidance as an entirely cultural phenomenon; only a bigot could hold this view now. — "Contraints on Human Behavior" republished in Did Darwin Get it Right? 1989, p. 85.

In 1985 Philip Kitcher wrote—according to Maynard Smith—an "admirable book," called Vaulting Ambition: Sociobiology and the Quest for Human Nature, which was a technical critique of current sociobiological arguments for human behavior. Part of Kitcher's critique was to divide the field into two styles or spheres. First, those who argue as E.O. Wilson do (which is to say, "naively"), and second, those who argue with more rigor, as Richard Alexander, relying on testable relationships of human behavior and inclusive fitness. Referring to the latter form, Maynard Smith writes: "Unlike Wilson's arguments, which seem to me generally ill-formulated and empty of content, this claim is worth taking seriously, even though it is probably false." And to reiterate the point again: "This school of sociobiologists do say things about real societies that are testable; I find it hard to believe that they are right, but at least they are not vacuous." ("Biology and the Behavior of Man" ibid. p. 92).

And finally these video clips (1, 2, 3 and 4) from the Peoples Archive are interesting as well. He states, for example, in the first clip:

I do remember Wilson's book arriving on my desk. I think from the publisher. And I was very worried by the first and last chapter... If you remember, it claimed things like that ethics was going to be 'biologicised'. Well, apart from it being an awful verb, I mean, it's nonsense. It commits what in England is called a naturalistic fallacy. But there was also the claim that the whole of the social sciences were going to sort of become part of biology. And I think that's also nonsense. I mean, if I can draw an analogy, I think that chemistry has been enormously important as an underpinning for biology. And a biologist who tried to ignore chemistry would do so at his own risk. But it doesn't mean that biology has therefore been taken over by a chemistry. I mean, biology is still an autonomous science of its own. And in just the same way, I think that sociology has to remain an autonomous science of its own, but if it ignores genetics and evolution, then it's being as stupid as we would be if we ignored chemistry. But Wilson's claim, therefore, that they were just going to take over, that we biologists were going to take over sociology, seemed to me to be foolish.

Even Dennett has expressed criticism of human sociobiology, calling it a form of "greedy reductionism," but has also expressed sympathy towards the explanations proposed by evolutionary psychology. Intern, Gould himself has expressed strong support for the sociobiological explanations of altruism proposed by Robert Trivers. Clearly the issue is more complicated than the article implies. Best, Miguel Chavez (talk) 04:20, 27 June 2009 (UTC) 11

Good reference

Alcock, John (2003): A textbook history of animal behaviour. Animal Behaviour 65: 3–10. doi:10.1006/anbe.2002.2044

Traces the history of behavioral biology, from classical ethology to sociobiology and neuroethology. Dysmorodrepanis (talk) 01:33, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Pov-pushing by WeijiBaikeBianji

WeijiBaikeBianji just changed the words "race and intelligence" in this article back to a link to History of the race and intelligence controversy. This part of the article is about the current debate, not the history. His edit summary says "Actually, it makes more sense to link to that article than to the worse article previously linked to." This seems really strange to me. He’s also replaced links to r&i with links to the history article on several templates. If there's something objectively wrong with the r&i article, removing links to it just makes it less likely to be improved. But if he just doesn't like the article, then removing links to it is the next best thing to getting it deleted in an AFD, which I doubt could happen.

This looks to me like incredibly transparent pov-pushing; barely a step above vandalism. I feel it is my duty to restore this link to its proper article until such a time that he can provide relevant justification for changing the link.-SightWatcher (talk) 03:20, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

You are entitled to your opinion. Now, which of the articles to which the article text here could be linked has more to say about sociobiology? In a word, why is the article here linking to either article? (That would be one possible approach, to not link to either article.) I am not aware of which wikipedian first put the link into the article, but now that you and I have reverted each other, we are each responsible for making the case for our edits. My case is that the article History of the race and intelligence controversy is a better sourced, more balanced article than Race and intelligence and tends to have a more stable text because of less edit-warring. It is a pretty good guide to the literature for people who might like to know why sociobiology (the subject of this article) has been controversial in some circles. You are of course welcome to explain why you think Race and intelligence is a more appropriate link, as you have begun to do above. I invite editors who mostly watch this article on sociobiology, and don't watch either of the recently linked articles, to kindly suggest new sources for the source lists I keep to share with other wikipedians. Perhaps some of those sources may directly suggest edits for improving this article or some of the other of the 6,929,813 articles on Misplaced Pages that you care about. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 03:48, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

Well, you were involved in arbitration, right? To help familiarize myself with this topic I've read over many of the arbitration pages. I have read that the History of the race and intelligence controversy article was created as a pov fork by user mathsci, who was later topic banned. This was mentioned here if you don't believe me but I figured you would know since you were involved in the arbitration too.

The history article is still a decent article and should still be linked to from other articles, but it looks suspicious to me when you replace a link to a very old article with one that was created as a pov fork by a now-banned editor. Especially when your reason for changing it is because the pov fork article is "better sourced and more balanced." If there are pov or sourcing problems with Race and intelligence then it should be linked to in as many places as possible, so more editors will notice the article and help to improve it.-SightWatcher (talk) 04:33, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

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