Book Cover
E-book
Author Wilson, Edward O., author.

Title Sociobiology : the new synthesis / Edward O. Wilson
Edition Twenty-fifth anniversary edition
Published Cambridge, Massachusetts : The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, [2000]
©2000

Copies

Description 1 online resource (xiii, 697 pages) : illustrations
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
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references (pages 599-663) and index
Notes Print version record
SUBJECT Animal 2017 Bildband gnd
Subject Social behavior in animals.
Sociobiology.
Sociobiology
SCIENCE -- Life Sciences -- Evolution.
Social behavior in animals
Sociobiology
Soziobiologie
Sozialverhalten
Tiere
Sociobiologie.
Form Electronic book
ISBN 9780674744165
0674744160