The sociobiology discussion was started by Edward O. Wilson's landmark 1975 book, Sociobiology: The New Synthesis and can be traced to the work of Robert Trivers and William D. Hamilton. The book was seen as pioneering the attempt to explain the evolutionary mechanics behind social behaviours such as altruism, aggression, and nurturance, primarily in ants (Wilson's research speciality) and other animals, with only the last chapter devoted solely to humans. [edit] Sociobiological theory To meet Wikipedia's quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. See rationale on the talk page, or replace this tag with a more specific message. Editing help is available. (Tagged January 2006) Edward O. WilsonSociobiologists believe that animal or human behaviour cannot be satisfactorily explained entirely by "cultural" or "environmental" factors alone. They contend that in order to fully understand behaviour, it must be analyzed with some focus on its evolutionary origins. If Darwin's theory of natural selection is accepted, then inherited behavioural mechanisms that allowed an organism a greater chance of surviving and/or reproducing would be more likely to survive in present organisms. Many biologists accept that these sorts of behaviours are present in animal species. However, there is a great deal of controversy over the application of evolutionary models to human beings. Sociobiologists are often interested in instinctive, or intuitive behaviour. They are interested in explaining the similarities, rather than the differences, between cultures. They are interested in how behaviours that are often taken for granted can be explained logically by examining selection pressures in the history of a species. For example, mothers within many species of mammals – including humans – are very protective of their offspring. Sociobiologists reason that this protective behavior likely evolved over time because it helped those individuals which had the characteristic to survive and reproduce. Over time, those individuals in the species that did not exhibit such protective behaviors likely lost their offspring and ultimately died out. In this way, the social behavior is believed to have evolved in a fashion similar to other types of non-behavioral adaptations, such as (for example) fur or the sense of smell. Sociobiologists may therefore argue that the evolutionary mechanism behind the behavior is genetic. Individual genetic advantage often fails to explain more complex social behaviours. However, genetic evolution appears to act on social groups. The mechanisms responsible for selection in groups are statistical and can be harder to grasp than those that determine individual selection (such as the above example). When explaining behavior in its social groups, the analytical processes of sociobiology use paradigms and population statistics similar to actuarial analyses of the insurance industry or game theory. Richard DawkinsAnthropologist 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. E.O. Wilson demonstrated through logic that altruists must reproduce their own altruistic genetic traits for altruism to survive. When altruists lavish their resources on nonaltruists at the expense of their own kind, the altruists tend to die out and the others tend to grow. In other words, altruists must practice the ethic that "charity begins at home." An important concept in sociobiology is that temperamental traits within a gene pool and between gene pools exist in an ecological balance. Just as an expansion of a sheep population might encourage the expansion of a wolf population, an expansion of altruistic traits within a gene pool may also encourage the expansion of individuals with dependent traits. Twin studies suggest that behavioural traits such as creativity, extroversion and aggressiveness are between 45% to 75% genetic. Intelligence is said by some to be about 80% genetic after one matures. Others, such as R. C Lewontin, reject the idea of 'dividing' environment and heredity in such an artificial way. Here's how scientific sociobiology usually proceeds: A social behaviour is first explained as a sociobiological hypothesis by finding an evolutionarily stable strategy that matches the observed behaviour. Stability can be difficult to prove, but usually, a well-formed strategy will predict gene frequencies. The hypothesis can be confirmed by establishing a correlation between the gene frequencies predicted by the strategy, and those expressed in a population. Measurement of genes and gene-frequencies can also be problematic, because a simple statistical correlation can be open to charges of circularity. Circularity can occur if the measurement of gene frequency indirectly uses the same measurements that describe the strategy. Though difficult, this overall process finds favour. As a successful example, altruism between social insects and litter-mates was first satisfactorily explained by these means, and it was correlated to the degree of genome shared by the altruists, as predicted. Another successful example was a quantitative description of infanticide by male harem-mating animals when the alpha male is displaced. Female infanticide and fetal resorption are active areas of study. In general, females with more bearing opportunities may value offspring less. Also, females may arrange bearing opportunities to maximize the food and protection from mates. Criminality is actively under study, but extremely controversial. There are persuasive arguments that in some environments criminal behavior might be adaptive [1]. Some say that capital punishment may be the traditional way to weed criminal traits from the gene pool.