Chapter 91: Sociobiology

CHRISTOPHER R. BADCOCK

Sociobiology Sociobiology is relevant to sociology for a number of important reasons. First, and foremost, sociobiology claims to be a general science of social behavior embracing all organisms, not just humans. This means that sociology is at least a subfield of this wider discipline, and at best a parallel one, mirroring at the human level social behavior seen throughout nature. Second, sociobiology is important because methodologically it has taken a quite different line to traditional sociology and has seen itself as a branch of evolutionary science enshrining a “bottom-up,” reductive approach to social behavior rather than the “topdown,” more holistic approach traditional in sociology. Finally, sociobiology is important because its theories and findings, however they may be regarded, have challenged sociology to respond to them, just as sociology, in its own way, has challenged sociobiology to respond to it. The term sociobiology first came to notice when the entomologist Sociobiology: ...

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