Word: evolutionism
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
According to sociobiologists, evolution produces organisms that automatically follow this mathematical logic, as if they were computers, totting up the genetic costs or benefits of helping out relatives who bear many of the same genes. If aiding the relatives increases the chances that familial genes will prosper and propagate, the...
For many, such explanations of noble deeds are cold comfort. But Harvard Anthropologist Melvin J. Konner sees a bright side to reciprocal altruism. Sociobiologists, he says, "have in fact uplifted [human nature] by showing that altruism, long thought to be a thin cultural veneer, belongs instead to the deepest part...
Indeed, to sociobiologists deceit is a crucial factor in evolution. Some birds, like the nighthawk, can feign a broken wing to lure predators away from a nest. In some avian species, a female that has been inseminated by a departed male may try to hide the fact, thus tricking a...
Sociobiologists believe that self-deception is also a product of evolution, simply because a cheater can give a more convincing display of honesty if he lies to himself as well as to his neighbor. Says Zoologist Richard Alexander of the University of Michigan: "Selection has probably worked against the understanding...
At the time, Trivers knew little about evolution and nothing at all about biology, but he plunged into the literature and sought out mentors. "Once I learned what natural selection was," he says, "it was clear that for one hundred years since Darwin, almost no work had been done in...