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Sociobiology, the New Synthesis: Edward O. Wilson

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

Edward Hare
Edward Hare*
Affiliation:
The Maudsley Hospital, Denmark Hill, London SE5 8AZ
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Extract

Sociobiology was published in 1975. Four years earlier its author had published “an enormous and definitive book” on social insects, a work which established him as the world authority on that subject. In Sociobiology, Wilson set out to apply evolutionary theory to social behaviour not only in insects but throughout the animal kingdom. As a biologist he naturally included man among the animals, but it was this which caused the uproar. Had he omitted his last 33 pages-the chapter on “Man: from sociobiology to sociology” - his book would probably have led a quiet life as a well-written semipopular textbook on social animals.

Type
Book Reconsidered
Information
The British Journal of Psychiatry , Volume 150 , Issue 5 , May 1987 , pp. 709 - 711
Copyright
Copyright © 1987 The Royal College of Psychiatrists 

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