社会生物学：新的综合 (1975)

《社会生物学：新的综合》（Sociobiology: The New Synthesis）是美国生物学家E. O. 威尔逊在1975年出版的一本著作。该书标志着社会生物学这门学科的诞生，还引发了一场20世纪重要的科学争论。

威尔逊在书中以社会性昆虫为例, 系统描述了在生物群体中存在的各种社会行为，并由此提出了遗传决定论的观点：包括人类在内的所有社会行为, 都存在其遗传学基础。这遭到了以古生物学家史蒂芬·古尔德和遗传学家理查德·陆文顿等很多学者的强烈反对。认为他是社会达尔文主义者、种族主义者，威尔逊的遗传决定论观点可能为种族、阶层或者性别歧视提供一种合理的解释。

Sociobiology: The New Synthesis (1975; 25th anniversary edition 2000) is a book by the biologist E. O. Wilson. It helped start the sociobiology debate, one of the great scientific controversies in biology of the 20th century and part of the wider debate about evolutionary psychology and the modern synthesis of evolutionary biology. Wilson popularized the term "sociobiology" as an attempt to explain the evolutionary mechanics behind social behaviour such as altruism, aggression, and the nurturing of the young. It formed a position within the long-running nature versus nurture debate. The fundamental principle guiding sociobiology is that an organism's evolutionary success is measured by the extent to which its genes are represented in the next generation.

The book was generally well-reviewed in biological journals. It received a much more mixed reaction among sociologists, mainly triggered by the brief coverage of the implications of sociobiology for human society in the first and last chapters of the book; the body of the text was largely welcomed. Such was the level of interest in the debate that a review reached the front page of the New York Times. The sociologist Gerhard Lenski, admitting that sociologists needed to look further into non-human societies, agreed that human society was founded on biology but denied both biological reductionism and determinism. Lenski observed that since the nature-nurture dichotomy was false, there was no reason for sociologists and biologists to disagree. Other sociologists objected in particular to the final chapter, on "Man": Devra G. Kleiman called Wilson's attempt to extend his thesis to humans weak and premature, and noted that he had largely overlooked the importance of co-operative behaviour and females in mammalian societies.

Context

E. O. Wilson was an American biologist, specialising in the study of ants, social insects on which he was the world's leading expert. He is known also for his pioneering work on island biogeography, which relates species richness to island size, an important consideration in nature conservation. Wilson however favoured group selection over the Neo-Darwinian kin selection as an explanation of co-operation in social animals.

Book

Publication

The book was first published in 1975. It has been reprinted at least 14 times up to 2014. It has been translated into languages including Chinese, Japanese, and Spanish. An abridged edition was published in 1980.

Illustrations

The book is illustrated with 31 halftone figures, 209 line drawings by Sarah Landry, and 43 tables. The drawings of animal societies were considered "informing and attractive".

Part I. Social Evolution

The section summarizes the concepts of population genetics, a branch of evolutionary theory combining Mendelian genetics and natural selection in mathematical form to explain the pressures on animal societies. In particular, altruism, self-sacrificing behaviour, would die out unless something such as kin or group selection maintains it.

1. The Morality of the Gene

2. Elementary Concepts of Sociobiology

3. The Prime Movers of Social Evolution

4. The Relevant Principles of Population Biology

5. Group Selection and Altruism

Part II. Social Mechanisms

This section describes the types of social behaviour in animals, including the principles of animal communication, aggression, dominance systems, and insect castes.

6. Group Size, Reproduction, and Time-Energy Budgets

7. The Development and Modification of Social Behavior

8. Communication: Basic Principles

9. Communication: Functions and Complex Systems

10. Communication: Origins and Evolution

11. Aggression

12. Social Spacing, Including Territory

13. Dominance Systems

14. Roles and Castes

15. Sex and Society

16. Parental Care

17. Social Symbioses