Sociobiology: The New Synthesis

In this objective approach to the sociobiology debate, John Alcock illuminates how sociobiologists study behavior in all species. He provides an analysis of case histories that include the topics sexual jealousy, beauty, gender difference, and rape.

No one in this century can speak with greater authority on the progress of ideas in biology than Ernst Mayr. And no book has ever established the life sciences so firmly in the mainstream of Western intellectual history as The Growth of Biological Thought. Ten years in preparation, this is a work of epic proportions, tracing the development of the major problems of biology from the earliest ...

An enthralling account of the arguments about altruism and sexual selection raging since Darwin's day.

Assesses Darwin's theory of evolution and looks at why it arises such heated debate among scientists, philosophers and sociologists. This book shows that Darwinism does not devalue the miracles of life.

This essay, in defence of simple Darwinism, was written at a time when such theories were threatened by opposing concepts such as group selection. It contains suggestions for developing effective principles for dealing with the evolution debate, and is relevant to fields outside biology.

This collection of research essays is centred on the complex, evolved psychological mechanisms that generate human behaviour and culture. It aims to introduce the field of evolutionary psychology to a wider audience and to show how the field connects evolutionary biology to social behaviour.

This text outlines four paths to cooperation shared by humans and animals. It draws on examples to show that cooperation exists in the animal kingdom, and how an understanding of the natural history of altruism might foster our own best instincts towards fellow humans.

This book examines the ground-breaking new science that has emerged from the work of evolutionary biologists and social sciences. Taking the life and work of Darwin as his context, the author draws startling conclusions on our most basic preoccupations.

Can evolutionary theory really help us to understand human behaviour? This is an introduction to the science behind the works of Dawkins, Dennett, Wilson and Pinker. Including profiles of the major protagonists, the book provides a truly balanced account of evolutionary theories of human behaviour, and all their faults.

In this, the first major book on the subject in fifty years, Stephen Jay Gould documents the history of the idea of recapitulation from its appearance among the pre-Socratics to its demise in the early twentieth century.