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Sociobiology is a field of scientific study that is based on the hypothesis that social behavior has resulted from evolution and attempts to explain and examine social behavior within that context. It is a branch of biology that deals with social behavior, and also draws from ethology, anthropology, evolution, zoology, archaeology, population genetics, and other disciplines. Within the study of human societies, sociobiology is very closely allied to the fields of Darwinian anthropology, human behavioral ecology and evolutionary psychology. Sociobiology investigates social behaviors, such as mating patterns, territorial fights, pack hunting, and the hive society of social insects. It argues that just as selection pressure led to animals evolving useful ways of interacting with the natural environment, it led to the genetic evolution of advantageous social behavior. While the term "sociobiology" can be traced to the 1940s, the concept didn't gain major recognition until 1975 with the publication of Edward O. Wilson's book, ''Sociobiology: The New Synthesis''. The new field quickly became the subject of heated controversy. Criticism, most notably from Richard Lewontin and Stephen Jay Gould, centered on sociobiology's contention that genes play an ultimate role in human behavior and that traits such as aggressiveness can be explained by biology rather than a person's social environment. Sociobiologists generally responded to the criticism by pointing to the complex relationship between nature and nurture. Anthropologist John Tooby and psychologist Leda Cosmides founded the field of evolutionary psychology. ==Definition== E. O. Wilson defines sociobiology as : “The extension of population biology and evolutionary theory to social organization”.〔Wilson, E.O. (1978). ''On Human Nature'', Page x, Cambridge, Ma: Harvard〕 Sociobiology is based on the premise that some behaviors (both social and individual) are at least partly inherited and can be affected by natural selection. It begins with the idea that behaviors have evolved over time, similar to the way that physical traits are thought to have evolved. It predicts, therefore, that will act in ways that have proven to be evolutionarily successful over time. This can, among other things, result in the formation of complex social processes conducive to evolutionary fitness. The discipline seeks to explain behavior as a product of natural selection. Behavior is therefore seen as an effort to preserve one's genes in the population. Inherent in sociobiological reasoning is the idea that certain genes or gene combinations that influence particular behavioral traits can be inherited from generation to generation. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Sociobiology」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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