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Many recent theorists—such as Nobel-prizewinning Ethologist Konrad Lorenz and Scots Biologist V.C. Wynne-Edwards—have focused on the group or species as the primary unit of selection. Darwin wrote that it was the individual organism. But Sociobiologists believe it is the genes themselves that conduct the life-or-death evolutionary struggle. This gene-based view of life is compatible with a finding made independently by researchers in a widely divergent branch of science. Rutgers Biochemist George Pieczenik has discovered patterns in DNA coding that he sees as evidence of selection occurring at the molecular level (TIME, April 4). "What this means," he says, "is that the DNA sequences exist to protect themselves and their own information. It's not the organism that counts. The DNA sequences don't really care if they have to look like a lowly assistant professor or a giraffe."
Yet sociobiology did not arise from molecular studies but as an answer to a century-old gap in Darwinian theory: Darwin could not fully explain why some organisms help other members of their species. His theory held that every organism fights for its own survival and chance to reproduce, not that of others. Since altruistic behavior reduces an organism's chances to survive, evolution should be expected to breed it out of all species. Still, some birds risk their lives for the flock by crying out to warn of the presence of a predator—thus chancing attracting the attention of the enemy and being singled out for attack. Dolphins sometimes try to save injured dolphins from drowning. Social insects serve the entire community, some going so far as to give their lives to protect the colony from invaders.
Sociobiology tries to resolve the dilemma. Its solution: altruism is actually genetic selfishness. The bird that warns of an approaching hawk is protecting nearby relatives that have many of the same genes it has—thus increasing the chance that some of those genes will survive. Sterile female insects work and give their lives to promote the spread of genes they share with their sisters.
Some 20 years ago, British Biologist J.B.S. Haldane anticipated the gene-based view of sociobiology when, tongue in cheek, he announced that he would lay down his life for two brothers or eight cousins. His reasoning: the survival of two full siblings (each with about half of his genes identical to Haldane's) or the group of cousins (each with about one-eighth of his genes the same as Haldane's) made the decision genetically acceptable.
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 organism will act altruistically—even to the extent of giving up its life, as a parent may, for example, by rushing into a burning house to save a child. Yet in humans, this genetic push is less binding; sociobiologists believe that human social behavior is largely controlled by facultative genes—the ones that can be influenced by environment to change their effects. Thus there is room for cowardly and selfish—as well as unselfish—behavior.