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In the spectrum of current theories about human behavior, that discipline falls between the thinking of Harvard Psychologist B.F. Skinner, who regards people as pliable beings whose behavior can be almost entirely shaped by their environment, and Lorenz, who believes that man is a prisoner of his aggressive instincts. Like Freudian psychology, sociobiology stresses the innate but allows for the influence of environment. Indeed, sociobiologists concede the possibilities of a Freudian connection. Trivers says that he can think of 16 ways the discipline could "revitalize" the teachings of Freud, who also had something to say about inevitable parent-child conflict and the role of self-deception.
Many social scientists are now contributing to the development of sociobiological theory. Anthropologist Napoleon Chagnon of Penn State University (TIME, May 10, 1976) reports that the Yanomamo tribes of southern Venezuela and northern Brazil seem to be engaged in almost continuous war over the right to reproduce. The tribes "invest" more heavily in raising boys, practice female infanticide and constantly raid other settlements for women. Anthropologists Lionel Tiger and Robin Fox (The Imperial Animal) insist that evidence points to a "biogram," or biological program, guiding human behavior.
Harvard's Irven DeVore, already one of America's leading anthropologists when he converted to sociobiology, now says he will go back and redo all of his major primate studies. He has gone to Africa this summer to conduct the first real test of sociobiological theory on primates.
Donald Campbell, former president of the American Psychological Association, believes that psychology must adapt itself to evolutionary theory, if not sociobiology. He thinks religious teachings have evolutionary importance—an idea a few theologians have picked up from sociobiology. Says Unitarian Ralph Burhoe of Chicago's Mead-ville/Lombard Theological School: "The truths in religion have been selected because they are necessary and essential to man." Though no sociobiologist has yet worked out a full theory of religion, the general view is that the golden rule about love of neighbor evolved out of reciprocal altruism.
All told, sociobiology seems to have won the first round with its critics—largely because their accusations were overblown and based on emotional response rather than hard evidence. "Our rhetoric was at fault," admits Biologist Stephen Gould, an opponent of sociobiology. Lewontin adds glumly: "Other people may have listened more if we had presented our arguments differently."