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Still, Trivers agrees that the critics have a point in being concerned about the social implications of what sociobiologists preach. "Social theory," he says, "ought to be looked at from the standpoint of what its implications are. It's not like particle physics." Wilson's book, for instance, raises some unsettling questions that most social theorists shy away from: Is it possible that social classes reflect genetic differences? Do the upper classes gradually accumulate a separate and superior gene pool? After stating that the idea has "plausibility," Wilson goes on to say there is "little evidence" of its truth: culture moves too fast, and even the 2,000-year-old castes of India are not genetically different in any measurable way. Still, Wilson believes there is a "loose correlation of some of the genetically determined traits with success." Such beliefs worry many readers, so Wilson often devotes himself to reassuring audiences that sociobiology is not threatening. He says, for example, that only about 10% to 15% of human social behavior is genetically based. (After this less-than-scientific guess, Sahlins replied with some dry academic mockery that human behavior cannot be reduced to 10% biology, 5% physics, 3% chemistry, .7% geology, 81% symbolic logic and .3% the action of heavenly bodies.)
Wilson also stresses that genes need not always be obeyed.
He notes that man has "a genetically inherited array of possibilities. Some of these possibilities set limits on man's aspirations, others do not, and the search should be for where biology pushes mankind and where man can resist the push." He also admits that "genetic constraints evolved during the millions of years of prehistory, under conditions that to a large extent no longer exist." It would be foolish, he says, to rear as many healthy children as possible in today's crowded world, no matter what the genetic push.
Despite the weaknesses in sociobiological doctrine that required these concessions, opponents have been slow to mount a scientifically based counterattack. A major reason for the delay: few critics feel competent to cut across all the disciplines involved, from ethology and mathematics to anthropology and game theory. But a more sophisticated opposition is beginning to take root in the academic community.
Anthropologist Sahlins in The Use and Abuse of Biology, the only anti-sociobiology book published to date, contends that kinship patterns among humans do not—as sociobiological theory predicts—always follow bloodlines. He also argues that Trivers' theory of reciprocal altruism simply does not work: an individual may help himself by behaving altruistically, but he also helps one of his competitors. Thus there is no net advantage to altruistic behavior, and it should be selected against by evolution.
Another common objection: human sociobiology is long on theory, short on proof. Some sociobiologists concede that large chunks of the theory may have to be modified as studies proceed.