ABSTRACT
Sociobiology is the study of the evolution of behavior, including human behavior. Today, evolutionists are almost all Darwinians, meaning that natural selection is considered the key causal factor. The important thing about selection is that it does not merely lead to change but to change of a particular kind, namely in the direction of adaptation or contrivance. Selection produces things that function toward desired ends, such as the eye being used for seeing and the teeth being used for biting and chewing. Not all features of the living world are necessarily adaptive. Some occur by chance and some are byproducts of selection. So a major part of the evolutionist’s task, a major part of the sociobiologist’s task, is determining if something is adaptive and hence probably produced by selection, or if something is not adaptive and in which case what did cause it, if indeed there was an identi able cause. Religion is a major factor in human behavior and culture, and naturally it has attracted considerable sociobiological attention. The big problem is whether or not it is adaptive and if so in what way, and if not why then does it exist. Although the name ‘sociobiology’ dates from the 1970s – being popularized by Edward O. Wilson’s magni cent book, Sociobiology: The New Synthesis (1975) – it is best to start with Charles Darwin himself to set the background.
