ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book describes the key sources in the existing literature dealing with the impact of biology on the social sciences. It presents many observations on the relationship between biology and the social sciences generally, dealing with the specific disciplines of anthropology, economics, political science, and sociology. Biologically oriented social scientists, while recognizing the importance of both learning and environmental influences, have argued that social behavior is much more complex and that the biological attributes of the human organism and evolutionary processes must be taken into account if we are to understand human behavior more accurately. The biological challenge to the social sciences should not be considered in rigidly revolutionary terms, i.e., as an explosive event that has forced the development of the social sciences onto a distinctly new path.
