ABSTRACT
LOPREATO & CRIPPEN have followed much the same reasoning as van den Berghe in developing a sociobiological perspective in sociology, although in recent years they have worked to relax two core ideas in human sociobiology: the maximization of fitness principle and the notion that all aspects of social organization are related to the pursuit of fitness. Cultural evolution has placed constraints on maximization of fitness because humans often trade reproduction for creature comforts. There is thus a pleasure principle inherent in human nature that skews humans toward creature comforts rather than reproductive success; and the more surplus available to realize such comforts, the less power is the maximization principle.
