From Stephen Lee
David Sloan Wilson’s group-selection overview (Instant Expert, 6 August) points out the connection between the dominant individualistic trend in sociobiology for the past five decades and self-oriented western socio-economic thought.
He could also have mentioned that rebellious minorities, often Marxist, put forward vigorous arguments against such reductionism in all the sciences, as well as philosophy. Thankfully, in the recent drawn-out crises of capitalism, what is harder to make is a possible connection between the current refrain that “we are all in this together” and the new, more group-oriented consensus in sociobiology as, rather than any ideas of natural empathy, we see an emphasis on the more coercive foundations of social cooperation coming from our politicians.
We need to watch that this in turn does not start to infuse our theoretical understanding of social behaviour.
London, UK
