Sociobiology Week 3 Post 3

Sociobiological systems seem very complex, almost too complex to really study in an empirical sense.  The entire discipline appears pretty subjective.  Selfishness exists, for instance, because of the inclusion of a "selfish gene", pushing those people to act more toward attaining resources for themselves.  Culture and how one is raised also factors in, as well as certain predicaments and circumstances between people.  Surely the discipline is not in the business of predicting people's behavior, since all these factors make that way too complicated, but having guidelines for people's behavior can't be that bad.

 

            It could probably be reasoned, also, that some altruistic behavior can be considered selfish behavior.  For example, take an ant.  The entire purpose of male winged ants is so that they can fertilize the future queens, and when they finally take the flight to do so, they die quickly afterward.  This may seem pretty altruistic, but if you were to consider an ant colony a super-organism, it might seem selfish.  Or bees; in the case of honey bees, food is gathered from plants back to the hive, so that it may feed the colony.