The Legacy of Wilson’s <i>Sociobiology</i> for the Human Evolutionary Behavioral Sciences, Fifty Years On

When Wilson's 1975 book Sociobiology was published it ignited a media firestorm.His bombastic style and speculations on the role of biological explanations for human behavior attracted considerable attention-and criticism.His critics raised both scientific concerns and fears that overly simplistic arguments about the genetic underpinnings of human behavior could be misused for political purposes, feeding a resurgence of eugenic ideology. 1The latter fears were well founded.Scientific racism, classism, and sexism-defined here as the misuse of science to claim evidence that hierarchies of race, class, and sex are "natural" and inevitable-are alive and well in the scientific literature today, 2 bolstered by genetic-determinist arguments 3 and used to influence social policies. 4An evolutionary perspective on human