The book, a sequel to Alexander's Darwinism and Human Affairs, opens with a useful review of sociobiological theory, which is interlaced with responses to various critics. Some of the very traits that make us good reproducers later turn out to have deleterious effects, but these are not "selected out" because once reproductive potential is expended, there is no selective pressure for traits that will keep us in existence. The reasons for old age and death go back to the explanation of why we are what we are: we are trying to reproduce ourselves, and nothing else. This leads to sociobiology's basic explanatory device: social organization derives from reproductive strategies.
Some organisms have evolved in such a way as to expend at least some of their reproductive effort in the cause of others. These special cases are the subject matter of sociobiology. By understanding the repercussions of their cooperation on reproduction ...
