Exercise 14

In 1976, the noted anthropologist, Marshall Sahlins, wrote a book called "The use and abuse of biology" in response to E. O. Wilson's idea (1975) that biological theories about the evolution of social behavior could explain human social behavior. One argument that Sahlins used to reject the operation of kin selection in the evolution of human altruism was that the majority of peoples in the world had not developed the concept of fractions. He suggested that because Hamilton's rule requires altruism to be distributed with regard to kinship (r), a fractional variable, this meant that Hamilton's rule could not be guiding human behavior. Given that most animals like mongooses and pied kingfishers do not have, as far as we can tell, a concept of fractions, then is Sahlins correct? If not, explain how his reasoning went astray. Use examples from animals to support your answer.