Sociobiology: the new synthesis

Sociobiology: the new synthesis is a book by E.O. Wilson that helped start the sociobiology debate, one of the great scientific controversies of the 20th century. Wilson popularized the term "sociobiology" as an attempt to explain the evolutionary mechanics behind behaviours such as altruism, aggression, and nurture. The fundamental principles guiding sociobiology are:

1. an organism's evolutionary success is measured by the extent to which its genes are represented in the next generation.^[1]
2. this applies to an animal's behaviour and social life as much as it does to any other aspect of its life.^[2]

The book was first published in 1975, then reprinted in 1976. A twenty-fifth anniversary edition was published in 2000 by Harvard University Press.

1. ↑ May, Robert M. 1976. Sociobiology: a new synthesis and an old quarrel. Nature 260, 5550, 390-392. ISSN 0028-0836
2. ↑ Alexander, Richard D. (1982). Darwinism and Human Affairs. p. 65. ISBN 978-0-295-95901-6.