Editing Sociobiology (section)

==Definition==

E. O. Wilson defined sociobiology as "the extension of population biology and evolutionary theory to social organization".<ref>{{cite book |author=Wilson, E. O. |author-link=E. O. Wilson |year=1978 |title=On Human Nature |url=https://archive.org/details/onhumannature00wils |url-access=registration |page=x |publisher=Harvard |isbn=978-0674016385}}</ref>

Sociobiology is based on the premise that some behaviors (social and individual) are at least partly inherited and can be affected by [[natural selection]].<ref name="Mohammed 2019">{{cite book |last1=Mohammed |first1=Sulma I. |last2=Alfarouk |first2=Khalid O. |last3=Elhassan |first3=Ahmed M. |last4=Hamad |first4=Kamal |last5=Ibrahim |first5=Muntaser E. |title=The Genetics of African Populations in Health and Disease |chapter=Sociobiological Transition and Cancer |date=2019 |pages=217–232 |doi=10.1017/9781139680295.010 |isbn=9781139680295 |s2cid=214321882 |chapter-url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/genetics-of-african-populations-in-health-and-disease/sociobiological-transition-and-cancer/E4FE8995823F33510961E6FDF1293F38 |language=en}}</ref> 

The discipline seeks to explain behavior as a product of natural selection. Behavior is therefore seen as an effort to preserve one's genes in the population. Inherent in sociobiological reasoning is the idea that certain genes or gene combinations that influence particular behavioral traits can be [[Heredity |inherited]] from generation to generation.<ref name=":0">{{cite journal |title=Rethinking The Theoretical Foundation of Sociobiology |last1=Wilson |first1=David Sloan  |last2=Wilson |first2=Edward O. |author1-link=David Sloan Wilson |author2-link=E. O. Wilson |journal=[[The Quarterly Review of Biology]] |year=2007 |volume=82 |issue=4 |pages=327–348 |doi=10.1086/522809 |pmid=18217526 |s2cid=37774648 }}</ref>

For example, newly dominant male lions often kill cubs in the pride that they did not sire. This [[adaptive behavior |behavior is adaptive]] because killing the cubs eliminates [[competition (biology) |competition]] for their own offspring and causes the nursing females to come into heat faster, thus allowing more of his genes to enter into the population. Sociobiologists would view this instinctual cub-killing behavior as being inherited through the genes of successfully reproducing male lions, whereas non-killing behavior may have died out as those lions were less successful in reproducing.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Packer |first1=Craig |last2=Pusey |first2=Anne E. |title=Adaptations of Female Lions to Infanticide by Incoming Males |journal=[[The American Naturalist]] |date=1983 |volume=121 |issue=5 |pages=716–728 |url=https://www.cbs.umn.edu/sites/cbs.umn.edu/files/public/downloads/Adaptations_of_female_lions_to_infanticide.pdf |doi=10.1086/284097 |bibcode=1983ANat..121..716P |s2cid=84927815 |archive-date=2015-12-29 |access-date=2017-04-03 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151229213243/http://cbs.umn.edu/sites/cbs.umn.edu/files/public/downloads/Adaptations_of_female_lions_to_infanticide.pdf |url-status=dead }}</ref>