Re: Patriarchy: Re: What Matriarchy?

Bryant (mycol1@unm.edu)
14 Aug 1996 22:44:52 -0600

In article <321006EF.10F1@megafauna.com>,
Stephen Barnard <steve@megafauna.com> wrote:
>
>"As a general rule today a biologist seeing one animal doing something
>to benefit another assumes either that it is manipulated by the other
>individual or that it is being subtly selfish."
> George Williams

Nice to see an evolutionary biologist besides Gould mentioned in these
parts. Williams has contributed so much more to the field, and yet most
of the reading public doesn't know him from Adam, so to speak.

I'm not sure where ethnologists are, currently, on the issue of altruism,
but biologists recognize a number of types: accidental or manipulated,
display, reciprocal, kin selected...

Usually, social scientists get confused (not entirely their own fault;
different fields' lingos are no always compatable)...and think that
sociobiologists are arguing that altruists are consciously calculating their
fitness benefits.

> Steve Barnard

Bryant