{"id":24753,"date":"2019-10-26T12:42:35","date_gmt":"2019-10-26T16:42:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/?p=24753"},"modified":"2019-10-27T01:23:29","modified_gmt":"2019-10-27T05:23:29","slug":"female-infanticide-disproves-sociobiology","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2019\/10\/26\/female-infanticide-disproves-sociobiology\/","title":{"rendered":"Female infanticide disproves sociobiology?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Sociobiology\">Wikipedia<\/a> says &#8220;Sociobiology is a field of biology that aims to examine and explain social behavior in terms of evolution.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>One of the things that we learned about on our Northwest Passage cruise was the historical practice of <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Female_infanticide\">female infanticide<\/a> among Eskimos\/Inuits. When food got scarce, female infants were at risk. The explanation given in museums and by guides was that boys would grow up into adult male hunters who could take care of their elderly parents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>From <a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/35RnLRQ\">The North West Passage Exploration Anthology<\/a> (a report from <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/John_Franklin\">John Franklin<\/a> from his 1825 trip): <\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p>The difficulty of procuring nourishment frequently induces the women of this tribe to destroy their female children. Two pregnant women of the party then at the fort, made known their intention of acting on this inhuman custom, though Mr. Dease threatened them with our heaviest displeasure if they put it into execution: we learned that, after they left us, one actually did destroy her child; the infant of the other woman proved to be a boy.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>If the goal of an animal is propagating his\/her\/zir genes, this does not seem to make sense. A typical human female reproduces, thus passing on her parents&#8217; genes. A typical human male has no offspring (polygamy is the natural human state, it seems; see &#8220;The era of monogamous long-term marriage was a brief interruption&#8221; within <em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.realworlddivorce.com\/Summary\">Real World Divorce<\/a><\/em>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The period of life in which the son will be potentially useful won&#8217;t likely start until after the parents are beyond reproductive age (and therefore whether they live or die has minimal effect on their reproductive success).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Readers: Is the existence of female infanticide across a range of cultures a simple proof that sociobiology is wrong?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Wikipedia says &#8220;Sociobiology is a field of biology that aims to examine and explain social behavior in terms of evolution.&#8221; One of the things that we learned about [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[29,18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24753","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-human-nature","category-science"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Female infanticide disproves sociobiology? - Philip Greenspun\u2019s Weblog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2019\/10\/26\/female-infanticide-disproves-sociobiology\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Female infanticide disproves sociobiology? - Philip Greenspun\u2019s Weblog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Wikipedia says &#8220;Sociobiology is a field of biology that aims to examine and explain social behavior in terms of evolution.&#8221; One of the things that we learned about [&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2019\/10\/26\/female-infanticide-disproves-sociobiology\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Philip Greenspun\u2019s Weblog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2019-10-26T16:42:35+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2019-10-27T05:23:29+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"philg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"philg\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2019\/10\/26\/female-infanticide-disproves-sociobiology\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2019\/10\/26\/female-infanticide-disproves-sociobiology\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"philg\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/448e4e6a0ae9105741a06dcf62cee50e\"},\"headline\":\"Female infanticide disproves sociobiology?\",\"datePublished\":\"2019-10-26T16:42:35+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2019-10-27T05:23:29+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2019\/10\/26\/female-infanticide-disproves-sociobiology\/\"},\"wordCount\":289,\"commentCount\":4,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/448e4e6a0ae9105741a06dcf62cee50e\"},\"articleSection\":[\"Human nature\",\"Science\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2019\/10\/26\/female-infanticide-disproves-sociobiology\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2019\/10\/26\/female-infanticide-disproves-sociobiology\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2019\/10\/26\/female-infanticide-disproves-sociobiology\/\",\"name\":\"Female infanticide disproves sociobiology? 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