A BOUQUET OF ALTRUISMS: PSEUDO-DEDUCTIVISM AND THE SALVAGING OF AN IDEA

Attempts to reconcile instances of apparently altruistic behavior with the basic premises of sociobiology have involved serious problems. The equation of a broad range of human and non-human behavior has entailed serious oversimplification and distortion of the data. It is argued here that the range of phenomena that some writers have categorized as "altruism" constitute a variety of behaviors which are not necessarily comparable or reducible to a single-cause explanation. Three ethnographic cases of behavior which might be considered to be altruistic are presented here, and alternative, non biological approaches to analysis are suggested. It is argued that sociobiological attempts to treat altruistic behavior as a monolithic phenomenon in order to incorporate it into a general model of inclusive fitness amounts to pseudo-deductivism, since it entails a distortion of data to fit the model. Justification for assertions of genetic causation in human behavior is questioned.