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understood that kinship is the primary explanandum of any social
science. Hence for Sahlins they qualify at least for taking part in the
discussion; he finds that " the issue between sociobiology and social
anthropology is decisively joined on the field of kinship."
It
would
follow, therefore, that if, in view of the admitted central importance of
kinship for human behavior, actual kinship relations do not turn out
to be ordered in accord with the predictions of kin selection, then the
project of scientific sociobiology collapses. And-this is Sahlins'
second important claim-the ethnological record shows "that there is
not a single system of marriage, postmarital residence, family organiza–
tion, interpersonal kinship, or common descent in human societies
that does not set up a different calculus of relationship and social
action than [sic] is indicated by the principles of kin relation ." In
support of this claim, Sahlins cites data from New Guinea, from the
Sudan, and from the Nesias-Micro, Mela and Poly. These data show
that, contrary to the demands of kin selection, under the kinship
conventions of these societies not all of the closest biological relatives
render each other mutual aid, i. e., are considered as kin .
Suppose we accept Sahlins' empirical data; does it really follow
that scientific sociobiology collapses? No, because the mere fact that
extant kinship relations do not match exactly those predicted from kin
selection theory m::ly mean si mpl y that additional, complicating
factors are at work (i.e., that the theory is merely approximate), a
conclusion which, I am sure, most scientific sociobiologists would
accept. Moreover, in all the examples (except one) adduced by Sahlins,
on the whole, a person is biologically related much more closely to
culturally defined kinsmen than to what passes for non-kin within his
social horizon . H ence the role of kin selection in kinship convention
seems more confirmed than refuted. To make the sociobiological
proj ect really collapse, Sahlins would have to produce a counter-theory
of kinship whose predictions are better met quantitatively than those of
the kin selection theory. In the absence of offering any counter-theory,
Sahlins' rejection of scientific sociobiology on the basis of his kinship
data is quite unjustifi ed.
After having supposedly demolished the sociobiological approach
to human behavior, Sahlins moves on to a general consideration of the
current conceptual status of evolutionary theory. According
to
him,
" the Darwinian concept of natural selection has suffered a serious
ideologi cal derailment in recent years," a disaster to which sociobiol–
ogy made a primary contri bution. How has evolutionary theory been
derail ed? Here Sahlins makes his third important claim: evolutionary
theory has been corrupted by th e identifica tion of natural selection
