Comment on "A third explanation for female infanticide".

Abstract

When I wrote this paper (Hawkes, 1981) I saw recent developments in evolutionary biology as a source of models and insights which applied to the investigation of form and variation in culture, but only after modification. This modification seemed essential since "culture" has characteristics which distinguish it from "biology." That division, culture vs. biology, now seems more confusing than clarifying for many issues. At least it may be premature, and prevent taking full advantage of a view of behavior which has proven so powerfully clarifying in behavioral ecology. [Alexander's treatment of this (1979a, 1979b) is very instructive.] For example, developments in sex allocation theory (reviewed in Charnov et al., 1981) show the remarkable variety of behaviors produced by the "same genes," e.g., facultative sex ratios as a response to variable environments, which can be accounted for by simple models based on natural selection. Recent research using optimal foraging theory (e.g., O'Connell and Hawkes, in press, Hawkes and Hill 1980) suggests that the anthropological gains from the literal application of "biological models" may be sizable. From the theory that a culture is the cumulative result of the inclusive fitness-maximizing behaviors of all its past and present participants flows a vast array of interesting and testable hypotheses. Careful exploration of these, like Dickemann's, will tell us novel and interesting things about culture even when particular hypotheses fail empirical test. As Dickemann