Human behavioral ecology--necessary but not sufficient for the evolutionary analysis of human behavior

Abstract

This is a timely review of human behavioral ecology (HBE), emphasizing its strength in providing conceptual coherence to a variety of fields within the social sciences—particularly economics, political science, demography, and anthropology. The breadth of venues where this work is now published, together with the increasing disciplinary range of our collaborators, suggests that a behavioral ecological framework for the social sciences has appeal way beyond the narrow anthropological clique where it first found its home. I strongly agree with the authors’ conclusion that our field provides a threshold for fruitful integration of the natural and social sciences, much as Wilson (1998) was calling for with his appeal for consilience. I have 3 comments. The first is that the heavy reliance on HBE east of the North Atlantic will no doubt upset some very prominent players in the United States who have made major contributions to the field, particularly those using rich archaeological sources. The second is that although the authors are right in pointing out that HBE is increasingly applied to survey data from industrialized societies, they underemphasize the critical contributions to HBE from behavioral and demographic studies of small-scale societies where elements of traditional behavior can still, to some extent, be related directly to reproductive, health, and economic outcomes. Given the intense political and economic pressures on these populations to “modernize,” researchers should prioritize studying