Frozen Evolution. Or, that’s not the way it is, Mr. Darwin. A Farewell to Selfish Gene.

The behavior of organisms very soon became a subject of interest for evolutionary biologists. Ethology itself became concerned with studying patterns of behavior and how they became fixed (i.e. through natural selection) during evolution. Soon, patterns of behavior controlling the relationship between individuals within a social group came to the forefront of the interest of evolutionary biologists. It was found that knowledge of the mechanisms of evolution allow successful prediction of which patterns of behavior have a chance of becoming fixed in a particular species and which would, on the other hand, disappear, even though their fixation might be advantageous for a social group or species. Study of these patterns of behavior and the mechanisms of their evolutionary formation has become the subject of sociobiology. The author of the book “Sociobiology: The new synthesis” (Wilson 1975b), Edward Osborne Wilson (*1929), is mostly considered to be the most important author in this field.