Week 3 Post 4

"To illustrate the difference between proximate and ultimate explanations, using a non-social behavior, consider the fact that there is a strong disposition among many people to prefer sweet foods. We say that sugar tastes sweet, because we have taste receptors for sweetness and this reinforces the behavior (a proximate explanation). However, we say that we seek foods that trigger our taste receptors, because our ancestors maximized their fitness by eating sweet fruits (an ultimate explanation). As a result, we are easy targets for fast food chains, which offer us foods with lots of sugar, salt, and fat—all of which were in short supply in ancestral environments, and so we inherited our ancestor's predispositions to eat them when available. Sociobiology aims to explain the function of behavior, not its proximate causes. The assumption is that many behaviors function to enhance reproductive success in the set of environments in which they evolved. To avoid being overly simplistic or unfalsifiable, sociobiological explanations must describe the explanandum precisely and connect its functional role to plausible evolutionary histories."

I was incredibly intrigued by the sociobiology reading. I think that this is a very interesting way to look at certain traits. Previous to reading this article, I knew that certain things were selected for as far as behavior was concerned, but it seems to me that sociobiologists would consider most if not all traits to some how be related to natural selection.

I was especially interested in the explanation that I copied and pasted above. I relate it to obesity in America. What I don't like about this paragraph and the example that was chosen, is that it almost defends obesity in America. If you read this statement it says that because America has the availability of more fatty foods, biologically we want to consume them. Therefore, this biologically explains the obesity problem in America.