Society versus the individual in animal evolution

Abstract

We were taught in our earliest childhood that we ought to respect the rights and feelings of others. By the same token, the oldest code of human morals that has come down to us, the Ten Commandments of Moses, is chiefly concerned with obligations that are to be observed between people. Only the first three commandments relate to something different, enjoining reverence for the deity. The last seven all have to do with proper relationships between individuals in society; keeping holy the sabbath day the same as everybody else, honouring one’s father and mother, doing no murder, not committing adultery, not stealing nor bearing false witness nor coveting one’s neighbour’s possessions. To make the rules simple, Moses picked out a few particular obligations for mention, and many others, scarcely less important, are covered by the broader social virtues of being generous, temperate, just, honest, dutiful and brave.

Vero Copner Wynne-Edwards was born in Leeds on 4 July 1906. He studied zoology at Oxford, and in 1930 became Assistant Professor of Zoology to McGill University, Montreal. In 1946 he returned to Britain to become Regius Professor of Natural History at Aberdeen University. His main research field has been ecologically significant behaviour, especially in birds. His book Animal Dispersion in relation to Social Behaviour (1962) outlined an hypothesis of population homeostasis, that is, of populations that have become self-adjusting, through social and endocrine mechanisms; their controls have evolved to impose restraints on individuals for the common good, and above all for safeguarding the habitat from over-exploitation.