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The article by Will Hively entitled Family man discusses family-oriented behavior of birds (the species is called bee-eaters) and applies these patterns to human society. One of the aspects of bee-eaters behavior which surprised the scientist Emlen was their great motivation for helping the other members of their community, e.g. with setting new nests and raising and feeding smaller individuals (Hively, p.29). The scientific observations of the researchers suggested that all the bird involved into the network of mutual help and support were relatives, parents and children, uncles, aunts, cousins and nephews, brothers and sisters and so forth. Therefore, the initial idea of altruism that challenged the popular theory of the selfish gene was rebutted, as helping others on the basis of kinship means ensuring the survival of ones own genes at 50-percent, 25-percent or other level, depending on the closeness of the kinship. Interestingly, bee-eaters are monogamous tend to create stable families for the whole life. As the study suggests, when certain individuals form their offspring tried to establish their own nests with a mate, the whole family, from parents to cousins, interfere with the life of the young couple and in order to increase the probability of the failure of this nest so that the youngsters return to their parents or other relatives and continue helping them. Moreover, the relationships between different families are quite strained, and pairing with the individuals from other families is not welcomed. All these natural mechanisms show that the major goal of an activity of a living being in this world is preservation of the individuals genes, which is more effective in families. This principle applies to human beings, as before the 20th century, extended families were common due to the uneven distribution of resources among individuals. Nowadays, a human being is much more independent, but it is hard to break natural laws: for instance, in the families of both birds and humans where a remarriage takes place, there is less evidence of helping among half-brothers and half-sisters.
The most interesting point of the article is the simple and well-supported explanation of the functioning of the selfish gene and the related drives. In fact, before reading this paper, I had believed the main cause of the formation of families was the scarcity of resources and difficulties with getting them (e.g., hunting, fishing), whereas the presence of hunters, gatherers and housekeepers increased life expectancy of the individual. This article also demonstrates that the existence of similar genes in family members can be viewed as an additional natural pillar of the family union , as long as it guarantees the appropriate protection of this genetic potential. I was also surprised to learn that the social behavior of birds is extremely complicated and they actually follow the principles like monogamy, value of an extended family and the importance of pairing with peers from the same territory, which are commonly attributed to the traditional society. Therefore, the evolution of physical protection mechanisms in humans took much longer time than it seemed to me first.
In the context of physical anthropology, the article provides a research-based explanation of family as a union of individuals and extended family in particular. The paper is also instrumental in understanding the social change associated with industrialization, which actually facilitated the process of earning ones living and thus removed a need for a large family. Later, this change in the resources allocation determined the spread of single-parent families, remarriages and stepfamilies. Due to the calling of the selfish gene, children from the dissolved marriage leave their newly remarried mother or father quite early, as it is more effective from the perspective of gene survival to create their own families instead of helping with rearing half-brothers and half-sisters. At the same time, the rates of violence perpetuated by stepparents against their stepchildren is much higher as compared to the same indicator in the relationships between biological parents and children, which means that the stepparent is also more interested in the spread and strengthening of his/her own genes that the protection of genes which belong to other individuals. If a stepparent has a sexually mature stepchild of the opposite gender, the former is likely to encounter a tension or competition between his/her spouse and the child, due to the fact that the stepchild does not recognize the stepparent as a parent, but rather as a new sexual object.
The strongest point of the article is the scientific explanation and evaluation of the data derived from the observations. Moreover, the author uses reasonable and relevant generalizations in order to show the relationship between animal behavior and more universal natural laws like gene survival. The article is available even to a non-expert , due to the fact that it addresses even such simple biological constructs as the nature of gene and the methods of identifying relatives used by animals. The report also build a logical bridge from animal behavior to the human by comparing the patterns of the two species listing all the similarities between the traditional human family and those of the birds. However, two findings presented in the paper seem to certain extent ambiguous. Firstly, the author describes Romeo and Juliet , found among bee-eaters, i.e. young couple of birds who originated from different families. Although the case is interesting and intriguing, the author fails to fully clarify the biological drives which regulate hostility towards the members of other families, and the reader may only suppose that individuals with a different set of genes are not so easily accepted to the other family. In addition, the article does not include a comprehensive explanation of the sexual ideation which appears in stepchildren in relation to their stepparents of the opposite sex.
Works cited
Hively, W. Family Man . Discover magazine, October 1997, pp.80-84, 89-90.
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