Wilson popularized the term "sociobiology" as an attempt to explain the evolutionary mechanics behind social behaviour such as altruism, aggression, and the nurturing of the young.

It received a much more mixed reaction among sociologists, mainly triggered by the brief coverage of the implications of sociobiology for human society in the first and last chapters of the book; the body of the text was largely welcomed.

Other sociologists objected in particular to the final chapter, on "Man": Devra G. Kleiman called Wilson's attempt to extend his thesis to humans weak and premature, and noted that he had largely overlooked the importance of co-operative behaviour and females in mammalian societies.

The paper noted that Wilson had nowhere actually said that human behaviour was totally determined by genes, and reported him as saying that a rough figure was 10 percent genetic.

She wrote that Wilson had "assumed god-like powers with this book", attempting to reformulate the foundations of the social sciences, making ethology and comparative psychology obsolete, and restructuring behavioural biology.

[9] David Barash, a psychologist, thought it "about time" students of behaviour were finally becoming Darwinian, starting to turn the "ramshackle" science into something with firmer intellectual foundations.

She called it an "impressive tome (it weighs 5 lb)" and "a comprehensive, beautifully laid out and illustrated reference book covering the amazing variety of animal social behaviour".

"[18] Marion Blute, in Contemporary Sociology, noted that it was rare for any book to be reviewed on the front page of the New York Times, or to receive "the extremes of reaction" seen for Sociobiology.

She observed, citing Dobzhansky, that "an evolutionary minded sociology which really appreciated the significance of sociocultural transmission along nongenetic lines would likely see society and culture in a very different way".

Despite Wilson's neglect of "epigenetic" and social sciences, she urged sociologists to read "this exceptionally fine book", noting that despite its length it should have been twice as long.

She looked forward to seeing sociology coming to terms with the neo-Darwinian synthesis, something that was already under way, which (she argued) would enrich social theory, a much better result than the alternative possibility, a renewed waste of time on the nature-versus-nurture debate.

Comparison with other species would be productive, as nonhuman societies often had traditions handed down from one generation to the next, such as "the flyways of migratory birds or dietary patterns among primates".

The first chapter could sound, he argued, like "intellectual imperialism" as Wilson called sociology "an essentially nontheoretical, descriptive science, not unlike taxonomy and ecology forty years ago, before they were 'reshaped entirely ... [by] neo-Darwinian evolutionary theory'".

But he found the chapter on Man disappointing: it was trite, value-loaded, or wrong; used data uncritically, and seemed to be based on "Gerhard and Jean Lenski's introductory textbook".

But "Wilson's ultimate sin" was to include the final chapter, "unfortunately titled 'Man'", attracting "the wrath of those who would deny the influence of biology on human behavior because of its political and social connotations."

She called this a pity, since while his attempt to include humans in his analysis was "admittedly weak and premature", the general principles were correct – for instance, she argued, it was useful to know the genetic relatedness of individuals when assessing social interactions.

By emphasizing the relationships between animal behavior and population genetics, Wilson compels us to recognize the evolutionary significance of events which social scientists often treat without reference to Darwinian biology."

But there was "a large gap" between that and the work of most political scientists, and it was too early to attempt to apply sociobiology directly to human social issues in practice.

He concluded that the book was fascinating, provocative, and the start of a return to the tradition "as old as Aristotle" where man is seen as "a 'political animal'", since social behaviour had natural origins.

[26][27] They argued that it would be used, as similar ideas had been in the past, to justify the status quo, entrench ruling elites, and legitimize authoritarian political programmes.

Objections were raised to many of the ethnocentric assumptions of early sociobiology (like ignoring female gatherers in favour of male hunters in hunter-gatherer societies[29]) and to the sampling and mathematical methods used in informing conclusions.

Sociobiologists were accused of being "super" adaptationists, or panadaptationist, believing that every aspect of morphology and behaviour must necessarily be an evolutionarily beneficial adaptation.

Describing the controversy, Eric Holtzmans noted that "Given the baleful history of misuse of biology in justifying or designing social policies and practices, authors who attempt to consider human sociobiology have special responsibilities that are not adequately discharged by the usual academic caveats.

[36] With the publication of the 25th anniversary edition in 2000, the historians of biology Michael Yudell and Rob Desalle reviewed the nature-nurture controversy around the book.

Wilson's choice of title echoed the modern synthesis (named by Huxley in 1942) and, the reviewers argued, meant to build upon and extend it.

The early chapters still seemed a "lucid and engaging" introduction to population biology, but much of the rest seemed after 25 years to lack "methodological breadth", given that it did not cover the new fields that had emerged; while barely mentioning the growing importance of phylogenetic systematics seemed "curious".

[38] Looking back at Sociobiology 35 years later, the philosopher of biology Michael Ruse called the book "a pretty remarkable achievement" of huge scope, "firmly in the Darwinian paradigm of evolution through natural selection".