Trivers, Robert L.

Trivers, Robert L. (1943–  ) sociobiologist; born in Washington, D.C. He was a consultant and research writer at the Education Development Center, Cambridge, Mass. (1965–72) before joining the faculty of Harvard (1971–78). A person of flamboyant temperament, who, while Caucasian, has identified with blacks since childhood, he espoused black culture, joined the Black Panthers in 1979, and contrasted the "effeteness" of Harvard with the more "real" life of Jamaica. After being denied tenure at Harvard, he moved to the University of California: Santa Cruz (1978). He defended the controversial theory that human behavioral traits (e.g., mate selection and altruism) are genetically determined, and he made significant contributions to studies of "selfish" genes, blood parasites and sexual selection in Jamaican lizards, biology and the law, and studies of symmetry in humans and other animals.