Trivers, Robert L (1943– )

US sociobiologist. He defended the controversial theory that human behavioural 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. Trivers was a person of flamboyant temperament, who, while Caucasian, had identified with blacks since childhood and espoused black culture.

Trivers was born in Washington, DC. He was a consultant and research writer at the Education Development Center, Cambridge, Massachusetts (1965–72) before joining the faculty of Harvard (1971–78). He 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).