in the blood

the unit of selection is the gene
that fails or prospers within its context
the organism's merely a machine
for propagation through courtship and sex
so altruism gives theorists fits
when it transgresses consanguinity
biologists engage in wars of wits 
that strain their Ivy League civility
but larger structures can't be wholly hype
societies evolve by their own rules
a Social Science epiphenotype
a fourth-hand consequence of the gene pools
the Nature vs. Nurture fight's recast
but just as unresolved as in the past