Sociobiology

Will Wilkinson and I are having a fun exchange over biological explanations for the persistence of religion on the comment board of his blog entry on Christopher Hitchens.

I'm often unimpressed with sociobiological explanations of various aspects of human life. Religion is no exception. And I honestly don't understand why so many people, including Objectivists, are favorably impressed with sociobiology. Too much of the field has all the markings of pseudo-science: pathetically flimsy evidence, inability to falsify hypotheses, confusion of plausibility with proof, failure to address counter-examples, and dismissal of the possibility of cultural and psychological explanations. I'm sure that some sociobiologists are real scientists using good methodology, but such distinctions are rarely made.

So tell me, why is sociobiology so attractive?