Sociocultural evolutionism: An untried theory

Abstract

Sociocultural evolutionism has never been an evolutionary theory in the sense in which that model is employed in the life sciences; it sought natural sequential laws of history or employed an analogy with a developing organism rather than with phylogenetic change. Biology, on the other hand, in embracing polythetic or cluster as opposed to Aristotelian classification, implicitly abandoned this approach only to recover it in theoretical population genetics. Biology today remains a bifurcated science with lawful change occurring within gene pools & abrupt, historically specific transitions occurring between them. This example is instructive for the social sciences; a truly evolutionary model contains solutions to the diffusionist, Boasian, functionalist, & conflict critiques of classical sociocultural evolutionism. Various kinds of evidence which would be relevant for the verification of such a theory are discussed. Biology may be important for the social sciences not because of the reductionist hopes of sociobiology proper but because of the example it provides in how to describe & theorize about historical process. HA.