Darwinian Sociocultural Evolution

Social scientists can learn a lot from evolutionary biology - from systematics and principles of evolutionary ecology to theories of social interaction including competition conflict and cooperation as well as niche construction complexity eco-evo-devo and the role of the individual in evolutionary processes. Darwinian sociocultural evolutionary theory applies the logic of Darwinism to social-learning based cultural and social change. With a multidisciplinary approach for graduate biologists philosophers sociologists anthropologists social psychologists archaeologists linguists economists political scientists and science and technology specialists the author presents this model of evolution drawing on a number of sophisticated aspects of biological evolutionary theory. The approach brings together a broad and inclusive theoretical framework for understanding the social sciences which addresses many of the dilemmas at their forefront - the relationship between history and necessity conflict and cooperation the ideal and the material and the problems of agency subjectivity and the nature of social structure.