Legislative Decision-Making and Same-Sex Marriage

This chapter will focus on the debate over same-sex marriage. This unprecedented societal evolution began in 1990, when three same-sex couples applied for marriage licenses from the state of Hawaii. They were refused and challenged the state's decision. Although the battle in Hawaii began in court, it ended in the state legislature, spreading from there rapidly across the nation. Legislators responded to the promotion of same-sex marriage by sponsoring and passing bills claiming it contravened their faith-based principles.

Human self-selection as a mechanism of human societal evolution: A critique of the cultural selection argument

Natural selection is the main mechanism that drives the evolution of species, including human societies. Under natural selection, human species responds through genetic and cultural adaptations to internal and external selection pressures for survival and reproductive success. However, this theory is ineffective in explaining human societal evolution in the Holocene and a cultural selection argument has been made to remedy the theory. The present article provides a critique of the cultural selection argument and proposes an alternative conception that treats human self-selection as an emergent mechanism of human societal evolution characterized by a new type of selection pressure and a separate fitness criterion. Specifically, the evolution of human societies is divided into two major periods, each driven by a different mode of selection: natural selection acting on genes and cultures for survival and reproductive success prior to the Neolithic Revolution, and human self-selection acting on cultures – and potentially genes as well – for thrival and prosperous living after the Neolithic Revolution. The conditions for the transition from the first mode of selection to the second and the implications of this transition for social research are also discussed.

Socio-Ecological Literacy

In this chapter, the authors, dealing with an uncertain and complex context, defend that socio-ecological literacy is crucial for societal evolution since it contributes to changes in attitudes and behaviors, and, as a consequence, it promotes society transformation. This can be accomplished through Social Labs (SL), carefully designed and professionally facilitated, promoting genuine dialogue. These SL end up operating as privileged learning spaces contributing to socio-ecological literacy citizenship. Through evaluative interviews of the stakeholders involved in the SL created within the MARGov Project, the authors show how the SL created were able to bring to the table angry stakeholders and turn a negative discourse into a positive one, engaging the community in search of joint solutions. As reported by the participants, knowledge was expanded and new knowledge was built during the sessions showing that the multiplicity of learnings does contribute to the promotion of a more resilient and sustainable community, while increasing the socio-ecological literacy of the ones engaged.

What we can learn from semiotics, systems theory, and theoretical biology to understand religious communication

If religion is a socio-cultural meaning system as part of the socio-cultural sphere, then how does it relate to mental, organic, and physical processes that belong to the environment of religion? The article contributes to answering this question by referring to semiotics, systems theory, and theoretical biology. The starting point is understanding religious evolution as a co-evolution to societal evolution, namely, as one of the latter’s internal differentiations. In turn, societal evolution is a co-evolution to mental, organic, and physical evolution. These evolutionary spheres mutually constitute one another’s environments. The eigenstate of the socio-cultural sphere consists of language activated via communication. Language is the replicator of socio-cultural processes corresponding to the function of the genome in organic processes. The differentiation of spheres in general evolution concerns respective organic, mental, and socio-cultural substrates, while the substrate-neutral structure of the two evolutionary dimensions of organic and societal processes, including religion, is revealed as semiotic patterns that organic and societal processes have in common. Organic and religious processes of generating information are isomorphic. Thus, semiosis mediates between religious communication and its environment.

The deep origins of society: An assessment of E.O. Wilson’s Genesis

E.O. Wilson’s Genesis: The Deep Origins of Societies is one of a series of short books where the author has tried to explain human societies using ideas and concepts from biology. While Wilson is to be lauded for his recent efforts to reintroduce the notions of group selection and multilevel selection, he still sustains an emphasis on only Darwinian selection and reveals a bias toward seeing selection for groups as a result of selection on individuals (as is the case for insects), perhaps entangled with selection on groups. The effort to conceive of human societies as an example of eusocieties of social insects ignores most of the sociological works on human and societal evolution; and as a result, the book is not convincing in its argument. Despite the pleasant writing style, Wilson and other biologists writing about human societies need to engage the almost 200 years of sociological work devoted to understanding the evolution of human societies.

Theory and Empiricism of Religious Evolution (THERE): Foundation of a Research Program (Part 2)

This two-part article presents the research program for a theory and empirical analysis of religious evolution. It is assumed that religion is primarily a co-evolution to societal evolution, which in turn is a co-evolution to mental, organic, and physical evolution. The theory of evolution is triangulated with the systems theory and the semiotically informed theory of communication, so that knowledge can be gained that would not be acquired by only one of the three theories: The differentiation between religion and its environment can be reconstructed based on the theory of evolution. The elements of the theory of evolution can be understood as the formation of systems. The semiotically informed theory of communication clarifies the conditions of the combination of both the systems theory and the theory of evolution as well as its objects. In turn, the combination of the systems theory and the theory of evolution can describe how communication—including religion and science—evolves and is structured.