Why Groups Matter to Sociocultural Evolution

Evolutionary concepts have a rich history in sociological theory, from Spencer to Durkheim, Marx to Weber. Recently, a neo-evolutionary revival has occurred in the social sciences, (1) bringing neuroscience into dialogue with age old sociological questions of origins; (2) considering the gene-culture relationship; and (3) constructing sweeping general theories of sociocultural evolution. Generally, the role collective actors play in the evolutionary process is taken for granted, as is the contingent, multi-directional, and multi-linear paths evolution takes when we focus on specific cases. The paper below examines the evolution of the ancient Israelites from the 8th–6th centuriesbce, teasing out a theory that supplements these other important areas. Specifically, it is argued that (a) institutional entrepreneurs are the collectives thatdrivesociocultural selection processes by innovating organizationally, normatively, and symbolically; (b) their cultural assemblages are sources of variation upon which sociocultural forms of selection, likeSpencerianorMarxian, can work; and, (c) institutional spheres evolve and become “survivor machines” for the entrepreneur’s assemblage, imposing it on a significant proportion of the population and reproducing it across time and space.

Heritable Variation and Competitive Selection as the Mechanism of Sociocultural Evolution

This chapter examines how heritable variation and competitive selection promote sociocultural evolution, based on the application of Charles Darwin's ‘descent with modification’ to human behaviour. It first considers the extent to which sociocultural selection can be reduced to natural selection before explaining how cultural and natural selection, despite being different evolutionary forces, act simultaneously on human populations and their social behaviour. It then cites the practice of venality in France between 1467 and 1789 as a clear case of replication through social rather than cultural selection.