After a brief review of some aspects of current evolutionary theory which bear on the explanation of human social behaviour, the question is raised whether a recognizably neo-Darwinian research programme could be designed for sociology on the basis that social change is seen as a process analogous but not reducible to natural selection. Some implications of such a programme are outlined and the strength of the objections likely to be raised against it assessed. In conclusion, the potential value of the paradigm is illustrated by reference to current debates about the incidence of lethal violence in human societies.
Bloch, M. 1961. Feudal Society, trans. Manyon. London: Routledge.
11.
Boehm, C.1993. `Egalitarian Behavior and Reverse Dominance Hierarchy'. Current Anthropology34:227-254.
12.
Boesch, C. 1996. `The Emergence of Cultures among Wild Chimpanzees', in W. G. Runciman, J. Maynard Smith and R. I. M. Dunbar (eds.), Evolution of Social Behaviour Patterns in Primates and Man. Oxford: British Academy/Oxford University Press.
13.
Boesch, C., Marchesi, P., Marchesi, N., Fruth, B. and Julian, F.1994. `Is Nut Cracking in Wild Chimpanzees a Culture Behavior?'Journal of Human Evolution26:325-338.
14.
Borgerhoff Mulder, M.1987. `Adaptation and Evolutionary Approaches to Anthropology'. Man (n.s.) 22:25-41.
15.
Boyd, R. and Richerson, P. J. 1985. Culture and the Evolutionary Process. Chicago: Chicago University Press.
16.
Boyd, R. and Richerson, P. J. 1992. `How Microevolutionary Processes Give Rise to History', in M. H. and D. V. Nitecki (eds.), History and Evolution. Albany: State University of New York Press.
17.
Boyer, P. 1996. The Naturalness of Religious Ideas: A Cognitive Theory of Religion. Berkeley: University of California Press.
18.
Brown, D. E. 1991. Human Universals. New York: McGraw-Hill.
19.
Burkert, W. 1996. Creation of the Sacred: Tracks of Biology in Early Religions. Cambridge, Mass.:Harvard University Press.
20.
Carling, A.1993. `Analytical Marxism and Historical Materialism: The Debate on Social Evolution'. Science & Society57:31-65.
21.
Carr-Saunders, A. M. 1922. The Population Problem: A Study in Human Evolution. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
22.
Cavalli-Sforza, L. L. and Feldman, M. W. 1981. Cultural Transmission and Evolution: A Quantitative Approach. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
23.
Chagnon, N. A. 1996. `Chronic Problems in Understanding Tribal Violence and Warfare'. Ciba Foundation Symposium 124. Chichester: Wiley.
24.
Cohen, L. E. and Machalek, R.1988. `A General Theory of Expropriative Crime: An Evolutionary Ecological Approach'. American Journal of Sociology94:465-501.
25.
Cohen, L. E. and Machalek, R.1994. `The Normalcy of Crime: From Durkheim to Evolutionary Ecology'. Rationality and Society6:286-308.
26.
Cosmides, L. and Tooby, J. 1992. `Cognitive Adaptations for Social Exchange', in J. H. Barkow, L. Cosmides, and J. Tooby (eds.), The Adapted Mind: Evolutionary Psychology and the Generation of Culture. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
27.
Cronin, H. 1991. The Ant and the Peacock: Altruism and Sexual Selection from Darwin to Today. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
28.
Cronk, L.1989. `Low Socioeconomic Status and Female-Biased Parental Investment: The Mukogodo Example'American Anthropologist91:414-429.
29.
Dahrendorf, R. 1968. Essays in the Theory of Society. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press.
30.
Daly, M. and Wilson, M. 1988. Homicide. New York: Aldine de Gruyter.
31.
Dawkins, R. 1976. The Selfish Gene. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
32.
Dawkins, R. 1982. The Extended Phenotype. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
33.
Deichmann, U. 1996. Biologists under Hitler. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
34.
Dennett, D. C. 1995. Darwin's Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life. London: Allen Lane.
35.
Dentan, R. K. 1979. The Semai: A Nonviolent People of Malaysia, 2nd edn.New York: Reinhart and Winston.
36.
Descola, P. 1996. The Spears of Twilight: Life and Death in the Amazon Jungle, trans. Lloyd. London: HarperCollins.
37.
Durham, W. 1991. Coevolution: Genes, Culture, and Human Diversity. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press.
38.
Ekman, P. 1973. `Cross-cultural Studies of Facial Expression', in P. Ekman (ed.), Darwin and Facial Expression: A Century of Research in Review. New York: Academic Press.
39.
Erdal, D. and Whiten, A.1994. `On Human Egalitarianism: An Evolutionary Product of Machiavellian Status Escalation?'Current Anthropology35:175-183.
40.
Fillieule, T.1996. `Frames, Inferences and Rationality: Some Light on the Controversies about Rationality'. Rationality and Society8, 151-165.
41.
Fisher, R.A. 1930. The Genetical Theory of Natural Selection. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
42.
Foley, R. 1995. Humans before Humanity. Oxford: Blackwell.
43.
Friedman, J. and Rowlands, M. J. (eds.) 1977. The Evolution of Social Systems. London: Duckworth.
44.
Ginsberg, M. 1961. Essays in Sociology and Social Philosophy III: Evolution and Progress. London: Heinemann.
45.
Gould, S. J. and Lewontin, R. C.1979. `The Spandrels of San Marco and the Panglossian Paradigm: A Critique of the Adaptationist Programme'. Proceedings of the Royal Society, Series B, no. 205:281-288.
46.
Hallpike, C. R. 1988. The Principles of Social Evolution. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
47.
Hamilton, W. D.1964. `The Genetical Evolution of Social Behavior'. Journal of Theoretical Biology7:1-16, 17-52.
48.
Hammond, E. A. and Howell, N.1987. `Research in Population and Culture: An Evolutionary Framework'. Current Anthropology28:141-160.
49.
Harris, M. 1971. Cultural Materialism: The Struggle for a Science of Culture. New York: Random House.
50.
Harrison, S.1989. `The Symbolic Construction of Aggression and War in a Sepik River Society'. Man (n.s.) 24:583-599.
51.
Hirshleifer, D. 1995. `The Blind Leading the Blind: Social Influence, Fads, and Informational Cascades', in M. Tommasi and K. Ierulli (eds.), The New Economics of Human Behaviour. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
52.
Hobhouse, L. T. 1906. Morals in Evolution, 2 vols. London: Chapman & Hall.
53.
Hopkins, K. 1983. Death and Renewal. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
54.
Ingold, T.1983. `The Architect and the Bee: Reflection on the Work of Animals and Men'. Man (n.s.) 18:1-20.
55.
Ingold, T.1990. `An Anthropologist Looks at Biology'. Man (n.s.) 25:208-229.
56.
Kahneman, D., Slovic, P. and Tversky A. (eds.) 1982. Judgement under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
57.
Keeley, L. H. 1996. War before Civilization: The Myth of the Peaceful Savage. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
58.
Kelly, R. C. 1993. Constructing Inequality: The Fabrication of a Hierarchy of Virtue among the Etoro. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
59.
Knauft, B.1987. `Reconsidering Violence in Simple Societies'. Current Anthropology28:457-500.
60.
Kuhn, T. S. 1962. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
61.
Le Vay, S. 1993. The Sexual Brain. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.
62.
Lorenz, K. 1966. On Aggression, trans. Latzke. London: Methuen.
63.
Lumsden, C. and Wilson, E. O. 1981. Genes, Mind and Culture. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
64.
Masterman, M. 1970. `The Nature of a Paradigm', in I. Lakatos and A. Musgrove (eds.), Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
65.
Maynard Smith, J. 1961 `Evolution and History', in M. Banton (ed.), Darwinism and the Study of Society. London: Tavistock.
66.
Maynard Smith, J.1974. `The Theory of Games and the Evolution of Animal Conflict'. Journal of Theoretical Biology47:209-221.
67.
Maynard Smith, J.1978. `Constraints on Human Nature'. Nature276:120.
68.
Maynard Smith, J. 1982. Evolution and the Theory of Games. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
69.
Nisbett, R. and Cohen, D. 1996. The Culture of Honor: The Psychology of Violence in the South. Boulder, Colo.: Westview.
70.
Nisbett, R. and Ross, L. 1980. Human Inference: Strategies and Shortcomings of Social Judgement. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
71.
Parsons, T. 1966. Societies. Evolutionary and Comparative Perspectives. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
72.
Peel, J. D. Y. 1971. Herbert Spencer. The Evolution of a SociologistLondon: Heinemann.
73.
Perrin, R. G. 1993. Herbert Spencer: A Primary and Secondary Bibliography, 2 vols. New York: Garland.
74.
Pinker, S. 1994. The Language Instinct. London: Allen Lane.
75.
Richerson, P. J. and Boyd, R. 1987. `Simple Models of Complex Phenomena: The Case of Cultural Evolution', in J. Dupré (ed.), The Latest on the Best. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.
76.
Rindos, D.1985. `Darwinian Selection, Symbolic Variation and the Evolution of Culture'. Current Anthropology26:65-88.
77.
Robarchek, C. R.1977. `Frustration, Aggression and the Nonviolent Semai'. American Ethnologist4:762-779.
78.
Robarchek, C. R.1989. `Primitive Warfare and the Ratomorphic Image of Mankind', American Anthropologist91:903-920.
79.
Roberts, J. M. 1976. The Hutchinson History of the World. London: Hutchinson.
80.
Runciman, W. G.1986. `On the Tendency of Human Societies to Form Varieties'. Proceedings of the British Academy72:149-165.
81.
Runciman, W. G. 1989a. A Treatise on Social Theory II: Substantive Social Theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
82.
Runciman, W. G. 1989b. `Evolution in Sociology', in A. Grafen (ed.), Evolution and its Influence. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
83.
Runciman, W. G.1991. `Are There Any Irrational Beliefs?'Archives Européenes de Sociologie32:215-228.
84.
Runciman, W. G. 1993. `The Origins of the Modern State in Europe as a Topic in the Theory of Social Selection', in W. Blockmans and J. P. Genet (eds.), Visions sur le Développement des États Européens. Rome: École Française de Rome.
85.
Ruse, M. 1983. `Darwin and Philosophy Today', in D. Oldroyd and I. Langham (eds.), The Wider Domain of Evolutionary Thought. Dordrecht: Reidel.
86.
Ruyle, E. E.1973. `Genetic and Cultural Pools: Some Suggestions for a Unified Theory of Biocultural Evolution'. Human Ecology1:207-215.
87.
Sahlins, M. 1977. The Uses and Abuses of Biology: An Anthropological Critique of Sociobiology. London: Tavistock.
88.
Saunders, P. T. 1988. `Sociobiology: A House Built on Sand', in M.-W. Ho and S. W. Fox (eds.), Evolutionary Processes and Metaphors. New York: Wiley,
89.
Smout, T. C. 1969. A History of the Scottish People 1560-1830. London: Collins.
90.
Soltis, J., Boyd, R. and Richerson, P. J.1995. `Can Group-functional Behaviors Evolve by Cultural Group Selection?'. Current Anthropology36:473-493.
91.
Sperber, D.1985. `Anthropology and Psychology: Towards an Epidemiology of Representations'. Man (n.s.) 20:73-89.
92.
Sperber, D. 1990. `The Epidemiology of Beliefs', in C. Fraser and G. Gaskell (eds.), The Social Psychological Study of Widespread Beliefs. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
93.
Svalastoga, K. 1964. Social Differentiation. New York: McKay.
94.
Tooby, J. and Cosmides, L. 1992. `The Psychological Foundations of Culture', in J. H. Barkow, L. Cosmides and J. Tooby (eds.), The Adapted Mind: Evolutionary Psychology and the Generation of Culture. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
95.
Torrance, J.1985. `Reproduction and Development: A Case for a “Darwinian” Mechanism in Marx's Theory of History'. Political Studies33:382-398.
96.
Trivers, R. L.1971. `The Evolution of Reciprocal Altruism'. Quarterly Review of Biology46:35-57.
97.
Trivers, R. L. 1972. `Parental Investment and Sexual Selection', in B. Campbell (ed.), Sexual Selection and the Descent of Man 1871-1971. Chicago: Aldine.
98.
Tschauner, H.1994. `Archaeological Systematics and Culture Evolution: Retrieving the Honour of Cultural History'. Man (n.s.) 29:77-93.
99.
Turke, P. W.1984. `On What's Not Wrong with a Darwinian Theory of Culture'. American Anthropologist86:663-668.
100.
Van Den Berghe, P. 1981. The Ethnic Phenomenon. New York: Elsevier.
101.
Vining, D. R.1986. `Social Versus Reproductive Success: The Central Theoretical Problem of Human Sociobiology'. Behavioral and Brain Sciences9:167-216.
102.
Von Neumann, J. and Morgenstern, O. 1944. Theory of Games and Economic Behavior. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
103.
Watson, J. L. 1980. `Transactions in People: The Chinese Market in Slaves, Servants, and Heirs', in James L. Watson (ed.), Asian and African Systems of Slavery. Oxford: Blackwell.
104.
Weber, M. 1956. Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft, 4th edn.Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr.
105.
White, L. A. 1959. The Evolution of Culture: The Development of Civilization to the Fall of Rome. New York: McGraw Hill.
106.
Willer, D. and Skvoretz, J.1997. `Games and Structures'. Rationality and Society9:5-35.
107.
Williams, G. C. 1966. Adaptation and Natural Selection: A Critique of Some Current Evolutionary Thought. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
108.
Wrangham, R. and Peterson, D. 1996. Demonic Males: Apes and the Origins of Human Violence. London: Bloomsbury.
