Evolutionary Theories of Cultural Change: An Empirical Perspective

The last quarter century has seen a renaissance of the proposal that the processes Darwin put forth as driving biological evolution also provide a plausible theoretical framework for analysis of the evolution of human culture. Modern proponents of the idea that human culture evolves through broad Darwinian processes, involving variation and selective retention, of course recognize that the idea is not a new one. There is no doubt, however, that in recent years the idea has become particularly fashionable among scholars. Many advocates of the position use the term "Universal Darwinism", generally believed to have been coined by Richard Dawkins (1983), to denote the theory they are trying to develop. Because it is better known, in what follows I will use that term to denote the broad idea, which I endorse, rather adopting here David Hull’s term "General Selection Processes" (1988) to denote the class of dynamic mechanisms one can see operative in particular form in both biological and cultural change. However, I share with Hull the belief that many of the recent attempts to extend Darwinian theory to human culture have stayed too close to biology, and indeed a narrow perspective on biology. In particular, my concern here is that, while a general theory of evolution driven by variation and selective retention would appear highly relevant to analysis of changes over time in many aspects of human culture, some of the specific features that we now know are involved in the evolution of species, particularly entities like genes, and mechanisms like inclusive fitness, may not carry over easily.