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This example raises the question of how altruistic genes can be passed on if this soldier dies without having any children. [15] Within sociobiology, a social behavior is first explained as a sociobiological hypothesis by finding an evolutionarily stable strategy that matches the observed behavior. Stability of a strategy can be difficult to ...
Cultural evolution is an evolutionary theory of social change. It follows from the definition of culture as "information capable of affecting individuals' behavior that they acquire from other members of their species through teaching, imitation and other forms of social transmission". [1] Cultural evolution is the change of this information ...
Social change may not refer to the notion of social progress or sociocultural evolution, the philosophical idea that society moves forward by evolutionary means.It may refer to a paradigmatic change in the socio-economic structure, for instance the transition from feudalism to capitalism, or hypothetical future transition to some form of post-capitalism.
If organisms could develop over time according to discernible, deterministic laws, then it seemed reasonable that societies could as well. Human society was compared to a biological organism, and social science equivalents of concepts like variation, natural selection, and inheritance were introduced as factors resulting in the progress of ...
The sociology of science involves the study of science as a social activity, especially dealing "with the social conditions and effects of science, and with the social structures and processes of scientific activity." [149] Important theorists in the sociology of science include Robert K. Merton and Bruno Latour.
Evolution is the change in the heritable characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. [1] [2] It occurs when evolutionary processes such as natural selection and genetic drift act on genetic variation, resulting in certain characteristics becoming more or less common within a population over successive generations. [3]
This social science directs methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis upon human social activity, focusing on the influence of relationships and how they affect attitudes and behaviours. Sociologists conduct research to refine the theoretical understanding of social processes, or for application to social policy and welfare.
R. A. Fisher (1890–1962), whose 1930 fundamental theorem of natural selection recognised the power of rigorous application of the theory of natural selection to population biology. [19] David Lack (1910–1973), a follower of Charles Darwin, worked to merge the fields of evolutionary biology and ecology, focusing mainly on birds and evolution.