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The theory of evolution by natural selection has also been adopted as a foundation for various ethical and social systems, such as social Darwinism, an idea that preceded the publication of The Origin of Species, popular in the 19th century, which holds that "the survival of the fittest" (a phrase coined in 1851 by Herbert Spencer, [1] 8 years before Darwin published his theory of evolution ...
Many anthropologists and social theorists now consider unilineal cultural and social evolution a Western myth seldom based on solid empirical grounds. Critical theorists argue that notions of social evolution are simply justifications for power by the élites of society. Finally, the devastating World Wars that occurred between 1914 and 1945 ...
While EDP theory generally aligns with that of mainstream EP, it is distinguished by a conscious effort to reconcile theories of both evolution and development. [5] EDP theory diverges from mainstream evolutionary psychology in both the degree of importance placed on the environment in influencing behavior, and in how evolution has shaped the ...
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 ...
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]
Social evolution: ant societies have evolved elaborate caste structures, in this species, Atta cephalotes, widely different in size and function. The section summarizes the concepts of population genetics, a branch of evolutionary theory combining Mendelian genetics and natural selection in mathematical form to explain the pressures on animal societies.
Sociobiology investigates social behaviors such as mating patterns, territorial fights, pack hunting, and the hive society of social insects. It argues that just as selection pressure led to animals evolving useful ways of interacting with the natural environment , so also it led to the genetic evolution of advantageous social behavior.
Neoevolutionism as a social theory attempts to explain the evolution of societies by drawing on Charles Darwin's theory of evolution while discarding some dogmas of the previous theories of social evolutionism.