Table Of ContentTHE NEW EVOLUTIONARY
SOCIOLOGY
For decades, evolutionary analysis was overlooked or altogether ignored
by sociologists. Fears and biases persisted nearly a century after Auguste
Comte gave the discipline its name, as did concerns that its effect would
only reduce sociology to another discipline—whether biology, psychology,
or economics. Worse, apprehension that the application of evolutionary
theory would encourage heightened perceptions of racism, sexism,
ethnocentrism, and reductionism pervaded.
Turner and Machalek argue instead for a new embrace of biology and
evolutionary analysis. Sociology, from its very beginnings in the early 19th
century, has always been concerned with the study of evolution, particularly
the transformation of societies from simple to ever-more complex forms.
By comprehensively reviewing the original ways that sociologists applied
evolutionary theory and examining the recent renewal and expansion
of these early approaches, the authors confront the challenges posed by
biology, neuroscience, and psychology to distinct evolutionary approaches
within sociology. They emerge with key theoretical and methodological
discoveries that demonstrate the critical—and compelling—case for a
dramatically enriched sociology that incorporates all forms of comparative
evolutionary analysis to its canon and study of sociocultural phenomena.
Jonathan H. Turner is 38th University Professor, University of California
System; Research Professor, University of California, Santa Barbara; and
Distinguished Professor of the Graduate Division, University of California,
Riverside. He is also Director of the Institute for Theoretical Social Science,
Santa Barbara, CA, USA.
Richard S. Machalek is Professor Emeritus of Sociology at the University
of Wyoming. His work addresses the evolution of social behavior among
both human and non-human species. He analyzes phenomena such as the
evolution of societal complexity among both humans and the eusocial
insects, the evolution of expropriative social behaviors across species lines,
emergent properties of both human and non-human societies, the evolved
human psychology implicated in reciprocity and exchange, and theoretical
points of convergence and divergence between sociology and sociobiology.
His publications have appeared in venues such as Sociological Theory, the
American Journal of Sociology, Advances in Group Processes, Rationality and
Society, Advances in Human Ecology and various encyclopedias, handbooks,
and other edited volumes. He is co-editor (with Jonathan H. Turner and
Alexandra Maryanski) of Handbook on Evolution and Society: Toward an
Evolutionary Social Science (Routledge).
The New Evolutionary Sociology is the most recent and comprehensive treatment
of the bridge between evolutionary biology and the principles of sociology.
Edward O. Wilson, University Research Professor
Emeritus, Harvard University
This volume is on the cutting edge in the effort to develop explanations of human
sociocultural evolution within a comparative framework that includes biol-
ogy, neuroscience, non-human sociology as well as anthropology, sociology and
the comparative world-systems perspective. The chapters on the emergence of
non-human social complexity are original contributions that should be of interest
to all scholars and students in the comparative social sciences.
Christopher Chase-Dunn, Distinguished Professor
of Sociology, University of California-Riverside
Turner and Machalek offer insightful assessments of several distinctive approaches
to what they call the new evolutionary sociology. These perspectives are compat-
ible only in varying degrees, and some of them certainly have generated more
coherent explanations of human social behavior. All told the volume has great
merit, especially if it encourages readers to shed the blinders of disciplinary chau-
vinism, to pursue a serious rapprochement with relevant aspects of evolutionary
biology, and to begin to realize the promise of a genuinely scientific sociology.
Timothy Crippen, Professor of Sociology,
University of Mary Washington
The New Evolutionary Sociology by Turner and Machalek is clearly the best treat-
ment available about the important and exceedingly relevant topic of human
sociocultural evolution. The authors discuss in detail how sociologists have used
evolutionary paradigms in a variety of different investigations. In addition, they
discuss many of the challenges posed by biology and sociobiology and other dis-
ciplines. They also introduce several examples of special utility they have used in
their studies of evolutionary patterns and social phenomena. Turner and Mach-
alek are clearly the experts in evolutionary sociology. Their new book is written
lucidly and authoritatively. I recommend this important book with the greatest
enthusiasm.
Dudley L. Poston, Jr., Professor of Sociology,
Texas A&M University
Evolutionary Analysis in the Social Sciences
A series edited by Jonathan H. Turner and Kevin J. McCaffree
This new series is devoted to capturing the full range of scholarship and
debate over how best to conduct evolutionary analyses on human behav-
ior, interaction, and social organization. The series will range across social
science disciplines and offer new cutting-edge theorizing in sociobiology,
evolutionary psychology, stage-modeling, co-evolution, cliodynamics, and
evolutionary biology.
Published:
The New Evolutionary Sociology: Recent and Revitalized Theoretical
Approaches
by Jonathan H. Turner and Richard S. Machalek (2018)
The Emergence and Evolution of Religion: By Means of Natural Selection
by Jonathan H. Turner, Alexandra Maryanski, Anders Klostergaard Petersen, and
Armin W. Geertz (2017)
Forthcoming:
The Evolution of World-Systems
by Christopher Chase-Dunn
The New Evolutionary
Sociology
Recent and Revitalized Theoretical
and Methodological Approaches
Jonathan H. Turner
University of California, Santa Barbara
Richard S. Machalek
University of Wyoming
First published 2018
by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
and by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2018 Taylor & Francis
The right of Jonathan H. Turner and Richard Machalek to be identified
as the authors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with
sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced
or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means,
now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording,
or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in
writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks
or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and
explanation without intent to infringe.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Turner, Jonathan H., author. | Machalek, Richard, 1946– author.
Title: The new evolutionary sociology : recent and revitalized theoretical
and methodological approaches / by Jonathan H. Turner, University of
California, Santa Barbara, Richard Machalek, University of Wyoming.
Description: 1 Edition. | New York : Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group,
[2018] | Series: Evolutionary analysis in the social sciences | Includes
bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017051545 | ISBN 9780815386117 (hb) |
ISBN 9780815387084 (pb) | ISBN 9781351173889 (e)
Subjects: LCSH: Social evolution—Philosophy. | Human evolution—
Philosophy. | Human ecology. | Social ecology.
Classification: LCC HM626 .T87 2018 | DDC 303.4—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017051545
ISBN: 978-0-8153-8611-7 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-8153-8708-4 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-3511-7388-9 (ebk)
Typeset in Minion
by Apex CoVantage, LLC
Contents
List of Figures ix
List of Tables xi
Acknowledgements xii
1 A Brief History of Evolutionary Analysis in Sociology 1
PART I: THE CONTINUING SOCIOLOGICAL TRADITION 15
2 Can Functionalism Be Saved? Toward a More Viable Form
of Evolutionary Theorizing 17
3 Stage-Model Theories of Societal Evolution 37
4 Intersocietal Models of Societal Evolution 72
5 New Forms of Ecological Theorizing in Evolutionary
Sociology 99
PART II: DARWINIAN ANALYSIS AND ALTERNATIVES 119
6 The Evolution of Social Behavior by Natural Selection 121
7 The Rise of Sociobiology 144
8 Sociobiology and Human Behavior 164
9 Evolutionary Psychology and the Search for the
Adapted Mind 214
10 The Limitations of Darwinian Analysis 246
11 New Models of Natural Selection in Sociocultural Evolution 260
vii
viii • Contents
PART III: NEW DARWINIAN APPROACHES
WITHIN SOCIOLOGY 291
12 New Forms of Comparative Sociology: What Primates Can
Tell Sociology About Humans 293
13 In Search of Human Nature: Using the Tools of Cross-Species
Comparative Analysis 309
14 The Evolution of the Human Brain: Applications of
Neurosociology 337
15 Cross-Species Comparative Sociology 365
16 Cross-Species Analysis of Megasociality 396
17 The Behavioral and Interpersonal Basis of Megasociality:
Evidence From Primates 412
Epilogue: Prospect for a New Evolutionary Sociology 424
Bibliography 431
Index 457
Figures
2.1 Bronislaw Malinowski’s Portrayal of Functional Requisites at
Different System Levels 23
3.1 Auguste Comte’s Implicit Model of Evolutionary Dynamics
in Societies 38
3.2 Herbert Spencer’s Model of Selection Pressures Driving
Societal Evolution 42
3.3 Parsons’ Image of Societal Evolution Up to Modernity 54
3.3a Primitive Societies 54
3.3b Intermediate Societies 56
3.3c Transition to Modern Societies 57
3.4 Lenski’s Early Model of Forces Driving Evolution of
Societies and Their Stratification 61
3.5a The Basic Biological Problem 63
3.5b The Sociological Paradigm in Evolutionary Analysis 64
3.5c Sociocultural Paradigm Over Time 65
4.1 Christopher Chase-Dunn’s Iteration Model of Intersocietal
Dynamics 79
4.2 Predictions of Demographic-Structural Theory 90
5.1 Somewhat Abstracted Version of Emile Durkheim’s
Ecological Model 101
5.2 Early Model of Urban Ecology 105
5.3 More Recent Abstracted Model of Urban Ecology 106
5.4 The Core Elements of Darwinian Theory in Organizational
Ecology Models 108
5.5 Michael Hannan’s and John Freeman’s Organizational
Ecology Model 109
5.6 J. Miller McPherson’s Ecological Model Organizational
Ecology in Blau-space 111
5.7 Core Elements of Amos Hawley’s Ecological Model of
Societies 113
5.8 Amos Hawley’s Expanded Ecological Model of Societal
Evolution 114
ix
