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Culture, Social Minds, and Governance in Evolution

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 May 2016

Claude S. Phillips
Claude S. Phillips*
Affiliation:
Western Michigan University, USA
*
Correspondence should be addressed to 518 Phoenix Street, South Haven, MI 49090, USA (e-mail: [email protected]).
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Abstract

In the past quarter century, the concept of culture has undergone change as evolutionary scientists have come to include social behavior in their purview. Evolutionary psychology is the newest field to concern itself with culture by claiming that most specific human behaviors are generated by minds specifically designed for these behaviors—and not from a general-purpose mind—as a result of adaptations made during the Pleistocene. Thus, mental behaviors are explained as having formed independently of cultural learning. In defending the concept, however, the leading proponents practically slough off culture as significant in human affairs. I argue that they have neglected the powerful explanatory statement of Darwin regarding at least one general-purpose adaptation of social animals, namely, the instinct for sociability, a position supported by recent neurological studies. Expanding the Darwinian concept, modern research shows that (1) the human brain was selected for sociability, which explains the origin and strength of culture, as well as its variability; (2) the development of complex culture in a pre-human primate initiated the two-and-one-half million-year evolution to modern humans; and (3) there are political contributions to cultural evolution that rest on the nature of groups (competitive and cooperative).

Type
Articles
Information
Politics and the Life Sciences , Volume 20 , Issue 2 , September 2001 , pp. 189 - 202
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Politics and the Life Sciences 

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