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The Biological Bases of Behavior and Some Implications for Political Science

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 July 2011

Peter A. Corning
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In what must surely rank as one of the strangest episodes in the entirehistory of science, two generations of our immediate forebears in the social sciences managed virtually to ignore the “Darwinian” theory of biological evolution and to exclude from their purview any sustained consideration of the role of biological factors in the shaping of human behavior.

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Research Article
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World Politics , Volume 23 , Issue 3 , April 1971 , pp. 321 - 370
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Copyright © Trustees of Princeton University 1971

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References

1 Biologists currently seem to prefer the term “synthetic” theory of evolution, to connote that our present understanding of evolutionary history and its processes is a far cry from that of Darwin and his contemporaries. Rather, the “modern” theory of evolution represents a true synthesis of data and theory from a number of related disciplines, including population genetics, Mendelian genetics, paleontology, taxonomy, and ethology, among others. The term “synthetic” should also be taken as suggestive of the ideological dissimilarities between early “Darwinism” and present-day evolutionary theory. (See below, fn. 22).

2 Fortunately, however, this situation has been changing rapidly during the past few years. (See below.)

3 Hofstadter, Richard, Social Darwinism in American Thought (Boston 1955)Google Scholar; “Editor's Introduction” in Carneiro, Robert L., ed., The Evolution of Society: Selections from Herbert Spencer's Principles of Sociology (Chicago 1967), ix–lviiGoogle Scholar.

4 The current Stimulus-Organism-Response (S-O-R) model in psychology, which has all but replaced the old S-R model, reflects the growing recognition that the “organism” must be considered, at the very least, as a mediating influence on behavior. See Lindzey, Gardner and Aronson, Elliott, eds., Handbook of Social Psychology (2nd ed., Reading, Mass. 1968), 1Google Scholar, 97. On the consequences of the S-R model, see Hirsch, Jerry, “Epilog,” in , Hirsch, ed., Behavior-Genetic Analysis (New York 1967), 420–21Google Scholar.

5 This point was stressed by Clyde Kluckhohn, “Culture and Behavior,” in Lindzey (fn. 4), II (1959 ed.). See also White, Leslie, “Culturology,” in Sills, David L., ed., International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences (New York 1968), III, 547–50Google Scholar.

6 See Durkheim, Emile, “Social Facts,” in Brodbeck, May, ed., Readings in the Philosophy of the Social Sciences (New York 1968), 245–54Google Scholar.

7 In general, though, the issue has been skirted in recent decades; many political scientists have failed to make their underlying assumptions explicit, and there has been no rigorous examination of the biological premises about man held in various quarters of our discipline.

8 Darwin, Charles, The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals (reprinted Chicago 1965)Google Scholar. It is also true, however, that social biology languished for lack of interest in pursuing research of this kind.

9 Montagu, M. F. Ashley, “The New Litany of ‘Innate Depravity,’ or Original Sin Revisited,” in Montagu, Ashley, ed., Man and Aggression (New York 1968), 9Google Scholar; and Montagu, Ashley, ed., Culture and the Evolution of Man (New York 1962), ixGoogle Scholar.

10 White, Leslie A., The Evolution of Culture (New York 1959), 22Google Scholar, italics added.

11 Glass, David C., ed., Genetics (New York 1968)Google Scholar, Preface.

12 Notably: Lorenz, Konrad, On Aggression (New York 1966)Google Scholar; Ardrey, Robert, African Genesis (New York 1961)Google Scholar, The Territorial Imperative (New York 1966)Google Scholar, and The Social Contract (New York 1970)Google Scholar; Morris, Desmond, The Naked Ape (New York 1967)Google Scholar and The Human Zoo (New York 1969)Google Scholar; and Tiger, Lionel, Men in Groups (New York 1969)Google Scholar.

13 See, for example, psychologists Hebb, Donald O., A Textbook of Psychology (2nd ed., Philadelphia 1966)Google Scholar; Freedman, Daniel G., “A Biological View of Man's Social Behavior,” in Etkin, William, Social Behavior from Fish to Man (Chicago 1967), 152–88Google Scholar; Glass, David C., ed., Genetics (New York 1968)Google Scholar; McClearn, Gerald E., “The Inheritance of Behavior” in Postman, Leo, ed., Psychology in the Maying (New York 1962)Google Scholar; Jerry Hirsch (fn. 4); and Manosevitz, Martin, Lindzey, Gardner, and Thiessen, Delbert D., eds., Behavior Genetics, Method and Research (New York 1969)Google Scholar; anthropologists Sahlins, Marshall D. and Service, Elman R., Evolution and Culture (Ann Arbor 1960)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Alland, Alexander Jr., Evolution and Human Behavior (Garden City 1967)Google Scholar; Washburn, S. L. and Jay, Phyllis C., eds., Perspectives on Human Evolution (New York 1968)Google Scholar; Vayda, Andrew P., ed., Environment and Cultural Behavior: Ecological Studies in Cultural Anthropology (Garden City 1969)Google Scholar; and Count, Earl, “The Biological Basis of Human Sociality,” American Anthropologist, ix. (December 1958), 1049–85CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and sociologists Means, Richard L., “Sociology, Biology, and the Analysis of Social Problems,” Social Problems xv (Fall 1967), 200–12CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Eckland, Bruce K., “Genetics and Sociology: A Reconsideration,” American Sociological Review xxxii (April 1967), 173–94CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Wrong, Dennis H. and Gracy, Harry L., Readings in Introductory Sociology (New York 1967), 1–61Google Scholar.

14 Davies, James C., Human Nature in Politics (New York 1963)Google Scholar.

15 Ibid., 3.

16 James C. Davies, “The Psychobiology of Political Behavior: Some Provocative Developments,” paper presented at the annual meeting of the Western Political Science Association, Honolulu, 3-5 April 1969.

17 Somit, Albert, “Toward a More Biologically-Oriented Political Science: Ethology and Psychopharmacology,” Midwest Journal of Political Science, xii (November 1968)Google Scholar.

18 Charles R. Adrian, “Implications for Political Science and Public Policy of Recent Ethological Research,” paper presented at the 2nd International Sinological Conference, The China Academy, Taipei, August 1969.

19 Kalleberg, Arthur L., “Concept Formation in Normative and Empirical Studies: Toward Reconciliation in Political Theory,” American Political Science Review LXIII (March 1969), 26–39CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

20 Gurr, Ted, “A Causal Model of Civil Strife: A Comparative Analysis Using New Indices,” American Political Science Review LXII (December 1968), 1104CrossRefGoogle Scholar, italics added.

21 Since this paper was completed, a searching philosophical treatise on the subject has appeared: Thorson, Thomas Landon, Biopolitics (New York 1970)Google Scholar. Although Thorson covers some of the same points and is generally compatible in his approach, his focus is quite different from that of this paper. Further, two panels on biology and politics were held at the 1970 World Congress of the International Political Science Association and at the Sixty-sixth Annual Meeting (1970) of the American Political Science Association. Among those papers that had become available as of this writing, some of the more notable were the following: Henry Beck, “Politics and the Life Sciences: Notes Toward a Theory of Biobehavioral Ecology” (IPSA); James C. Davies, “Violence and Aggression: Innate or Not?” (IPSA); Ralph P. Hummel, “A Case for a Bio-Social Model of Charisma” (IPSA); Dean Jaros, “Biochemical Deserialization: Depressants and Political Behavior” (APSA); David C. Schwartz, “Perceptions of Personal Energy and the Adoption of Basic Behavioral Orientations to Politics” (APSA); Robert B. Stauffer, “The Role of Drugs in Political Change” (IPSA); Thomas Landon Thorson, “The Biological Foundations of Political Science: Reflections on the Post-Behavioral Era” (IPSA); and Manfred W. Wenner, “Symbiosis and Politics” (IPSA). See also Corning, “The Problem of Applying Darwinian Evolution to Political Science” (IPSA); and , Corning, “The Theory of Evolution as a Paradigm for the Analysis of Political Phenomena” (Ph.D. diss., New York University, 1971)Google Scholar.

22 For example: Huxley, Julian, Evolution in Action (New York 1966)Google Scholar; Simpson, George Gaylord, The Meaning of Evolution (2nd ed., New Haven 1967)Google Scholar; Hardin, Garrett, Nature and Man's Fate (New York 1961)Google Scholar; Dobzhansky, Theodosius, Mankind Evolving (New Haven 1962)Google Scholar and Heredity and the Nature of Man (New York 1964)Google Scholar; and Lerner, I. Michael, Heredity, Evolution, and Society (San Francisco 1968)Google Scholar.

23 Simpson, George Gaylord, Biology and Man (New York 1969), 28Google Scholar. Of course, Darwin was not the only nineteenth-century thinker to recognize the evolutionary significance of the group. Perhaps the most notable was the Russian naturalist (and anarchist) Petr Kropotkin, wh o published a remarkable book called Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution in 1888 (reprinted, Boston 1955).

24 Dobzhansky, Mankind Evolving (fn. 22), 134.

25 See especially Wright, Quincy, A Study of War (reprinted, Chicago 1965)Google Scholar, and Coser, Lewis, The Functions of Social Conflict (New York 1956)Google Scholar.

26 Etkin, William, Social Behavior from Fish to Man (Chicago 1967), 6Google Scholar. See also Allee, W. C., The Social Life of Animals (Rev. ed., Boston 1958)Google Scholar; Dobzhansky, Mankind Evolving (fn. 22), 129-36; Klopfer, Peter H. and Hailman, Jack P., An Introduction to Animal Behavior (Englewood Cliffs 1967)Google Scholar, chap. 7; and Darling, F. Fraser, “Social Behavior and Survival,” The Auk LXIX (April 1952), 183–91CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

27 Simpson (fn. 22), 222.

28 Etkin (fn. 26), 33.

29 Ibid., 116.

30 Simpson (fn. 22), 224.

31 , Simpson, This View of Life: The World of an Evolutionist (New York 1964), 76–79Google Scholar; Dobzhansky, Mankind Evolving (fn. 22), 129, 159; and Rosen, Robert, Optimality Principles in Biology (London 1967), 6CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

82 Wynne-Edwards, V. C., Animal Dispersion in Relation to Social Behavior (Edinburgh 1962)Google Scholar; Wynne-Edwards, “Population Control and Social Selection in Animals,” in Glass (fn. 13), 143-63.

83 Heer, David M., Society and Population (Englewood Cliffs 1968), 1–4Google Scholar.

34 The principle was originally developed in economics in relation to the costs of production. It was reformulated and applied to ecological considerations in 1922 by Sir Alexander Carr-Saunders and was revived most recently by Wynne-Edwards (fn. 32).

35 Corning, “The Problem of Applying Darwinian Evolution to Political Science” (fn. 21), 34-42.

36 Freedman (fn. 13), 156.

37 Sherwood L. Washburn and Judith Shirek, “Human Evolution,” in Hirsch (fn. 4), 10.

38 John A. King, “Behavioral Modification of the Gene Pool,” in Hirsch (Ibid.), 42. The Baldwin effect should not be confused with Lysenkoism, however. Acquired traits do not cause genetic changes in the germ cells of the individual. Lerner (fn. 22), 277-86.

39 Etkin (fn. 26), 113.

40 Gerald E. McClearn, “Biological Bases of Social Behavior with Specific Reference to Violent Behavior,” Crimes of Violence, xiii, a staff report to the National Committee on the Causes and Prevention of Violence (Washington 1969). “The development of modern medicine has depended to a very great extent on animal research, and its present status is testimony to the fact that many anatomical, physiological, biochemical and pharmacological processes are indeed generalizable, at least to a useful degree.”

41 Klopfer and Hailman (fn. 26), 178; Count (fn. 13).

42 Etkin (fn. 26), 3.

43 Lerner (fn. 22), 188.

44 “It is a fact demonstrated by paleontology that through the ages and for one reason or another the vast majority of species have become extinct.” Simpson (fn. 31), 79.

45 The relationship between a society and its environment may be conceptualized as a two-person game, with the entries in the pay-off matrix being the different population levels that the environment can be induced to support, given various alternative survival strategies. For a discussion of the application of game-theory to survival problems, see Peter R. Gould, “Man Against His Environment: A Game Theoretic Framework,” in Vayda (fn. 13), 234-51.

46 “Man is a product of evolutionary development, and evolution is utilitarian. N o theory of human evolution that ignores its pragmatic aspect can be valid.” Dobzhansky, Mankind Evolving (fn. 22), 213. See also Wallace, Bruce and Srb, Adrian, Adaptation (Englewood Cliffs 1964), 1–3Google Scholar; and Klopfer and Hailman (fn. 26), 176-81.

47 , Rada and Dyson-Hudson, Neville, “Subsistence Herding in Uganda,” Scientific American ccxx (February 1969), 76–89Google Scholar.

48 Ibid., 89.

49 Another possible source of variation in human populations may be non-Darwinian or “neutral” changes in the gene pool. See King, Jack Lester and Jukes, Thomas H., “Non-Darwinian Evolution,” Science, CLXIV (16 May 1969), 788–98CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Cavalli-Sforza, Luigi Luca, “‘Genetic Drift’ in an Italian Population,” Scientific American ccxxi (August 1969), 30–37CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

50 However, the fact is that we do not really know because as social scientists we have not heretofore asked such questions about social and political phenomena.

61 Partly because of their onerous or misleading past connotations, and partly because of their imprecision as ordinarily used even today, the terms “instinct” and “learning” seem to be in disfavor. At present, the preferred terms appear to be “genetically pre-coded” and “experiential.” Accordingly, I will hereafter put the more familiar terms in quotation marks and favor the preferred terminology.

52 Alland (fn. 13), 152; Etkin (fn. 26), 74-III.

53 See especially Hailman, Jack P., “How an Instinct is Learned,” Scientific American ccxxi (December 1969), 98–106CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The manner in which genes affect various behavior traits is extremely complex. Most behaviors are polygenic—that is, they involve more than one gene. On the other hand, many genes are pleiotropic—they influence more than one trait.

54 Bird songs (which play a vital role in avian mating behavior), run the gamut from complete pre-coding to completely “learned” behavior. In some species, if young birds are isolated from birth they are nonetheless able at the proper time to reproduce their characteristic songs perfectly, often on the first try. In other species, the young bird has the equipment and a general idea of what its normal song should be like, but it can produce only an approximation without hearing it first. Finally, there are cases in which the bird cannot sing any song without exposure to its conspecifics, or will learn an approximation of an alien species’ song if so reared. Nottebohm, Fernando, “Ontogeny of Bird Song,” Science, CLXVII (13 February 1970), 950–56CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

65 Hinde, Robert A., Animal Behavior: A Synthesis of Ethology and Comparative Psychology (New York 1966), 365–71Google Scholar.

68 Etkin (fn. 26), 92-93.

67 Ibid., 92.

69 Ibid., 92-94.

70 Alland (fn. 13), 153.

60 White (fn. 5).

61 In addition to those cited below, see Malinowski, Bronislaw, A Scientific Theory of Culture and Other Essays (Chapel Hill 1944)Google Scholar; Sahlins and Service (fn. 13); and White (fn. 10), 9.

62 Kluckhohn (fn. 5), 960, 968.

63 Alland (fn. 13), 195, 198-99.

64 Ibid., 187. Geneticist Dobzhansky, in his prize-winning book, Mankind Evolving, also insists on the interrelationship of biology and culture: “The diesis to be set forth in this book is that man has both a nature and a ‘history.’ Human evolution has two components, the biological or organic, and the cultural or superorganic. These two components are neither mutually exclusive nor independent, but interrelated and interdependent. Human evolution cannot be understood as a purely biological process, nor can it be adequately described as a history of culture. It is the interaction of biology and culture. There exists a feedback between biological and cultural processes” (fn. 22), 18.

65 Alland (fn. 13), 169.

66 Mutations, of course, arise randomly. And though natural selection generally acts to impose order, chance factors do enter, as in “genetic drift” (fn. 49), fluctuations in gene frequencies, and the founder principle. See Stebbins, G. Ledyard, Processes of Organic Evolution (Englewood Cliffs 1966), 76–77Google Scholar. On the inappropriateness of unilinear theories, see Service, Elman R., “The Prime-Mover of Cultural Evolution,” Southwestern Journal of Anthropology xxrv (Winter 1968), 396–409CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

6T For detailed descriptions of our increasing knowledge about the complex and sophisticated behavior of other animals, see especially: Etkin (fn. 26); Hinde (fn. 55); DeVore, Irven, ed., Primate Behavior (New York 1965)Google Scholar; Southwick, Charles H., ed., Primate Social Behavior (Princeton 1963)Google Scholar; Morris, Desmond, ed., Primate Ethology (Chicago 1967)Google Scholar; McGill, Thomas E., ed., Readings in Animal Behavior (New York 1965)Google Scholar; Tinbergen, Niko, Social Behavior in Animals (London 1965)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Klopfer and Hailman (fn. 26); and Eibl-Eibesfelt, Irenaus, Ethology: The Biology of Behavior (New York 1970)Google Scholar.

68 See Campbell, Bernard G., Human Evolution: An Introduction to Man's Adaptations (Chicago 1966)Google Scholar and Spuhler, J. N., ed., The Evolution of Man's Capacity for Culture (Detroit 1959)Google Scholar.

69 Washburn and Shirek (fn. 37), 13. This viewpoint is supported both by the fossil record and by research among living primates. Significantly, such cultural practices as tool-making, shelter-building, hunting in organized groups, and treating animal skins were all performed by small-brained early hominids. By the same token, ethologists have observed fairly sophisticated tool-use among equally small-brained living primates, most notably the chimpanzee. Chimps throw stones, break off sticks and prepare them for digging termites out of holes, and chew leaves into pulpy “sponges” for use in obtaining drinking water from pools. Goodall, Jane, “Tool-Using and Aimed Throwing in a Community of Free-Living Chimpanzees,” Nature cci (March 1964), 1264–66CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

70 Gardner Murphy, “Social Motivation,” in Lindzey, ed. (fn. 5), n, 629.

71 Alland (fn. 13), 169-70.

72 Bay, Christian, “Politics and Pseudopolitics: A Critical Evaluation of Some Behavioral Literature,” American Political Science Review LIX (March 1965), 39–51CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

73 Davies (fn. 14), 7.

74 Dunn, Frederick L., “Epidemiological Factors: Health and Disease in Hunter-Gatherers,” in Lee, Richard B. and DeVore, Irven, eds., Man the Hunter (Chicago 1968), 221–40Google Scholar; Sherwood L. Washburn and C. S. Lancaster, “The Evolution of Hunting,” in Ibid., 297-98; and Alland, Alexander Jr., Adaptation in Cultural Evolution: An Approach to Medical Anthropology (New York 1970)Google Scholar.

75 The fundamental linkages between wants (“motives” or “drives”) and biological needs are discussed by, among others, Gardner Murphy (fn. 70), 601 ff; Lawrence I. O'Kelly, “Motivation: The Concept,” in Sills (fn. 5) ; Adcock, C. J., Fundamentals of Psychology (London 1964)Google Scholar; and White, Robert W., “Motivation Reconsidered: The Concept of Competence,” Psychological Review LXVI (September 1959), 297–333CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

76 See Deutsch, Karl W., The Nerves of Government: Models of Political Communication and Control (New York 1966)Google Scholar.

77 Far from denying the reality or significance of social needs, “competence” or “effectance” motivations, curiosity, the need for stimulation and activity, and other human “needs,” an evolutionary paradigm fully acknowledges these needs—but only as the products of natural selection. They are seen, in other words, as biologically based characteristics that evolved and became generalized in the species because they were instrumental to our survival and reproductive success. They could not have evolved as “ends” in themselves (though they may be ends from the viewpoint of the individual). Interpolating an ancient aphorism, we have social life, not because we are social animals, but because social life is adaptive for our survival as a species. (See the lengthy discussion of these and other basic human psychological characteristics in the original version of this paper.)

78 Several excellent discussions of man's early life-style have been produced in recent years. See, especially, Etkin (fn. 26), 138-51 and other references cited therein; also Lee and DeVore (fn. 74), especially chap. 32; Pfeiffer, John, The Emergence of Man (New York 1969)Google Scholar; Service, Elman R., The Hunters (Englewood Cliffs 1966)Google Scholar; Campbell (fn. 68); and Washburn, S. L. and Jay, P. C., eds., Perspectives on Human Evolution (New York 1968)Google Scholar. For discussions of baboon life, see Washburn, S. L. and DeVore, Irven, “The Social Life of Baboons,” in McGaugh, James L., Weinberger, Norman M., and Whalen, Richard E., eds., Psychobiology: The Biological Bases of Behavior (San Francisco 1966)Google Scholar; and Eimerl, Sarel and , DeVore, The Primates (New York 1965)Google Scholar. A discussion of the social organization of wolf-packs is contained in Etkin (fn. 26), 129-31.

79 Service (fn. 78) , 29-32; Etkin (fn. 26), 21-33; Pfeiffer (fn. 78); Spuhler, ed. (fn. 68); Lee and DeVore, eds. (fn. 74).

80 Part of the process of neoteny, this phenomenon is discussed by Ashley Montagu, “Time, Morphology, and Neoteny in the Evolution of Man,” in Ashley Montagu, ed., Culture and the Evolution of Man (fn. 9) , 324-42.

81 See Berelson, Bernard and Steiner, Gary A., Human Behavior (New York 1967), 122Google Scholar.

82 Or, to be precise, the nuclear family ecology and prolongation of juvenile dependency probably evolved contemporaneously and very gradually, as Etkin has pointed out (fn. 26), 144.

83 Peter A. Corning, “The Biological Bases of Behavior and Their Implications for Political Theory,” paper presented at the 65th Annual Meeting (1969) of the American Political Science Association (Ann Arbor, University Microfilms), 36-52.

84 Freedman (fn. 13), 173, 175. This behavioral artifact correlates with a marked increase in the androgen (or male hormone) levels found in the bloodstreams of juvenile males, and there is good evidence of a linkage between androgens and aggressive behavior. See Moyer, Kenneth E., “Internal Impulses to Aggression,” Transactions of the New York Academy of Sciences, Series II, xxxi (1969), 104–14CrossRefGoogle Scholar; David A. Hamburg, “Recent Research on Hormonal Regulation of Aggressive Behavior,” paper for the UNESCO Interdisciplinary Expert Meeting on the Implications of Recent Scientific Research on the Understanding of Human Aggressiveness, Paris, 19-23 May 1969; and Boelkins, R. Charles and Heiser, Jon F., “Biological Bases of Aggression,” in Daniels, David N., Gilula, Marshall F., and Ochberg, Frank M., eds., Violence and the Struggle for Existence (Boston 1970), 31–33Google Scholar.

85 Etkin (fn. 26), 15. Dominance does not, however, entail a license for unlimited exploitation. If this were the case, an animal would more often fight to the death before accepting inferior status. A necessary concomitant of dominance in any species is restraint and social responsibility on the part of the dominants.

86 Ibid., 21.

87 Berelson and Steiner (fn. 81), 76; also Davis, Kingsley, Human Society (New York 1949), 336Google Scholar.

88 Etkin notes that dominance is not synonymous with leadership but in the case of humans, who evolved as closely cooperating pack-hunters, dominance would have tended toward the fairly benign leadership pattern that is common today (fn. 26), 17, 140.

89 See Lyman, Stanford M. and Scott, Marvin B., “Territoriality: a Neglected Sociological Dimension,” Social Problems xv (Fall 1967), 236–49CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hall, Edward T., The Hidden Dimension (Garden City 1969)Google Scholar and “Proxemics,” Current Anthropology, ix (April-June 1968), 83–108Google Scholar (with comments); Roos, P. D., “Jurisdiction: An Ecological Concept,” Human Relations xxi (February 1968), 75–84CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Goffman, E., Behavior in Public Places (Glencoe 1963)Google Scholar; and Hans Kummer, “Spacing Mechanisms in Social Behavior” (unpublished). See also papers from the “Use of Space by Animals and Men” symposium of the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, 29-31 December 1968, Dallas.

90 See Tiger (fn. 12).

91 See especially Ardrey (fn. 12); Lorenz (fn. 12); and their critics in Ashley Montagu, ed., Man and Aggression (fn. 9) ; Morris, The Naked Ape (fn. 12); Etkin (fn. 26); Storr, Anthony, Human Aggression (New York 1968)Google Scholar; Carthy, J. D. and Ebling, F. J. Jr., eds., The Natural History of Aggression (New York 1964)Google ScholarPubMed; Scott, J. P., Aggression (Chicago 1958)Google Scholar; Berkowitz, Leonard, Aggression: A Social Psychological Analysis (New York 1962)Google Scholar and , Berkowitz, ed., Roots of Aggression (New York 1969)Google Scholar; Graham, Hugh Davis and Gurr, Ted Robert, Violence in America: A Report to the National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence (New York 1969)Google Scholar and , Gurr, Why Men Rebel (Princeton 1970)Google Scholar; Fried, Morton, Harris, Marvin, and Murphy, Robert, War: The Anthropology of Armed Conflict and Aggression (Garden City 1968)Google Scholar; Bigelow, Robert, The Dawn Warriors (Boston 1969)Google Scholar; Daniels, Gilula, and Ochberg (fn. 84), and works cited below.

92 The committee's work has been published in Daniels, Gilula, and Ochberg (fn. 84). See also , Gilula and , Daniels, “Violence and Man's Struggle to Adapt,” Science, CLXIV (25 April 1969), 396–405Google Scholar.

93 A number of scientists have suggested this conclusion in recent years. See especially Scott (fn. 91); Moyer, Kenneth E., “Kinds of Aggression and Their Physiological Basis,” Communications in Behavioral Biology, Part A, 11 (August 1968)Google Scholar; and , Berkowitz, “Simple Views of Aggression,” American Scientist LVII (Autumn 1969), 372–83Google Scholar.

94 Dollard, J.D.L. and others, Frustration and Aggression (Ne w Haven 1939)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

95 Berkowitz, Aggression (fn. 91).

96 Berkowitz (fn. 93), 373. See also Berkowitz, ed., Roots of Aggression (fn. 91). Actually, the Yale group later modified its theory to account for responses to frustration that were other than aggressive (whether natural or learned). However, frustration remained the necessary prerequisite to aggression. Reviewed by Bandura, A. and Walters, R. H., Social Learning and Personality Development (New York 1963), 110–12Google Scholar.

97 Berkowitz (fn. 93). In addition to “innate determinants” and social learning, Berkowitz also observes that some aggression can result from pain. In utilizing this model, political scientists have adapted it to their own purposes. James C. Davies links violence at the individual level to the frustration of the hierarchy of needs hypothesized by Abraham Maslow (Davies, fn. 21), and, at the macro-level, to severe short-term increases in the gap between rising expectations and the systemic ability to fulfill those expectations, which Davies has visualized graphically as a J-curve (Davies, “The J-Curve of Rising and Declining Satisfactions as a Cause of Some Great Revolutions and a Contained Rebellion,” in Graham and Gurr, fn. 91, 690-730). Ted Robert Gurr, applying the model to large-scale political violence, finds evidence of a causal relationship between violence and perceived “relative deprivations” among the individual members of a society (Gurr, fn. 91; fn. 20; and “A Comparative Study of Civil Strife,” in Graham and Gurr, fn. 91, 572-631), whereas Ivo K. Feierabend, Rosalind L. Feierabend, and Betty A. Nesvold associate such violence with “systemic frustrations” (“Social Change and Political Violence: Cross-National Patterns,” in Graham and Gurr, fn. 91, 632-87).

Like Berkowitz, political scientists are not insensitive to the interrelationship between frustration and the effects of social learning. Gurr, for instance, identifies relative deprivations as the key variable, yet he emphasizes that it is not deprivations per se but the “perception” of unjustified deprivations (which is quite obviously susceptible to in situ learning) that is the necessary precondition for civil violence. Furthermore, Gurr introduces as mediating factors the individual's attitude toward the propriety of violence and his perception of its potential efficacy (that is, the perceived likelihood of success). Again, such perceptions are highly responsive to social learning, even though Gurr chooses in the end to put most of his stress on the underlying deprivations.

On the other hand, while biological factors are not unappreciated by the political scientists, these factors seem to be treated as constants. Davies, for example, assumes that biologically “each man is like every other man” (fn. 21), 8. Similarly, Gurr introduces a biological mechanism into his explanation in order to establish the linkage between frustration and violent responses, but he appears to treat this mechanism as a constant: “The underlying causal mechanism,” he tells us, “is derived from psychological theory and evidence to the effect that one innate response to perceived deprivation is discontent or anger, and that anger is a motivating state for which aggression is an inherently satisfying response” (fn. 20). He assures us that the degree of anger and violence thus evoked is directly proportional to the intensity of the perceived deprivation (fn. 91), 9. This is analogous, he says, to the law of gravity (Ibid., 37). Elsewhere, though, Gurr inserts the idea (following Berkowitz) that threat-aggression or fear-aggression might result from “avoidance-survival” mechanisms (Ibid., 35). Also, he concedes that there might (“infrequently”) be aggression that is not motivated directly by anger (Ibid., 36). Furthermore, he acknowledges at one point that there may be a distribution of individual responses to frustration—although he doesn't explain whether or not such differences might be due to heredity or to environment (Ibid., 9).

98 Bandura and Walters (fn. 96) and Adolescent Aggression: A Study of the Influence of Child-Training Practices and Family Interrelationships (New York 1959)Google Scholar.

99 Bandura and Walters (fn. 96), 26-29, 136. The authors suggest that patterns of social reinforcement may vary for individuals because of the possible variations in preferences for and responses to different constitutional characteristics (e.g., body build or I.Q.) on the part of parents and society. The significant variable is not, then, the biological variation of individuals but is rather society's response to these variations. This conceptualization embodies a curious notion of causation. Nor can the authors explain why society expresses differential preferences for these “constitutional factors.”

100 Lorenz (fn. 12).

101 Storr (fn. 91).

102 A useful review of the various hypotheses about aggression has been made by the Stanford Committee (Daniels, Gilula, and Ochberg, fn. 84). Proponents of the frustration model include Dollard and others (fn. 94), Berkowitz (fns. 91 and 93), Davies (fns. 21 and 97), Gurr (fns. 91 and 97), and the Feierabends (fn. 97). Shortcomings of the frustration model are discussed by Bandura and Walters (fn. 96), 110-12, 115-17, 133-37, among others. Bandura and Walters (Ibid., and fn. 98) advance the case for social learning causation; relevant research is also surveyed by Brown, Roger, Social Psychology (New York 1965), 350–401Google Scholar. The insufficiency of this model is commented upon by, among others, ethologist Tinbergen, Niko, “On War and Peace in Animals and Man,” Science, CLX (28 June 1968), 1411–18CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Biological-instinctual explanations are advanced by Lorenz (fn. 12), Storr (fn. 91), and Ardrey (fn. 12), and by Carthy and Ebling (fn. 91), who are roundly criticized in Ashley Montagu, ed., Man and Aggression (fn. 9).

103 Gurr (fn. 20).

104 Gilula and Daniels (fn. 92).

105 Corning, “On Aggression: An ‘Interactional,’ Evolutionary-Adaptive Model” (forthcoming).

106 Daniels and Gilula, “Violence and the Struggle for Existence,” in Daniels, Gilula, and Ochberg (fn. 84), 405-43; Andrew P. Vayda, “Hypotheses About Functions of War,” in “War: The Anthropology of Armed Conflict and Aggression,” Natural History (special supplement), Dec. 1, 1967, and works cited therein; Vayda, “Maoris and Muskets in New Zealand: Disruption of a War System” (unpublished manuscript, 1970); Bernard J. Siegel, “Defensive Cultural Adaptation,” in Graham and Gurr (fn. 91), 764-87; and Wallace, Anthony F. C., “Revitalization Movements,” American Anthropologist LVIII (April 1956), 264–81CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

107 This observation meshes with David Schwartz's still-developing hypothesis that personal “energy levels” may be causally related to political involvement (fn. 21).

108 The voluminous literature on this subject will be reviewed in a subsequent paper. But see especially McClearn (fn. 40), Hamburg (fn. 84), Moyer (fn. 84), Boelkins and Heiser (fn. 84), 23-33, and Scott (fn. 91).

109 My deep appreciation to Dr. Vandenberg for permitting me to make use of his data.

110 McClearn (fn. 40); Lerner (fn. 22), 118-19; Telfer, Mary A. and others, “Incidence of Gross Chromosomal Errors among Tall Criminal American Males,” Science, CLIX (15 March 1968), 1249–50CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and socio-legal implications raised by Kennedy McWhirter, letter to the editors, Science, CLXIV (6 June 1969), 1117.

111 Hamburg (fn. 84); McClearn (fn. 40); Moyer (fn. 84), 104-14; and Boelkins and Heiser (fn. 84), 31-35.

112 John R. Lion, George Bach-Y-Rita, Frank R. Ervin, letter to the editors, Science, CLXIV (27 June 1969), 1465; V. Mark and F. R. Ervin, Violence and the Brain (New York, forthcoming).

113 Berelson and Steiner (fn. 81), 30-31, and Boelkins and Heiser (fn. 84), 31.

114 In one study of female prisoners, 62% of the crimes of violence had been committed in the prisoners’ premenstrual week. Morton, J. H. and others, “A Clinical Study of Premenstrual Tension,” American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology LXV (June 1953), 1182–91CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

115 These anomalies all correlate with observed hormonal patterns.

116 Moyer (fn. 93).

117 Moyer (fn. 84), (fn. 93). He suggests that his approach to violence does not require hypothesizing a spontaneous drive. However, in many animals, attacking behaviors are the pre-programmed and highly specific responses to specific stimuli—either external or internal. See also Robert A. Hinde, “The Nature and Control of Aggressive Behavior,” paper for UNESCO Interdisciplinary Expert Meeting (fn. 84).

118 Lewis Richardson has estimated that 59 million people have died from wars and other murderous quarrels in the 125 years from 1820 to 1945—one every 68 seconds. , Richardson, Statistics of Deadly Quarrels (Pittsburgh 1960), 153Google Scholar. Derek Freeman considers this figure “almost certainly an underestimate.” Freeman, “Human Aggression in Anthropological Perspective,” in Carthy and Ebling (fn. 91), no. This excludes, of course, the countless members of other species killed by homo sapiens, many for sport.

119 In order to appreciate just how important the genetic foundation is, consider the consequences of a small genetic defect, such as mongolism or Down's syndrome (Lerner, fn. 22, 196-97), Klinefelter's syndrome (fn. no), or phenylketonuria (Lerner, fn. 22, 89-92). Although the case is less conclusive, there is also substantial evidence today for the belief that schizophrenia, anxiety neurosis and manic depressive disease have at least partial genetic bases. See Heston, Leonard L., “The Genetics of Schizophrenic and Schizoid Disease,” Science, CLXVII (16 January 1970), 249–56Google Scholar; E. Inouye and others, “Research on Genetics in Psychiatry,” World Health Organization Technical Report Series (Geneva 1966); , Arnold H. and Buss, Edith H., eds., Theories of Schizophrenia (New York 1969)Google Scholar; Pitts, Ferris H. Jr., “The Biochemistry of Anxiety,” Scientific American ccxx (June 1969), 69–75CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Winokur, George, “Genetic Findings and Methodological Considerations in Manic Depressive Disease,” The British Journal of Psychiatry, cxvii (September 1970), 267–74Google Scholar.

120 This is not to deny, however, the reality of higher spiritual or esthetic experience that goes beyond survival needs. As Berelson and Steiner observe, “all known societies have religions” (fn. 81), 46. Maslow may also have done us a service by pointing out that some of these needs may become ends in themselves. , Maslow, “Deficiency Motivation and Growth Motivation,” in Teevan, R. C. and Birney, Robert C., eds., Theories of Motivation in Personality and Social Psychology (Princeton 1964)Google Scholar. It is a fundamental contradiction of the theory of evolution, though, to divorce such needs from their evolutionary origins and survival consequences. See Dobzhansky, Mankind Evolving (fn. 22), 214-18.

121 Morgan, Clifford T., Physiological Psychology (3rd ed., New York 1965), 307Google Scholar. Indeed, certain kinds of environmental “programming” are absolutely essential if the human organism is to develop normally. Without a “normal sensory environment,” some neural structures will not develop or will tend to degenerate from disuse. Hebb (En. 13), 147. Some emotional consequences of an abnormal environment were demonstrated in the now famous monkey-isolation experiments by Harry F. and Margaret K. Harlow at the University of Wisconsin's Primate Laboratory. When deprived of “normal” mothering in infancy, laboratory-raised monkeys exhibited a range of “neurotic” behaviors—passivity, self-aggression, sexual incompetence, etc. , Harlow and , Harlow, “A Study of Animal Affection,” Natural History LXX (December 1961)Google Scholar, reprinted in Southwick (fn. 67), 174-84.

122 This point was discussed and documented in some detail in the original version of this paper: Corning (fn. 83), 52-55. See also Fuller, John L. and Thompson, W. Robert, Behavior Genetics (New York 1960)Google Scholar; Dobzhansky, Mankind Evolving (fn. 22), chaps. IV and V; Manosevitz, Lindzey, and Thiessen (fn. 13); Glass (fn. 11), especially chapters by Dobzhansky, “Genetics and the Social Sciences,” Irving Gottesman, “Beyond the Fringe—Personality and Psychopathology,” J. N. Spuhler, “Sociocultural and Biological Inheritance in Man,” and Steven G. Vandenberg, “The Nature and Nurture of Intelligence”; D. G. Freedman in Washburn and Jay, eds. (fn. 78); and , Vandenberg, “Hereditary Factors in Normal Personality Traits,” in Recent Advances in Biological Psychiatry (New York 1967), ix, 65–104CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

123 The child's brain triples in size within the first year, during and after which he is able to develop latent capacities, both intellectual and sensory. Eisely, Loren, The Immense Journey (New York 1967), 109Google Scholar. Biological changes continue to affect behavior throughout the organism's life; puberty, pregnancy and lactation, menopause, senility, and so forth all affect behavior in more or less obvious ways. Conversely, it is now realized that environmental influences are at work even while the baby is in utero. Thus, it is not possible to choose any one point in the biological life-cycle and designate it “human nature.”

124 Dobzhansky, “Genetics and the Social Sciences” (fn. 122), 130-32.

125 Summarized by Simpson (fn. 23), 139-42, except for “cooperation,” Bigelow (fn. 91). See also Dobzhansky, Mankind Evolving (fn. 22), 221. “Whatever criterion you choose to adopt, you are sure to find that by it the history of life provides examples not only of progress but also of retrogression or degeneration,” Simpson (fn. 22), 242, and chap. 15.

126 Huxley (fn. 22), 48; Dobzhansky, Mankind Evolving (fn. 22), 17-18.

127 Simpson (fn. 31), 189.

128 Ibid., 71,74,76, 176-89.

129 Lewontin, Richard C., ed., Population Biology and Evolution (Syracuse 1968), 2Google Scholar; see also Wallace and Srb (fn. 46), 3, and Simpson (fn. 44).

130 “The organization of organisms certainly has utility, and the evolution leading to them has that utility as a goal in a sense. That sense is, however, quite special and does not at all correspond with teleology in the classic meaning of correspondence with a preordained plan, with divine Providence....” Simpson (fn. 31), 173; see also 173-75, 100 ff., i n ff., 134 ff., 202, 210, 212. Also Deutsch (fn. 76), chaps. V and VI; Dechert, Charles R., “The Development of Cybernetics,” in , Dechert, ed., The Social Impact of Cybernetics (New York 1967)Google Scholar; Wiener, Norbert, The Human Use of Human Beings: Cybernetics and Society (Boston 1950)Google Scholar; Beckner, Morton, The Biological Way of Thought (Berkeley 1968)Google Scholar; and Fraser, Alexander S., “The Evolution of Purposive Behavior,” in von Foerster, Heinz and others, Purposive Systems (New York 1968), 15 ffGoogle Scholar.

131 Tinbergen (fn. 67), 2. Man, like other animal species, has innately pre-programmed preferences for survival-serving behaviors—for eating, for physical comfort and security, for sleep, for sex and procreation, for group participation, for play and exploration—and against physical injury and death (fn. 75). Although it is true that there are instances of people choosing not to survive—suicides, martyrs, etc.—we consider such cases either as pathological (and some psychologists now suspect that even these phenomena may have an evolutionary explanation), or as deliberate acts of sacrifice for the sake of some “higher purpose,” usually the survival of the collectivity or “eternal life,” as in religious martyrdom.

132 There are certain difficulties involved in characterizing a human collective survival enterprise as a “breeding population.” Although this formulation may be biologically correct and may well have been, true of our ancestors, in the contemporary world a biologically distinct breeding population may not necessarily be coextensive with a territorial or political unit, or with a self-sufficient economy. Furthermore, world communications, travel, trade, the shared biosphere or ecosystem, and even world conflict have moved us toward greater interdependence. The exceptions and qualifications necessary for applying the concept of a collective survival enterprise to a given human society do not invalidate the concept. However, it may ultimately be necessary to expand the definition to take account of the growing internationalization of the survival problem. In the parlance of the systems analysts, each breeding population may ultimately have to be viewed as a subsystem in the global system, or global survival enterprise.

133 At the root of the modern Weltanschauung is the value-relativism first put forward by David Hume, Treatise of Human Nature. But as this writer will argue in a subsequent paper, there is a serious flaw in Hume's logic, in that he assumed survival —a prerequisite to any value-choices—as a given.

134 Deutsch (fn. 76), 92-93.

135 See Simpson (fn. 23), 147, Allee (fn. 26), 30-61, 96-153, Klopfer and Hailman (fn. 26), 138-51. A corollary of this point involves the evolutionary status of intellectual freedom, individual creativity, and other cherished democratic values. In subordinating them to a collective purpose, we need not abandon them. Quite the opposite. Generally, though not necessarily always, these values are adaptive. Our commitment to equality of opportunity, for example, is also sound genetic practice. As Dobzhansky notes: “If human abilities were not influenced by the individual genetic endowments, the social mobility or the constraints imposed on it would be biologically immaterial. An involvement of genetic variables makes social mobility both a biological and a cultural evolutionary agent of far-from-negligible consequence. Social mobility enhances the fitness of the population groups between which it occurs, and it may lead to the emergence of superior genotypes, which would be less likely to arise without mobility,” “Genetics and the Social Sciences” (fn. 122), 133.

136 Quoted in Simpson (fn. 23), 134.

137 See Waddington, C. H., The Ethical Animal (Chicago 1967)Google Scholar.

138 Simpson (fn. 23), 134. See also Dobzhansky, Mankind Evolving (fn. 22), 214-18.

139 The view that ethics has a biological component and serves an evolutionary function is supported by four separate sources. One is the work of ethologists, who find many examples among group-living animals of behaviors we characterize as moral—the altruism of parents toward the young, self-sacrifice in the interest of group survival, food-sharing, inhibitions against killing a conspecific, and so forth. In many instances, these behaviors are clearly precoded in the genes. But since our behavior is organized and shaped to a far greater degree in the domain of culture, it is not surprising to find ethical behavior organized at this level also. A second source of support is from child psychology and related fields (the current sobriquet being “the growth sciences”). Of particular importance is the work of Piaget, Jean and Piaget, Lawrence Kohlberg, The Moral Development of the Child (New York 1965)Google Scholar; Flavell, J. H., The Developmental Psychology of Jean Piaget (Princeton 1963)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Roger Brown (fn. 103), 384-401; , Kohlberg, “The Child as a Moral Philosopher,” Psychology Today, 11 (September 1968), 25–40Google Scholar. Support also comes from psychologists working with primates in the laboratory. Hebb cites, for instance, the experiments of H. W. Nissen and M. P. Crawford on food-sharing among chimpanzees, and concludes: “The evidence from infrahuman mammals indicates that altruism is a product of evolution and not something that must be beaten into the growing human child because of the needs of society.” Hebb (fn. 13), 247-48; finally, there is a growing body of research evidence from laboratory experiments relating to the neuro-physiological bases of social behavior, including brain stimulation, chemical (hormonal) stimulation, and brain lesion experiments. See, especially, Kenneth E. Moyer, “The Physiology of Affiliation and Hostility,” Report No. 70-1, Carnegie-Mellon University (Pittsburgh 1970).

140 Simpson (fn. 23), 134.

141 See Redfield, Robert (Redfield, Margaret Park, ed.), Human Nature and the Study of Society (Chicago 1962), 464–65Google Scholar; Berelson and Steiner (fn. 81), 46-48; and Mair, Lucy, Primitive Government (Baltimore 1964), 35Google Scholar.

142 In genetics, a pleiotropism is a situation in which one gene influences two or more traits, one of which might be maladaptive, so that an animal is forced, so to speak, to take the good with the bad. Klopfer and Hailman (fn. 26), 179-80. A cultural analogue might be the use of human fecal matter as a fertilizer. Against the benefits of increased crop yield and preservation of soil fertility, a society must weigh the increased risk of spreading disease within a population. Alland (fn. 13), 210-11.

143 The concept of “survivals” was developed by anthropologist Malinowski (fn. 61), 27-29. On maladaptive characters, see Stebbins (fn. 66), 73-80.

144 We can see such a process of adaptation presently at work, for example, upon the historic American ideology of individualism and free enterprise, which has tended to discourage needed collective action in such areas as national planning, pollution control, population control, and so on.

145 On this point, see discussion in Corning, “The Problem of Applying Darwinian Evolution to Political Science” (fn. 21), 18-32; and Corning, “The Theory of Evolution as a Paradigm for the Analysis of Political Phenomena” (fn. 21), chap. VII.

146 We are being driven toward a unified science of man precisely because the most significant relationships, so it seems, are those among the classes of phenomena we have by convention labelled ecological, physiological, psychological, economic, sociological, cultural, and political.

147 Consider, as an example, the effect of ICBMs. In this apocalyptic matter, Americans are, ironically, as dependent upon the good judgment of the men in the Kremlin as upon their own President. This is also obviously true in the ecological realm.

148 , Harold and Sprout, Margaret, The Ecological Perspective on Human Affairs (Princeton 1965)Google Scholar and “Environmental Factors in the Study of International Politics,” in Rosenau, James N., ed., International Politics and Foreign Policy: A Reader in Research and Theory (New York 1969), 41–56Google Scholar. The Sprouts define the concept of “milieu” broadly, but not precisely in terms of the survival problem—or in terms of the interaction between survival needs and biologically-based psychological characteristics of the species, on the one hand, and man's various “environments,” on the other.

149 Deutsch (fn. 76), 120-22.

150 For a sampling of the literature on development, see especially Almond, Gabriel A. and Powell, G. Bingham, Comparative Politics: A Developmental Approach (Boston 1966)Google Scholar; Apter, David, The Politics of Modernization (Chicago 1965)Google Scholar; Black, C. E., The Dynamics of Modernization (New York 1966)Google Scholar; and Finkle, Jason and Gable, Richard W., Political Development and Social Change (New York 1966)Google Scholar.

161 This assumption has often been justified on the ground that it accords with the value premises and goals of the developing nations themselves. It has seldom been asked whether or not the goals of the developing (and, perhaps more important, the developed) nations might be misguided.

152 See especially Welch, Claude E., ed., Political Modernization: A Reader in Comparative Political Change (Belmont 1967)Google Scholar; Anderson, Charles W., von der Mehden, Fred R., and Young, Crawford, eds., Issues of Political Development (Englewood Cliffs 1967)Google Scholar; Kebschull, Harvey G., Politics in Transitional Societies (New York 1968)Google Scholar; and Huntington, Samuel P., Political Order in Changing Societies (New Haven 1968)Google Scholar.

158 Huntington, Samuel P., “Political Development and Political Decay,” World Politics XVII (April 1965), 386–430CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

154 Myrdal, Gunnar, Asian Drama (New York 1968)Google Scholar.

155 von der Mehden, Fred R., Politics of the Developing Nations, rev. ed. (Englewood Cliffs 1969)Google Scholar.

158 This thorny issue will be the subject of a subsequent paper by this writer.

157 Easton, David, A Systems Analysis of Political Life (New York 1965)Google Scholar, chap. I; Deutsch (fn. 76), preface; Almond and Powell (fn. 150), chaps. I and II.

158 Charlesworth, James, ed., Contemporary Political Analysis (New York 1967), 7Google Scholar.

159 Easton (fn. 157), 476. This point was discussed in detail in Corning, “The Theory of Evolution as a Paradigm for the Analysis of Political Phenomena” (fn. 21), chap. II.

160 Gregor, A. James, “Political Science and the Uses of Functional Analysis,” American Political Science Review, LXII (June 1968), 425–39CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

161 This point is also discussed in detail in Corning, “The Theory of Evolution as a Paradigm for the Analysis of Political Phenomena” (fn. 21), chap. III.

162 In an extraordinary passage in A Systems Analysis of Political Life, Easton himself reveals just how close he came to making the vital connection without actually doing so. He says: “The perspective of a systems analysis of political life impels us to address ourselves to the following kind of question. How can any political system ever persist whether the world be one of stability or of change? It is comparable to asking with respect to biological life: How can human beings manage to exist? Or for that matter, what processes must be maintained if any life is to persist, especially under conditions where the environment may at times be extremely hostile?” Italics added (fn. 157), 14-15.

163 Wolin, Sheldon, Politics and Vision (Boston 1960), 433Google Scholar, italics added.

164 , Easton, A Framework for Political Analysis (Englewood Cliffs 1965), 29Google Scholar.

165 The Federalist.

166 Parsons, Talcott, Societies: Evolutionary and Comparative Perspectives (Englewood Cliffs 1966), 7Google Scholar, italics added.

167 Corning, “The Problem of Applying Darwinian Evolution to Political Science” (fn. 31).

168 The overall survival strategy of a society may be consciously pursued by the leadership or be the resultant vector, so to speak, of major survival-serving behaviors. A preliminary typology of such strategies might be: I) Homeostatic strategies, or strategies designed to stabilize a population in relation to limited resources; or 2) Expansionist strategies, under which we might include a) territorial expansion, b) maximum exploitation of the internal resource base, c) external trade, d) exploitation of the resources of other societies, or e) a combination of the above.

169 Mair (fn. 141), 8-32; Fried, Morton H., The Evolution of Political Society (New York 1967)Google Scholar; Cohen, Ronald and Middleton, John, eds., Comparative Political Systems (Garden City 1967)Google Scholar.

170 Hummel (fn. 21).

171 Wallace (fn. 106). A revitalization movement was defined by Wallace as a “deliberate, organized, conscious effort by members of a society to construct a more satisfying culture” (Ibid., 265). Wallace includes in his concept a great variety of social movements (including cargo cults, religious revivals, reform movements, Utopian communities, revolutions, and charismatic movements, etc.), and though he does not link such phenomena explicitly to the theory of evolution (as adaptive responses), they certainly fit well into an evolutionary paradigm. This point is further developed in Corning, “The Theory of Evolution as a Paradigm for the Analysis of Political Phenomena” (fn. 21), chap. VII.

172 For further discussion of this point, see Corning (Ibid.).

178 Ibid.

174 Sociologist Walter L. Wallace is currently working on a systematic exploration of conceptual analogues between sociology and ethology as a preliminary to making cross-species comparisons. Wallace, “Toward Comparative Sociology: Conceptual Analogs Between Human and Infrahuman Studies” (unpublished, 1969).

175 In this respect, see Dennis R. Eckart's pioneering systems approach to the analysis of “Innovation in Complex Organizations” (Ph.D. diss., University of California 1970)Google Scholar. Eckart's focus is upon the process by which organizations seek to ensure their own survival, but I would prefer to focus on the interrelationship between an organization and the larger system in which it is embedded. From an evolutionary viewpoint, the criteria by which such “subsystems” should be evaluated are the survival needs of the larger society; a self-serving motivational orientation on the part of an organization—ubiquitous as such an orientation may be—should be viewed as potentially maladaptive.

176 Dobzhansky, Heredity and the Nature of Man (fn. 22), 118.