socio cultural evolution
...articulate my contentions on this issue, in a coherent fashion, it would take much more than the scope of a five page essay to do so; so, for the purposes of brevity I will illustrate only one facet of my theory through a single contemporary example… There is said to be many, many different, even infinite elements to the modern theory of biological evolution; some more widely accepted than others. These include concepts ranging from mutation to genetic drift. The one element that seems to be universally accepted among theorists is that of natural selection. For those who do accept this view, natural selection is not just universal, but often recognized as the most important mechanism of biological evolution, as well. Its affect on individuals depends on their phenotypes, which in turn are determined mostly by their genotypes; basically, the environment ultimately selects individuals with the best suited genotypes to survive to adulthood and to reproduce. Those who have more surviving offspring pass on more of their genes to the next generation. In other words, for natural selection to cause evolution, it must select for or against one or more of the genotypes for a trait. Now, this is quite simple to understand in purely biological terms, but it gets a bit more complex when translated into terms of socioculture. This is why I have decided spell it out with a simple example; by applying a straightforward, contemporary concept to sociocultural evolution. The contemporary concept that I have chosen to apply the anthropological theory of sociocultural evolution to is that of modern capitalism, or capitalist economics: “an economic system characterized by private or corporate ownership of capital goods, by investments that are determined by private decision, and by prices, production, and the distribution of goods that are determined mainly by competition in a free market” (American Heritage 1993). Here, capitalism represents an environment shared by a population with a diverse gene pool. In society, just like in nature, there are different environments and each favors different characteristics or traits, which some members of the gene pool have and others don’t. In a capitalist economic system, those social traits that are favored or that are advantageous might include: mobility, flexibility, tactility, creativity, imagination, devotion, versatility. Thus, if you are predisposed to expressing any of these traits you are naturally better suited to capitalist economics and therefore more likely to be successful in such an environment, socially speaking. For example, if we were to search among society to find individuals who share these traits in common with one another we would most likely find them in one or more of the following places: Fortune 500 board rooms, NASDAQ and Dow Jones listed CEO offices, America’s Wealthiest Entrepreneurs Magazine, a list of Nobel Peace Prize laureates and recipients, the bottom of the Declaration of Independence and/or United States Constitution, and the list goes on... but where it ends is what makes this list most fascinating… an ADHD clinic. That’s right; an ADHD clinic is where you can find people that share all of those traits listed above. You’d find Charles Schwab, Prince Charles, Albert Einstein, Benjamin Franklin, David Neeleman (Jetblue CEO), Thomas Apple (apple computers), etc. What is even more fascinating is that ADHD behavioral characteristics are described by most scientists as inherited; that is ADHD is very much determined by genetics, and many researchers prefer to describe it as an exclusively heritable disorder (Barkley 1990:14). Studies have shown that up to 90% of all entrepreneurs, the quintessential example of a viable capitalist, have some degree or variation of ADH...