Robert L. Carneiro's take on the evolution of culture
Submitted by Kambiz Kamrani on September 16, 2006 - 11:47am.

Some of you guys maybe interested in John Wilkins', of Evolving
Thoughts, review of Robert L. Carneiro's book "Evolutionism in Cultural
Anthropology: A Critical History." I have not read to book, but what I
can gather from Wilkins' post, it is a book that follows a distored and
uninformed take on the evolution of culture. His main point is outlined
in this quote,

"There is this assumption, not evidence, that at the cultural level, at
which he insists one has to approach the evolution of culture, that
culture is consciously developed."

Wilkins goes on explaining concepts in evolutionary theory, such as
mutations are not random and correlating them with invention,

"The same is true of invention. By far the bulk of inventions die
stillborn. The ones that get transmitted to future generations are
those that happen to actually serve a need or a want in the general...

whitesickle@msn.com msn.com> wrote:

Carneiro is an old-style "cultural evolutionist" in the school of Leslie
White. He rejects the "Darwinian" view of cultural evolution, as
cultural is (to him, self-evidently) directed in its evolution...

John Wilkins wrote:

"John Wilkins" uq.edu.au> wrote in message
news:ei5gn9$2d4e$1@darwin.ediacara.org...

Dear Dr. Wilkins,

I might have the wrong impression, but to me it appears that you include in
what you mean by "selection" that it is a process that produces traits that
are *ideally* fit; And, that you - from your broadly applicable
'evolution philosophical/theoretical' ;-) position - might exemplify the
influence of drift with, e.g., that Sony's video tape format Beta (that was
by most experts seen as the superior technology) did loose out in the
marketplace to the relatively clumsy (at least it was more bulky) VHS
format.

whitesickle@msn.com msn.com> wrote:

Entertained by my own EIMC fairyland.org>
wrote:

in article eidptk$1vt9$1@darwin.ediacara.org, John Wilkins at
j.wilkins1@uq.edu.au wrote on 11/2/06 2:02 PM:

"Guy A Hoelzer" unr.edu> wrote in message news:eih559$16vb$1@darwin.ediacara.org...

Guy A Hoelzer wrote:

"John Wilkins" uq.edu.au> wrote in message
news:eidptk$1vt9$1@darwin.ediacara.org...