The Darwinian Theory of Human Cultural Evolution and Gene-culture Coevolution

Darwin realized that his theory could have no principled exception for humans. He put the famous teaser, ―Light will be thrown on the origin of man and his history,‖ near the end of The Origin of Species. If his evolutionary account made an exception for the human species, the whole edifice might be questioned. As the Quarterly Review's reviewer of The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex probably the long-hostile and devoutly Catholic St. George Mivart) gloated, the Descent ―offers a good opportunity for reviewing his whole position‖—and rejecting it (Anonymous, or St. George Mivart, 1871). Darwin apparently hoped someone else would apply Darwinism to the origin of humans. all wrote on the subject, but their work was unsatisfactory because all three had reservations about a selectionist account of human mental evolution. Darwin's views on the origin of humans did not rely entirely on selection but had a supplementary set of mechanisms consistent with a selectionist account. Darwin eventually wrote The Descent of Man, a rich and sophisticated treatment of evolution, even by contemporary standards. Yet, during his lifetime, Darwin's treatment of evolution generally and of human evolution specifically had many competitors (Bowler 1988). For example, Herbert Spencer and Darwin debated the relative importance of natural selection and inheritance of acquired variation (or acquired characteristics) for evolution of the mind (Richards 1987). Each admitted that both processes were important, but Darwin thought selection was dominant, and Spencer favored inheritance of acquired variation, substantially discounting the importance of selection. Furthermore, Spencer's emphasis of acquired variation reflected his belief that evolution was the ―never-ceasing transformation of the homogeneous to the heterogeneous‖ (Richards 1987), while Darwin was ambivalent about progress. Despite his prestige, Darwin convinced few of his contemporaries that he had the correct theory for the origin of the human mind. He most strongly influenced the pioneering psychologists, Romanes, Morgan, James, and Baldwin, but their importance in psychology waned after the turn of the century (Richards, 1987). No twentieth century social scientist was significantly influenced by The Descent of Man, and eminent social scientists are hostile to Darwinism, to this day. How could a theory generate so much controversy, yet for over a century, fail to attract enough critical work to test its worth? Can a satisfactory theory of the evolution of human behavior along Darwinian lines be fleshed out, or is the endeavor fatally flawed? The first part …