Evolution as such

The Oxford English Dictionary lists no fewer than twelve separate definitions for the word `evolution' in an entry which runs to 2500 words. We can recognize many of these various senses of the term in almost any discussion of social evolution; often, it seems, in defiance of the expressed intention of the authors. The word is a willful one, and resists disciplined use. Some scholars (e.g. [Shennan 1993]) argue that the term itself is so freighted with innuendo, so unruly and polysemous, that we should abandon the use of it altogether.

Giddens's discussion is in some ways typical. After reviewing a selection of definitions of social evolution, ``culled more or less at random'' ([Giddens 1984]: 230), he proceeds to explore the possible meanings of a social theory that could be called `evolutionary.' His first contention, which leads to and justifies the remainder of his argument, is that 'evolutionary theory' in the social sciences, in order to have a ``distinctive meaning'' ([Giddens 1984]: 231) - that is, to be distinguished from the study of social change in general - must have ``at least some conceptual continuity with biological evolution.'' Otherwise the use of the term would be ``gratuitous.'' It will be informative, then, to consider the meaning accorded the term in historical biology.

Ernst Mayr contends that ``Darwinism'' has a much more restricted meaning for the modern biologist than for the world at large ([Mayr 1985]). 'Darwinism,' for the specialist, is apparently ``the theory that attributes evolutionary change to selection forces'' ([Mayr 1985]: 755). Evolutionism itself has a much broader meaning. Mayr distinguishes five components to Darwin's theory of evolution. These are:

1. `evolution as such,'
2. common descent,
3. gradualism,
4. the multiplication of species, and
5. natural selection.

Darwinism, then, is a composite theory. The theory of evolution is only one component of Darwinism, and is thus not restricted to Darwinism. Indeed, Mayr defines evolution simply as: ``the theory that the world is neither constant nor perpetually cycling but rather is steadily and perhaps directionally changing, and that organisms are being transformed in time'' ([Mayr 1985]: 757). This view, he contends, was fairly widely accepted among continental intellectuals before the publication of The Origin of Species. Darwin's genius lay in elaborating the mechanisms of this process of ``transformation in time'' in order to provide a coherent theory of biological evolution. Are we to cease calling Lamarck an evolutionist because he did not credit natural selection? Mayr concludes:

Evolution is not a theory for the modern author. It is as much a fact as that the earth revolves around the sun rather than the reverse. The changes documented by the fossil record in precisely dated geological strata are a fact that we designate as [biological] evolution. ([Mayr 1985]: 758)

Given this definition, evolution must be entirely unobjectionable to the social scientist. The changes documented by the archaeological record in precisely dated strata are a fact that we designate as social evolution. Social evolution and biological evolution are simply two instances of a more general notion, that of 'evolution as such.' This can be clearly seen if we consider the range of theories to which we apply the label `evolutionary.' They are, minimally:

1. the nineteenth-century evolutionists (Morgan, Tylor, Maine, etc.),
2. Darwinism, and
3. non-Darwinian biologies (Lamarck, Agassiz, etc.).

The only theoretical postulate that could possibly be shared by these three bodies of thought is precisely `evolution as such.' Any more specific use of the term would preclude its application to one or more of the three. If the term 'evolution' is to have any meaning in scholarship, then it must be this.