Citation

Runciman WG. Sociol. Rev. 2008; 56(3): 358-369.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2008, The Editorial Board of The Sociological Review, Publisher SAGE Publishing)

DOI

10.1111/j.1467-954X.2008.00794.x

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

The inability, or unwillingness, of 20th-century sociologists to move beyond the agenda bequeathed by Marx, Weber, and Durkheim is remarkable in view not only of the now outdated presuppositions shared by all three but of the increasing likelihood that the more important influence on the human behavioural sciences in the 21st century will turn out to be Darwin's. Not only has the coming together of evolutionary theory, population genetics, and molecular biology shown that significantly more of human behaviour can be explained by the theory of natural selection than was previously recognized, but non-reductionist explanations of cultural and social evolution from within a neo-Darwinian paradigm can be framed in terms no longer vulnerable to the criticisms previously levelled against the application to sociology of Darwin's original insight about ‘descent with modification’.