Anatomical or Social Evolution

Question

Although this page is Religion and Spirituality I thought I'd ask a question to the many people here who accept Evolutionary principles over Theism to enlighten myself and other Theists who embrace your views and dont feel threatened by them ...
An earlier poster stated, that Evolution is Biological and not a social science, this was news to me and am genuinely curious as :
1/ Darwins Finches adapted to their environments
2/ Communciation/Language/Use of tools in animals are more evident in socialised, familial creatures such as monkeys, apes, elephants etc.

I must have made incorrect presumptions so invite responses that will help correct my understanding.

Answer 1

Sciences are not clearly distinguished into different categories. As physicist Richard Feynman once famously noted, all theoretical chemistry is really physics, and all theoretical chemists know they're doing physics. (or something to that effect.) An economist would tell you that a psychologist is really an economist, too - that he just studies very, very MICRO-economics.



Evolution is the central theory of biology - without it, biology is nothing more than stamp collecting and makes no sense. All social science is based on social creatures, and so necessarily some biological concepts (like neuroscience feeding into psychology which feeds into sociology) form a basis for the social sciences.



Social instincts are things that come about by behavioral evolution, so understanding instinctual evolution is important to anthropologists and other social scientists. This does not mean that evolution is properly categorized as a theory in a social science - it remains the central theory of all biology - but it does mean that understanding of the theory is important to application of other sciences, as is true with most major theories in science.

Answer 2

Like many words in the English Language, 'Evolution' has many related meanings. Overall, it in a term that describe a slow change brought on by an environment. With taht being said, ANYTHING can evolve, animals, ideas, technologies, etc. If someone were to say that Evolution is a Biological Process, they may be referring to that particular definition



Communication/Language/Use of Tools are NOT examples of Evolution, at least.the Biological version of Evolution.

Answer 3

What they were saying is that you can't use a biological mechanism like evolution and apply it to a social situation. For example, Eugenics was argued using evolution. But that is an incorrect use of evolution, since it doesn't say anything about morals.

Answer 4

Evolution is not social, it would be a horrible basis for morality. Those things you have mentioned are partially instinctual (social groups help to increase survival) and the partially the result of a complex brain that helped the animal survive.

Answer 5

You have to define your terms. In general, when evolution is stated on its own, it refers to biological evolution -- the process of generation and transmission of heritable traits, generation to generation.



Learned traits are passed in a different process which often is called cultural or social evolution.

Answer 6

the only evoltion is from God