The course will consider the issues and controversies surrounding attempts to introduce into the social sciences concepts and theoretical perspectives developed in evolutionary biology. Its aim is to make recent perspectives and the arguments for and against available to students of the social and the biological sciences, as well as to those with more general methodological interests. Although a naturalistic strand has always been present in the social sciences, it is fair to say that most of the more influential social theorists have seen a basic discontinuity between the biological and the social sciences. Recent ethological and sociobiological research has posed questions of the view that there are fundamental differences between human social behaviour and that of animals. This approach, however, has been augmented by the extension of certain evolutionary concepts to human cultural life itself, and it is predominantly with these that this course is concerned. Here, the suggestion is that evolutionary processes operate in cultural life not only through 'descent with modification' as it applies to genes, but through a comparable process that operates on cultural elements. The 'second form of evolution' that Dawkins' notions of memes (cultural representations that are subject to selection pressure) is thought to entail has led some to proclaim the social sciences to be a sub-category of the life sciences. Other scholars, who take their lead from a cognitive psychology grounded in evolutionary perspectives, dispute the memetic viewpoint, but nevertheless argue that there are no longer any grounds for separating the biological and the social sciences.

Tutorial attendance and participation (10%), workbook (25%), 1500 word essay (25%) and pre-circulated exam(40%).

2 hours of lectures and one hour of tutorial per week

Two first year courses to the value of 12 units in the School of Archaeology and Anthropology (ANTH, ARCH or PREH), or other appropriate Arts first year subject, or relevant Science Faculty first year courses.

PRAN2027 Genes, Memes and Cultural Difference.

*Dawkins, R. The Selfish Gene, (second edn.), Penguin Books, 1989.
*Dawkins, R. The Blind Watchmaker, Penguin Books, 1991.
*Runciman, W.G. The Social Animal, Harper Collins 1998.