EVOLUTIONISM: ORIGIN, DARWIN, SOCIAL, LINEAR AND CULTURAL EVOLUTIONISM - BIOLOGY - 2025

The evolutionism is a term used to define a current scientific thinking based on different theories propose that species undergo many changes over time, making them "different versions" of itself.

This word is used both in the biological sphere, to refer to the evolution of species over time, and in the social and cultural sphere, to refer to the evolution of human beings in different planes of their existence in a defined time line..

Scheme of what is thought to be human evolution (Image by MANOEL M. PEREIRA VALIDO FILHO MVALIDO from www.pixabay.com)

In the scientific and natural sciences, more specifically in biology, evolutionism captured the attention of many researchers thanks to the publication of a book known as The Origin of Species, written and published by the English scientist Charles Darwin, who he is considered the "father of evolutionism".

Background

Although Darwin is the most valued scientist in this field, great “pre-Darwinian” thinkers and scientists dedicated themselves to the study of living beings and the search for rational answers regarding the origin of the world and the beings that inhabit it. Among these characters are:

- Aristotle (384-322 BC): who provided one of the first systems of hierarchical classification of living beings, insisting that species were "immutable" entities that were progressively ordered, with man at the top.

- Georges-Louis Leclerc or the Count of Buffon (1707-1788): who supported the idea that life originated from a spontaneous generation phenomenon and that there was a kind of "plan", inscribed in nature, which was the engine of change in living organisms.

- Jean-Baptiste Lamarck (1744-1829): who was perhaps the first evolutionist, as he proposed the first theory about the evolution of living beings, stating that organisms descended from one another. He conceived of evolution as a gradual or continuous process, through which nature produced increasingly complex beings, whose attributes appeared or disappeared according to their use.

Many other scholars of living things contributed significantly to “preparing” the ground for the advent of Darwinian theories, and Darwin's theory, published in the early 19th century, unified and explained the origin and causes of biological diversity.

Origin of evolutionism and Darwin

Charles Darwin. Source: pixabay.com

In the scientific environment, evolution is the biological process by which living things on earth originate, diversify and disappear or become extinct. It explains, especially through fossil evidence, the very varied changes and transformations that species undergo throughout their history.

In this context, evolutionism is nothing more than a current of thought created and followed by different thinkers and scientists who support the notion that there is an apparently rational scientific explanation to explain that organic diversity has a unique natural origin, based on of which the species diversified through gradual changes.

Although the Greeks were the first to seek logical explanations for the origin of the world and the diversity of the beings that inhabit it, it was not until the beginning of the 19th century, with the publication of the works of Lamarck and Darwin, that the they had the first truly evolutionary theories.

Charles Darwin, a naturalist of British origin born on February 12, 1809 and died on April 19, 1882, today deserves the title of "Father of evolutionism", as he was the first to publish conclusive evidence regarding the evolution of living beings.

This acclaimed character carried out an important part of his professional studies at Christ's College, Cambridge, where he met Stevens Henslow, who had a great influence on Darwin, helping him to cultivate knowledge in the areas of botany, geology and zoology.

Darwin and

Darwin made his notes and thoughts about evolution public after a 5-year voyage on a ship known as the Beagle. During this expedition, he had the opportunity to make detailed observations of the flora and fauna of many places, but especially of the Galapagos Islands, west of Ecuador.

In each of these islands, Darwin noticed that different species of a bird popularly known as the finch inhabited, among which he could notice slight morphological differences.

Thanks to the similarities and differences that he observed between these species, Darwin considered that they were related to each other in some way and that each one had adaptations that allowed it to develop in the natural environment of each island.

From these observations, Darwin arrived at considerations similar to those of a scientist before his time, Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, but supporting them with different concepts, since he introduced the theory of "natural selection" and "adaptations" in the natural populations.

In the context in which Darwin studied the different species of finches, he was able to associate the morphological changes he observed with isolation or geographic separation, thereby understanding how adaptations originated.

Fundamental ideas

Evolutionism, according to Darwin, was based on three fundamental ideas:

- Members of a species undergo random variations

- The traits of an individual can be passed on or inherited to their progeny (although it did not explain how)

- The "struggle" or "race" for existence implies that only those individuals with "favorable" traits manage to survive (natural selection)

These Darwinian theories remained in the shadows for many years, however, they had a major "renaissance" with the rediscovery of Mendelian work on the inheritance of characters.

Social evolutionism

Social evolutionism was first proposed in the 19th century by three famous "social evolutionists": EB Taylor, LH Morgan, and H. Spencer. In much of the literature it is also called unilinear evolutionism and many consider it to be one of the first theories proposed in the field of anthropology.

This line of anthropological thought seeks to explain why different types of societies exist in the world, and for this it proposes that societies develop according to a universal order of cultural evolution, which occurs at different rates or speeds.

The three mentioned authors identified universal evolutionary "stages" where they could classify existing societies on the basis of their technological characteristics, their political organization, and the existence of marriage, family, and religion. Said classification was as follows:

- Savagery

- Barbarism and

- Civilization.

Savagery and barbarism are, in turn, sub-classified according to their "intensity" as low, medium, or high.

According to this classification, western societies represented the highest position in the "ranking", while "savage" or "barbaric" societies were considered as inferior civilizations.

Social evolutionism was also known as "Social Darwinism" and as "Synthetic Philosophy" and some of its theories also proposed that wars promoted the evolution of societies, establishing that the most evolved societies were those that possessed the greatest amount of clothing. for the war.

H. Spencer coined the phrase "survival of the fittest", advocating competition between societies in search of the triumph of the most "adequate." These ideas are contemplated today by another group of thinkers known as the "eugenicists", who believe that societies should be "cleansed" of those less "fit".

Linear evolutionism

Linear evolutionism is the branch of evolutionary thought that holds that the evolution of species is a linear process, where a species evolves only to give rise to a more complex or better one.

A classic example of "linear evolution" is a popularly spread statement that "man is descended from apes", a statement derived from a misinterpretation of the ideas of Darwin, who proposed that apes and man shared a common ancestor in the past, but not that the human being derived directly from the chimpanzee.

Linear evolutionary thinking, currently considered wrong, accepts the "progressive ascent of life" proposed by Aristotle and Lamarck, who considered that the planet is constantly at the service of man, which represents the highest point on the evolutionary scale.

In reality, evolution does not occur in a linear way, since the traits of a species are not modified with an a priori "purpose", but as a result of a complex random process and natural selection (this according to Darwinian ideas).

Cultural evolutionism

Cultural evolutionism, also known as sociocultural evolutionism, is a "branch" of anthropological thought that proposes that the development of a culture or a society occurs from a simple model to a more complex form.

Many authors consider that the phenomenon of cultural evolution can be "unilinear" or "multilinear", being the unilinear process the one that describes the evolution of human behavior as a whole and the multilinear process the one that describes the evolution of cultures and / or societies individual or parts of these.

The emergence of these concepts in the anthropological sciences dates from the late 18th and early 19th centuries, and is closely related to the emergence of social evolutionary thought.

References

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