Una teoría darwinista de la coevolución gen-cultura

Darwin estaba convencido de que el exito de su teoria de la evolucion dependeria de su capacidad para dar cuenta de la conducta humana. Las ideas expuestas en Descent of Man fueron ampliamente discutidas por sus contemporaneos, aunque no eran las unicas teorias evolucionistas a finales del siglo XIX. Las tesis especificas de Darwin y las de sus principales seguidores tuvieron poco impacto sobre las nacientes ciencias sociales a comienzos del siglo XX. Las ciencias biologicas y sociales continuaron divergiendo hasta la segunda mitad del siglo XX. En los sesenta, Donald T Campbell, un psicologo social americano, publico los primeros trabajos teoricos dedicados a aplicar los principios evolucionistas al desarrollo de las culturas. Desde el pionero trabajo de Campbell han surgido varios programas evolucionistas de investigacion dirigidos a explicar la cultura humana. En este ensayo esbozamos nuestra propia teoria de la coevolucion gen-cultura. A pesar de su prestigio, Darwin solo convencio a unos pocos de sus contemporaneos de que poseia la teoria correcta sobre los origenes de la mente humana. Su influencia mas poderosa la ejercio sobre los pioneros de la psicologia: Romanes, Morgan, James y Baldwin; pero su influencia sobre la psicologia se desvanecio a comienzos del siglo XX (Richards, 1987). Ninguna ciencia social del siglo XX ha sufrido la mas minima influencia de Descent of Man y hasta ahora mismo muchos eminentes cientificos sociales siguen siendo completamente hostiles hacia el darwinismo. ?Como es posible que, durante mas de un siglo, una teoria pueda engendrar tanta controversia y sin embargo no produzca una reflexion critica capaz de evaluar sus meritos? ?Podemos articular todavia una teoria satisfactoria de la evolucion de la conducta humana en terminos darwinistas o tal empresa se halla abocada fatalmente a un fracaso? Darwin believed that his theory of evolution would stand or fall on its ability to account for human behavior. The ideas in the Descent of Man were widely discussed by his contemporaries although they were far from the only evolutionary theories current in the late 19th Century. Darwin’s specific evolutionary ideas and those of his main followers had very little impact on the social sciences as they emerged as separate disciplines in the early 20th Century. The social and biological sciences continued to diverge until the late part of the twentieth century. In the 1960s, Donald T. Campbell, an American social psychologist, published some of the first theoretical work that adapted principles of evolutionary theory to the problem of the evolution of cultures. Since the pioneering work of Campbell several research programmes on evolutionary approaches to human culture have been developed. Here we sketch our own theory of gene-culture coevolution. Despite his prestige, Darwin convinced only a few of his contemporaries that he had the correct theory of the origin of the human mind. His strongest influence was on the pioneering psychologists, Romanes, Morgan, James, and Baldwin, but their importance in psychology waned drastically after the turn of the 20th Century (Richards, 1987). No 20th Century social science derives any significant influence from the Descent of Man, and to this day, eminent social scientists are quite hostile to Darwinism. How can it be that a theory can generate so much controversy, and yet not attract enough critical work to test its worth for over a century? Can we flesh out a satisfactory theory of the evolution of human behavior along Darwinian lines, or is the enterprise really fatally flawed?