EVOLUTIONARY THEORIZING IN SOCIOLOGY
THE DESTINY OF SOCIETY:
Sociologies of Hope and Hopelessness
Darwin’s Nightmare?
FRANCIS ADU-FEBIRI
2016-03-22
1
Contents of Presentation
1. Introduction:
– Social Darwinism and Societal Transformation
– Central Question and Main Theory
– Assumption, Paradigm Shift, and Agenda of Main
Theory
 2. Typologies of Evolutionary Theorizing:
– Classical
– Neo-evolutionary
 3. Classical Evolutionary Theorists
 4. Neo-evolutionary Theorists
5. Darwin’s Nightmares
FRANCIS
ADU-FEBIRI
2016-03-22

2
IMMANUEL WALLERSTEIN
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n
LvszWBf6BQ
FRANCIS ADU-FEBIRI
2016-03-22
3
 INTRODUCTION
FRANCIS ADU-FEBIRI
2016-03-22
4
INTRODUCTION:
Social Darwinism
 Evolutionary
selection is the organizing
force of not only the natural world but
also the social world.

According to Herbert Spencer, “since all
creatures adapt biologically to their
environments, it is both useless and cruel to
try to civilize the natives in colonies or to
allow criminals and mentally defective
persons to produce their inevitably defective
children” ( Collins and Makowsky 2005, p.
FRANCIS ADU-FEBIRI
2016-03-22
5
 EVOLUTIONARY
SELECTION (x)
x
Transformation of the Social World
FRANCIS ADU-FEBIRI
2016-03-22
Y
6
INTRODUCTION:
Societal Transformation

Evolutionary theories of sociology provide a
stimulating overview of how societies transform by
identifying:
 1. the major and far-reaching differences
between our reality and that of our ancestors.
 2. the processes of the transformation
 3. the directions and impact of the
transformation
 4. the driving forces of the transformation
 5. the destiny of society
FRANCIS ADU-FEBIRI
2016-03-22
7
INTRODUCTION:
Central Question
 WHAT
IS THE CHANGE PATTERN
OF HUMAN SOCIETIES, ITS IMPACT,
DRIVING FORCE DESTINATION?
FRANCIS ADU-FEBIRI
2016-03-22
8
INTRODUCTION:
Main Theory
 All
human societies start from the same
point, move on the same path and in
the same direction towards the same
destination independent of the actions
of societal members or social
engineering.
FRANCIS ADU-FEBIRI
2016-03-22
9
INTRODUCTION:
Assumption
 Human
choices count for little [unless
society is in transitional crisis]; Societal
change is non-negotiable.
FRANCIS ADU-FEBIRI
2016-03-22
10
INTRODUCTION:
Paradigm Shift
 Supernatural
forces and human/social
action have little to do with societal
change.
 Social Engineering is unnecessary:
According to Saint-Simon, “the main task of science
[knowledge] is to discover the laws of social
development, evolution , and progress; those laws
are inevitable and absolute. All that man can do is
submit. Progress takes place in stages and each stage
is necessary and contributes something to the further
progress of humankind”
(Zeitlin 2001: 71).
FRANCIS ADU-FEBIRI
2016-03-22

11
INTRODUCTION:
Agenda
 Political:
To maintain the STATUS
QUO.
 “…to avert revolution and to achieve
the resignation of the ‘multitude’ to the
conditions of the existing order”
(Zeitlin 2001: 82).
 This agenda puts evolutionary
theorizing into the ideological typology
of sociological theory.
FRANCIS ADU-FEBIRI
2016-03-22
12
TYPOPOLOGIES
FRANCIS ADU-FEBIRI
2016-03-22
13
TYPOLOGIES OF
EVOLUTIONARY THEORIZING
 1.
Classical Evolution Theory: Linear
Stages Model
 2. Neo Evolution Theory:
– Ecological Model
– Curvilinear Model
– Globalization Model
FRANCIS ADU-FEBIRI
2016-03-22
14
TYPOLOGIES OF EVOLUTIONARY
THEORIZING
 CLASSICAL:
Growth is Progress:
Stages Toward Progress


Conceptualizes the movement of society through evolutionary
stages where each stage of development represents a marked
movement in human progress.
The movements are independent of social action/engineering.
 NEO:
Growth creates a New order but
not necessarily Progress
focuses on mechanisms and processes of change in
size, scale, scope and complexity rather than
progress.
 Social action/engineering influences change only in
FRANCIS ADU-FEBIRI
2016-03-22
periods of structural crises.

15
 CLASSICAL
SOCIAL
EVOLUTIONARY THEORIZING
FRANCIS ADU-FEBIRI
2016-03-22
16
CLASSICAL SOCIAL
EVOLUTIONARY THEORIZING
 MAIN
THEORY:
 Change in human society is inevitable,
unidirectional, stages-based, and
progresses toward a final destination.
FRANCIS ADU-FEBIRI
2016-03-22
17
SIGNIFICANT FEATURES OF
CLASSICAL SOCIAL EVOLUTIONARY
THEORIZING

1. All societies are fundamentally similar in
that they all go through the same sequence
of stages, albeit at different rates of change,
showing a hierarchy of developmental
stages toward the highest and final stage.
 2.
Many of these classical theorists
ranked their own societies (European
societies) very high and placed
contemporary non-European societies
lower on the sequence of
development—throwbacks to earlier,
simpler social forms that European
FRANCIS ADU-FEBIRI
2016-03-22
societies had long
since surpassed.
18
SIGNIFICANT FEATURES OF
CLASSICAL SOCIAL EVOLUTIONARY
THEORIZING
 3.
Classical social evolutionists did not
believe that once the final stage of
evolution was achieved, history came to
an end; rather, they thought that once
the final stage arrives, change would
involve a continued elaboration and
development of this final form.
FRANCIS ADU-FEBIRI
2016-03-22
19
SIGNIFICANT FEATURES OF
CLASSICAL SOCIAL EVOLUTIONARY
THEORIZING
 4.
Social Relationships, that is, 1) Social
Action, 2) Social Status positions and
Roles, 3) Culture, 4) Structured Social
Inequality, 5) Social Institutions, 6)
Attitudes and Behaviors of individuals,
and 7) all collective phenomena are
manifestations of a particular stage of
development or disruptions that occur
in crises periods of transition in the
FRANCIS ADU-FEBIRI
2016-03-22
progressive development
process.
20
 CLASSICAL
SOCIAL
EVOLUTIONISTS
FRANCIS ADU-FEBIRI
2016-03-22
21
CLASSICAL SOCIAL
EVOLUTIONISTS
Saint-Simon: Sociology of Hope
 Auguste Comte: Sociology of Hope
 Herbert Spencer: Sociology of Hope
 Emile Durkheim: Sociology of Hope
 Karl Marx: Sociology of Hope
 Max Weber: Sociology of Hopelessness
 Thorstein Bunde Veblen: Sociology of Hope

FRANCIS ADU-FEBIRI
2016-03-22
22
LINEAR STAGES MODEL THEORIES IN
EARLY SOCIOLOGY – CLASSICAL
EVOLUTIONISTS
1. Saint-Simon – Comte Model:
 “The Law of Three Stages”:




Movement of ideas towards science causes society
to progress in stages from THEOLOGICAL,
through METAPHYSICAL to POSITIVISTIC.
What’s the driving force of social progress?
Knowledge is the underlying and sustaining factor
of society; a social system is the application of a
system of ideas. The historical growth of
knowledge, or science, was the major cause of the
transformation of European society from feudalism
to industrialism (Zeitlin 2001: 70-71).
FRANCIS ADU-FEBIRI
2016-03-22
23
LINEAR STAGES MODEL THEORIES IN
EARLY SOCIOLOGY

ACCOMPANYING CONCEPTS & DEFINITIONS

Theological Stage:
Dominated by religion; ruled by priests.
Metaphysical Stage:
Dominated by abstract philosophy; ruled by Enlightenment
thinkers
Positivistic Stage:
Dominated by science or positive philosophy as against
negative philosophy, the legacy of Enlightenment and the
French revolution and social thought before them; ruled by
scientific-industrial elite.





FRANCIS ADU-FEBIRI
2016-03-22
24
LINEAR STAGES MODEL THEORIES IN
EARLY SOCIOLOGY
2. Spencer’s Model:
 The Law of the Four Stages:
 Increasing differentiation moves human
society from simple society through
compound and doubly compound societies
to trebly compound society.


What drives social progress?
Increasing differentiation in the areas of production,
reproduction, regulation and distribution moves society
progressively from a simple stage, through compound, to
doubly compound and trebly compound stages. In the process
the best forms of social organization emerge ensuring the
“survival of the fittest” and thereby elevating the level of
FRANCIS ADU-FEBIRI
2016-03-22
society.

25
LINEAR STAGES MODEL THEORIES IN
EARLY SOCIOLOGY

Simple societies of hunters and gatherers reveal
very little differentiation. As societies compound to
horticultural systems, however, clear differentiation
between regulatory (political) and operative
(productive and reproductive) structures is evident;
then, as they doubly compound into agrarian
societies, they differentiate distinctive distributive
systems such as markets, ports and roads. Finally,
with treble compounding into industrial societies,
complex patterns of differentiation between and
within the operative, regulative, and distributive
axes are evident.
FRANCIS ADU-FEBIRI
2016-03-22
26
LINEAR STAGES MODEL THEORIES IN
EARLY SOCIOLOGY

ACCOMPANYING CONCEPTS & DEFINITIONS

Simple Society:

Dominated by hunting-gathering; virtually no differentiation among
the three fundamental axes of society.

Compound Society:

Dominated by horticulture; clear differentiation among the axes of
society

Doubly Compound Society:

Dominated by agrarian activities; distinct differentiation with the
distributive axis

Trebly Compound:

Dominated by industrial activities; complex differentiation among
and within the three main axes of society.
FRANCIS ADU-FEBIRI
2016-03-22
27
LINEAR STAGES MODEL THEORIES IN
EARLY SOCIOLOGY
“Survival of the fittest”:
 ‘Almost a decade before Darwin published
On the Origin of Species, Spencer coined the
phrase ”Survival of the fittest”. He used this
phrase in a moral and philosophical sense,
arguing that the best forms of social
organizations emerge with unregulated
competition among human, which allows
most fit to survive, thereby elevating the level
of society’ (Turner 2003: 77).

FRANCIS ADU-FEBIRI
2016-03-22
28
LINEAR STAGES MODEL THEORIES IN
EARLY SOCIOLOGY
3. Durkheim’s Model:
 The Law of Two Stages:
 The necessity of social integration moves
human society from the Mechanical
Solidarity stage to the Organic Solidarity
stage:

What drives social progress?
 Problems of integration compel society to become
differentiated and progressively move from a
MECHANICAL SOLIDARITY stage to an
ORGANIC SOLIDARITY
FRANCIS ADU-FEBIRI
2016-03-22stage (Emile Durkheim).

29
LINEAR STAGES MODEL THEORIES IN
EARLY SOCIOLOGY

ACCOMPANYING CONCEPTS & DEFINITIONS

Mechanical Solidarity Stage:

This is an initial stage of evolution when society is
characterised by hunting/gathering with little
differentiation. Collective conscience (shared basic
moral values, beliefs, and norms) provided social
solidarity.

Organic Solidarity Stage:
This highest stage of society is characterized by
industrialization with complex pattern of
differentiation, and division of labour creating a
moral value in the form of mutual interdependence
that provide integration
for the social system.
FRANCIS ADU-FEBIRI
2016-03-22

30
LINEAR STAGES MODEL THEORIES IN
EARLY SOCIOLOGY
4. Marx’s Model:
 The Law of Six Stages:




Contradictions in the relations of production create
social conflict that moves society from Class—
primitive communism through slavery, feudalism,
capitalism, and socialism-- to Classlessness
(advanced communism).
What drives social progress?
Contradictions in relations of production reflected in
economic inequalities, exploitation and alienation produce
conflicts--class struggles--that progressively transform society
from class society into classless society; specifically from a
primitive communalism through ancient slavery, feudalism,
and capitalism, to socialism, and, ultimately, communism.
FRANCIS ADU-FEBIRI
2016-03-22
31
LINEAR STAGES MODEL THEORIES IN
EARLY SOCIOLOGY

ACCOMPANYING CONCEPTS & DEFINITIONS
Primitive Communism:
 Hunting/gathering is the focus of life with
little economic inequalities and exploitation.
 Slavery:


Horticulture/agrarian activities dominate; slaves and
commoners are exploited for the benefits of the
nobility/royalty.
Feudalism:
 Agrarian economy is well developed with the
exploited labour of the serfs for the benefit of
FRANCIS ADU-FEBIRI
2016-03-22
the clergy and gentry.

32
LINEAR STAGES MODEL THEORIES IN
EARLY SOCIOLOGY












Capitalism:
Industrialization takes a central stage exploiting the working classes
(proletariat) for the benefit of the upper classes (bourgeoisie).
Socialism:
Dictatorship of the proletariat .
Communism:
Highest stage of industrialization without exploitation; classless
society.
Inequality:
Unfair distribution of scarce resources
Exploitation:
Appropriation of the labor effort of a group/individual for the benefit
of another.
Alienation:
Separation from one’s self, others, and product/service.
FRANCIS ADU-FEBIRI
2016-03-22
33
LINEAR STAGES MODEL THEORIES IN
EARLY SOCIOLOGY
 5.
Weber’s Model:
 “The Law of Two Stages”:
 Increasing rationality moves society
from traditional society to modern
society:



What drives social change?
Increasing rationality changes society from a
traditional inefficient stage into a modern efficient
but oppressive bureaucratic stage:
Increasing purposive rationality structures society
into a bureaucratic “iron cage”.
FRANCIS ADU-FEBIRI
2016-03-22
34
LINEAR STAGES MODEL THEORIES IN
EARLY SOCIOLOGY







ACCOMPANYING CONCEPTS & DEFINITIONS
Purposive Rationality:
the rule of reason demanding that meaning and
action are justified explicitly and objectively.
“Iron Cage”:
Social organization that depersonalizes,
dehumanizes, and dominates/restrains its members.
Bureaucracy:
formally rational, large-scale organization with the following
six characteristics: division of labor, hierarchy of positions,
formal system of rules, separation of the person from the
office, hiring and promotion based on technical merit, and the
protection of careers that produce efficiency.
FRANCIS ADU-FEBIRI
2016-03-22
35
LINEAR STAGES MODEL THEORIES IN
EARLY SOCIOLOGY
 6.
Veblen’s Model:
 The Law of Three Stages:
 From savagery through barbarianism to
civilization
 As the material conditions of life
change, society develops through three
basic stages--savagery through
barbarianism to civilization.
FRANCIS ADU-FEBIRI
2016-03-22
36
LINEAR STAGES MODEL THEORIES IN
EARLY SOCIOLOGY







MAJOR CONCEPTS:
Savage Society:
Small, independent, and self-sufficient hunting and
gathering communities.
Barbarian Society:
Both the agricultural slave societies of the ancient
Middle East and Asia and feudal societies that
developed in Europe and Asia.
Civilization:
Modern society that began in the West in the 19th
century with the Industrial Revolution.
FRANCIS ADU-FEBIRI
2016-03-22
37
 NEO-EVOLUTIONARY
FRANCIS ADU-FEBIRI
2016-03-22
THEORIZING
38
NEO-EVOLUTIONARY
THEORIZING
 MAIN
THEORY:
 Competition for scarce resources and
control over surplus compels society to
evolve/grow from simple to more
complex forms of social organization.
FRANCIS ADU-FEBIRI
2016-03-22
39
NEO-EVOLUTIONARY
THEORISTS
 Amos
Hawley
 Gerhard Lenski
 Jurgen Habermas
 Anthony Giddens
 Immanuel Wallerstein
FRANCIS ADU-FEBIRI
2016-03-22
40
1. ECOLOGICAL MODEL OF NEOEVOLUTIONARY THEORIZING

Unlike the stages model, the ecological model
does not focus on social progress. Rather, it
focuses on growth—”that is, increasing size,
scale, scope, and complexity of the systemic
whole in its environment” (Turner 2003: 89).
FRANCIS ADU-FEBIRI
2016-03-22
41
ECOLOGICAL MODEL OF NEOEVOLUTIONARY THEORIZING
Amos Hawley’s Ecological Model:
 Main Theory: A society’s contact with other
cultures and societies causes it to increase in
size, scale, scope, and complexity.


An ecosystem’s exposure to ecumenical environment produces
new knowledge that causes growth and change in society
when it increases the level of communication and
transportation technologies through increasing production
which then causes expansion of these technologies until the
mobility costs associated with the change reach their
maximum, that is, until equilibrium is attained (Hawley 1950,
1992).
FRANCIS ADU-FEBIRI
2016-03-22
42
ECOLOGICAL MODEL OF
EVOLUTIONARY THEORIZING

ACCOMPANYING CONCEPTS & DEFINITIONS

Growth:

Increasing size, scale, scope, and complexity of the
systemic whole in its environment

Mobility cost:

the time, energy, money and materials associated
with the movement of information, materials, and
people for a change in any given technology.

Ecumenical Environment:

Other societies or cultures of other societies
Equilibrium:
FRANCIS ADU-FEBIRI
2016-03-22
 Relative stability in
the ecological system.

43
2. CURVILINEAR STAGES MODEL
OF NEO-EVOLUTIONARY
THEORIZING
 Main
Theory:
 Societies begin with equality,
change into inequality, and move
toward equality (Kuznets’ Curve).
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=Wth6HhOYpn8
FRANCIS ADU-FEBIRI
2016-03-22
44
CURVILINEAR STAGES MODEL OF
EVOLUTIONARY THEORIZING
Lenski’s Model:
 Main Theory: Improvement in technology
first changes society from more equality to
less equality and later back towards more
equality.


Low technology-production-surplus in hunting/gathering
societies displayed the most equality; then through medium
technology-production-surplus in horticultural and agrarian
societies monopolistic control of surplus increased inequality,
but with high technology-production-surplus in industrial
societies, democratic redistribution of surplus lowered
inequality somewhat but not to the level of hunter-gatherers
(Gerhard Lenski).
FRANCIS ADU-FEBIRI
2016-03-22
45
CURVILINEAR STAGES MODEL OF
EVOLUTIONARY THEORIZING

ACCOMPANYING CONCEPTS & DEFINITIONS
Inequality:
 Unfair distribution of power and privilege
among the members of a population.
 Societal types:
 Hunting and gathering societies, simple
horticultural societies, advanced horticultural
societies, agrarian societies, and industrial
societies.

FRANCIS ADU-FEBIRI
2016-03-22
46
3. GLOBALIZATION MODEL OF NEOEVOLUTIONARY THEORIZING:
 MainTheory:
 Traditional
societies disintegrate into
transitional modern capitalist nationstates and eventually into a global
society.
FRANCIS ADU-FEBIRI
2016-03-22
47
3. GLOBALIZATION MODEL OF NEOEVOLUTIONARY THEORIZING:

1. Habermas’ Model: Three Stages

Main Theory: Crises/contradictions in the social
system transmitted by communicative action
transform society from primitive classless, through
class systems, to a postmodern classless global
society.

Communicative action/rationality (increasing rationalization
of people’s lifeworlds or ideas, values and consciousness)
transmits the crises and contradictions inherent in a social
system to transform society from primitive classless social
formation, through class social formations (traditional
civilizations, modern civilizations—liberal capitalist,
organized capitalist, postcapitalist) to postmodern classless
global social formation (Jurgen Habermas).
FRANCIS ADU-FEBIRI
2016-03-22
48
3. GLOBALIZATION MODEL OF NEOEVOLUTIONARY THEORIZING:

In other words, this evolutionary process is
a reflection of underlying structural changes
and contradictions manifested in the
breakdown of shared values or normative
structures that cause the old social system to
disintegrate because such disintegration
threatens people’s feeling of social identity,
and therefore integration (Wallace and Wolf
2006: 177)

All societies in a given social formation are similar
in their lifeworlds that evolve.
FRANCIS ADU-FEBIRI
2016-03-22
49
3. GLOBALIZATION MODEL OF NEOEVOLUTIONARY THEORIZING:

ACCOMPANYING CONCEPTS & DEFINITIONS

Lifeworld (Ideas and Consciousness):
People’s values, feelings, identity, and
interaction.
Communicative Action or Communicative
Rationality:
 a distinctive type of interaction oriented to mutual
understanding or noncoercive argumentation; an
“ideal speech” situation in which everyone would
have an equal chance to argue and question,
without those who are more powerful, confident, or
prestigious having an unequal say (Wallace and
Wolf 2006: 184)
FRANCIS ADU-FEBIRI
2016-03-22

50
3. GLOBALIZATION MODEL OF NEOEVOLUTIONARY THEORIZING:
Primitive Social Formation:
 Tribal societies where the burden of social
integration is on religion
 Traditional Civilizations:
 Ancient and Feudal societies where the
burden of social integration is shifting from
religion
 Liberal Capitalist Social Formation:


19th Century capitalism where the consensus
formation in language is emerging as the burden of
social integration.
FRANCIS ADU-FEBIRI
2016-03-22
51
3. GLOBALIZATION MODEL OF NEOEVOLUTIONARY THEORIZING:

Organized Capitalist Social Formation:

Capitalism in the 20th and 21th centuries Western
societies where the burden of social integration is
shifting to consensus formation in language
Postcapitalist Social Formation:
 State-socialist class societies where the
political elite disposes of the means of
production.
 Postmodern:
 Global high modernity where the burden of
social integration has shifted to consensus
FRANCIS ADU-FEBIRI
2016-03-22
formation in language/voices.

52
3. GLOBALIZATION MODEL OF NEOEVOLUTIONARY THEORIZING:

2. Anthony Giddens’ Model: Three Stages

Main Theory: Changing dynamics of the interaction
between social structure and human agency have
transformed human society from a tribal system
through a class-divided systems to a global high
modernity:
Due to structuration, the past is dominated first by
tribal societies and then by class-divided societies
where tradition and kinship are the dominant
structural principles. Then followed global high
modernity, distinctly different from class-divided
societies in that its classes are global and structured
by expertise and risk (Anthony Giddens).

FRANCIS ADU-FEBIRI
2016-03-22
53
3. GLOBALIZATION MODEL OF NEOEVOLUTIONARY THEORIZING:
ACCOMPANYING CONCEPTS & DEFINITIONS
 Structuration: The dynamics of the combined
forces of social structure and human agency


Social Structure: Norms, particularly rules, of
relationships that tell people how to “do” social life, and the
resources on which people can call to “do” social life.


Human Agency: The creative aspect of human
action—the individual as a knowledgeable actor.
Global High Modernity: Modern capitalism where
people both calculate risk and feel out of control; where
economic changes have taken “from the poor to give to the
rich…on a huge and global scale, both within and between
countries” (Susan George 1999: 190).
FRANCIS ADU-FEBIRI
2016-03-22
54
 DARWIN’S
FRANCIS ADU-FEBIRI
NIGHTMARES
2016-03-22
55
DARWIN’S NIGHTMARES
 1.
Natural Selection is the Exception:
Unnatural Selection is the Rule
 A) Orchestrated or planned action does
the de-selection or the selection.
 B) Societies that are well advanced on
the evolutionary ladder are not
producing enough off-spring and vice
versa:
 2) Change is negotiable
FRANCIS ADU-FEBIRI
2016-03-22
56
DARWIN’S NIGHTMARES
Unnatural
Rule:
Selections is the
– MOVIE REVIEW: 'DARWIN'S NIGHTMARE' By
A. O. SCOTT
Published: August 3, 2005 : Get the full video in
Camosun Library and watch it.
– Youtube Video:
http://www.youtube.com/watc
h?v=VK9v3ioiYBU&feature=fvsr
FRANCIS ADU-FEBIRI
2016-03-22
57
DARWIN’S NIGHTMARES


What do the planes bring to Africa?
The answers vary. The factory managers say the planes'
cavernous holds are empty when they land. One of the
Russians, made uncomfortable by the question, mutters
something vague about "equipment." Some of his colleagues,
and several ordinary Mwanzans, are more forthright: the
planes, while they occasionally bring humanitarian food and
medical aid, more often bring the weapons that fuel the
continent's endless and destructive wars.
Along the shores of the lake, homeless children fight over
scraps of food and get high from the fumes of melting plasticfoam containers used to pack the fish. In the encampments
where the fishermen live, AIDS is rampant and the afflicted
walk back to their villages to die.
FRANCIS ADU-FEBIRI
2016-03-22
58
DARWIN’S NIGHTMARES
 Unnatural
Selection is the Rule:
 The Nile perch itself haunts the film's
infernal landscape like a monstrous
metaphor. An alien species introduced
into Lake Victoria sometime in the
1960's, it has devoured every other kind
of fish in the lake, even feeding on its
own young as it grows to almost
grotesque dimensions, and destroying
FRANCIS ADU-FEBIRI
2016-03-22
59
DARWIN’S NIGHTMARES
 3.
The Extinction of the “Naturally
Selected”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_
countries_and_territories_by_fertility_r
ate
FRANCIS ADU-FEBIRI
2016-03-22
60
DARWIN’S NIGHTMARES
The Extinction of the “Naturally Selected”:
 In 2005, Hispanic women had the highest fertility
rates, followed by non-Hispanic black women, Asian
women, Native American women, and non-Hispanic
white women.* Fertility rates for Hispanic women
were over 45 percent higher than those for nonHispanic black women and Asian women (99 births
per 1,000 for Hispanic women versus 67 births per
1,000 for non-Hispanic black and Asian women), and
more than 65 percent higher than those for Native
American women and non-Hispanic white women
(60 and 58 births per 1,000 women, respectively). (See
FRANCIS ADU-FEBIRI
2016-03-22
Figure 3)

61
DARWIN’S NIGHTMARES
The Extinction of the “Naturally Selected”:
Ukraine: 0.8% natural decrease annually; 28% total population decrease by
2050
Russia: -0.6%; -22%
Belarus -0.6%; -12%
Bulgaria -0.5%; -34%
Latvia -0.5%; -23%
Lithuania -0.4%; -15%
Hungary -0.3%; -11%
Romania -0.2%; -29%
Estonia -0.2%; -23%
Moldova -0.2%; -21%
Croatia -0.2%; -14%
Germany -0.2%; -9%
Czech Republic -0.1%; -8%
Japan 0%; -21%
Poland 0%; -17%
Slovakia 0%; -12%
Austria 0%; 8% increase
Italy 0%; -5%
FRANCIS ADU-FEBIRI
2016-03-22
Slovenia 0%; -5%

62
 CONCLUSION
FRANCIS ADU-FEBIRI
2016-03-22
63
CONCLUSION
 Societal

Change is Negotiable:
The irony of Marxism and functionalism, says Berger and
Luckmann, was that though their social ideas were inspired
by the high ideals of the Enlightenment, their social theories
sketched a process of social evolution in which individual
choice counted for little… Berger and Luckmann wished to
bring real living, acting individuals back into the center of
social thinking. They aimed to replace organismic and
mechanistic social imagery with a view of society as a
precariously negotiated, fluid order that ultimately resides in
the interaction of individuals. The very title of their major
work, The Social Construction of Reality, underscored the
power of the individual to shape society and the open-ended
character of history ( Seidman 2004, p. 81)
FRANCIS ADU-FEBIRI
2016-03-22
64