ANTH 410 Lecture Notes - Lecture 7: Dialectical Materialism, Orthogenesis, Material Conditional
Document Summary
Traits don"t arise based on need (that"s recombination) they are however selected based on it in natural selection. Natural selection reproduces the genes in which a trait are present, cultural selection replicates trait within a culture. Drift can factor in as well in genes as well as in culture based on who chooses not to have children and pass down their genes or not. The styles themselves are the neutral trait without material consequence, but that you have those styles which gives you and helps people recognize your group identity is something that has material consequence. Please note this model is the neo-darwinian school of thought which does draw on previous ones, all sort of cross cut each other. Measuring reproductive success of traits adopted in prehistory is difficult as we can"t look at the people, measuring after the fact which is a problem in this model.
