Abstract
Recognition of the relationship between natural selection and cultural change has a longer history than most people think (Costall 1991). Charles Darwin and many of his contemporaries were well aware of the analogy between change in artifact form and natural processes of change in living things. Yet, despite this considerable history of study, recent attempts to apply Darwinian theory to human culture have failed to confront problems faced by Darwin himself.
Natural selection, the blind, unconscious, automatic process which Darwin discovered, and which we now know is the explanation for the existence and apparently purposeful form of all life, has no purpose in mind. It has no mind and no mind’s eye. It does not plan for the future. It has no vision, no foresight, no sight at all. If it can be said to play the role of the watchmaker in life, it is the blind watchmaker. (Dawkins 1986:5)
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Graves-Brown, P. (1996). In Search of the Watchmaker. In: Maschner, H.D.G. (eds) Darwinian Archaeologies. Interdisciplinary Contributions to Archaeology. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4757-9945-3_9
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