Sociology and evolutionary biology: A troubled past, a promising future

Abstract

The New Evolutionary Sociology offers a comprehensive review of the history of evolutionary analysis in sociology that demonstrates its present value ‘once old biases and prejudices are mitigated and, eventually, eliminated’ (p. 14). In the book’s first part, the authors highlight the prominence of evolution in the theorizing of sociology’s founders and the reaction against this approach when it was used to support ethnocentrism, racism, and fascism. The second part describes non-sociologists’ attempts to reconnect evolutionary biology and social science through sociobiology and evolutionary psychology. The book’s last part presents new evolutionary approaches within sociology, focusing primarily on comparative research with primates and a neurosociological explanation of the evolution of the human brain.