The Social Evolution of Human Nature

Harry's Smit's The Social Evolution of Human Nature: From Biology to Language is an overly ambitious work which aims to use insights from genetics, evolutionary theory and biology to address fundamental questions in human nature and the evolution of language. In what follows, I provide a brief summary and critical remarks on each chapter before concluding with what I think is the book's primary contribution and its primary failing. In the initial chapter, Smit sets out his twin aims of applying Hamilton's inclusive fitness theory (IFT) to human social linguistic evolution and a neo-Aristotelian teleological perspective to an interpretation of Darwin's natural selection. He discusses two kinds of evolutionary transitions, i.e. evolution from lower level to higher level units, egalitarian and fraternal. Then he goes on to describe six such major transitions and includes language evolution as a means of transitioning from primate to human societies (even though it does fit perfectly as our societies do not constitute biological entities).

Biological evolution · Biology · Darwin (ADL) · Epistemology · Evolutionary biology · Evolutionary theory · Human biology · Human evolution · Inclusive fitness · Interpretation (philosophy) · Linguistics · Natural selection · Niche construction · Perspective (graphical) · Selection (genetic algorithm) · Social evolution · Sociobiology · Sociocultural evolution · Sociology · Teleology · Anthropology · Computer Science · Embodied and Extended Cognition · Genetics · Language and cultural evolution · Origins and Evolution of Life · Philosophy