Does Sociology Have Any Choice but to Be Evolutionary?

Abstract

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Historically, over the long run, evolutionary approaches have struggled in sociology with great effort being expended (sometimes purely rhetorically rather than scientifically) to criticize them or, even more radically, to rule them out of court altogether as “not sociological.” This approach implies that such approaches are optional to the sociological project. By contrast, this article takes an opposing position and argues that sociology has no real alternative to evolutionary approaches in at least two key areas. First and foremost, we need an approach that can explain social organization without relying on implausible levels of deliberation (while still compatible with the, sometimes successful, exercise of reason). Secondly, we need an approach that is “properly” historical in being able to engage with both macro (structural) change and genuine novelty. This article not only discusses what is needed and why but also illustrates how such an approach could work using an Agent-Based Model (hereafter ABM).

Keywords

• evolutionary sociology
• functionalism
• selectionism
• organizational ecology
• agent-based modeling
• genuine novelty