Genes and culture: Thoughts on methodology and biological analogies in social theory

Harvey E. Goldberg*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingChapterpeer-review

Abstract

The work of S. N. Eisenstadt, as clearly demonstrated in his The Form of Sociology, represents the conviction that there can exist a single social science whose advance as a coherent system of concepts and theories can be recognized. The transmission of culture has been of special interest to the tradition within anthropology once known as "culture and personality". In the realms of both biology and behavior there exists a striking disjunction between the main mechanisms of transmission and motivations that "energize" those mechanisms. In human biology, of course, the main mechanism is the act of intercourse, which results in the fertilization of the egg by the sperm and in subsequent embryonic development. The existence of distinct mechanisms of cultural transmission is perhaps better documented in another realm-that of language, sometimes seen as the prototype of other cultural structures and processes.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationComparative Social Dynamics
Subtitle of host publicationEssays in Honor of S. N. Eisenstadt
PublisherTaylor and Francis
Pages360-373
Number of pages14
ISBN (Electronic)9780429705502
ISBN (Print)9780367014896
DOIs
StatePublished - 1 Jan 2019

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 1985 Taylor & Francis. All rights reserved.

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