Charles Brown; My teachers; teacher, Professor Leslie A. White founded a materialist evolutionary anthropological school of thought at the University of Michigan. He based it importantly on Lewis Henry Morgan's thesis is _Ancient Society_ http://take10charles.blogspot.com/2022/03/leslie-white-founded-evolutionary.html To make a long story short, White's theory was centered in physics-engineering-thermodynamics rather than Darwinian evolutionary theory. White focussed on ENERGY capture ;"that culture evolves as societies increase their per capita energy capture through technological efficiency", Rather than population growth or shrinking. Darwinian natural selection fitness is measured by population size and direction. Dinosaurs were absolutely UNFIT when they went instinct, when their population went to zero. Darwin's statement of this principle is that " rarity is a precursor to extinction.' following the dinosaur extinction, mammals were very fit , as their population grew greatly. Human population grew throughout the Stone Age such that Genus Homo species expanded out of Africa to cover the whole globe, both hemispheres. With the advent of Civilization , human population grew even more, thus increasing its fitness, the fitness of the human species, the human genome ( only species , types, have fitnesses, NOT INDIVIDUAL ORGANISMS. Individual organisms are carriers of TYPES, WHOLE GENOMES OR SPECIFIC TRAIT TYPES). Increased energy capture with Civilization did correspond with population increase. So, evolution of culture to increased Darwinian fitness did correspond with increased energy capture. At any rate, increase in energy capture did correspond to increased human species fitness ,or population size . ( not necessarily per capita energy capture; Marshall Sahlins, White's student criticized White's per capital energy capture formula as not empirically valid). The Energy Theory of Cultural Evolution: Instead of natural selection, White hypothesized that the evolution of human culture is driven by thermodynamics. He argued that a society advances based on its ability to harness per-capita energy from the environment (captured by his formula: \(E \times T > P\), where \(E\) = Energy, \(T\) = Technology, and \(P\) = Product) White is correct that the natural selection principle does not apply to conflicts WITHIN the human species BECAUSE CONFLICTS WITHIN THE SPECIES DO NOT INCREASE THE SPECIES POPULATION OR RAISE ITS FITNESS (RECALL DARWININ FITNESSIS MEASURED BY POPULATION GROWTH OR SHRINKAGE). So-called Social Darwinism is actually anti-Social Darwinism when it falsely characterizes conflicts with in the species (such as war) as natural selection dynamics. Natural selection dynamics are conflicts between different species, not within the same species. White is indirectly correct that society "advances" (in the sense that it increases species fitness) "based on its ability to harness per-capita energy from the environment) , because this correlates in history with POPULATION INCREASE with the advent of Civilization. AI Overview Yes, the total human population spiked significantly with the advent of Civilization ,6,000 years ago. As humanity transitioned from nomadic hunting and gathering to agricultural communities, and eventually to the first city-states (like those in Mesopotamia and Egypt), the world population surged from an estimated 5 million to around 40 million globally.The advent of civilization ~6,000 to 10,000 years ago caused this explosion for several concrete reasons:Higher Caloric Output: Farming and agriculture allowed humans to produce a much higher volume of food per acre than foraging.Sedentary Lifestyles: Staying in one place altered women's ovarian function and shortened periods of lactation, drastically increasing female fertility and birth rates.Better Infant Survival: While individual lifespans didn't necessarily improve, having reliable, storable food surpluses enhanced early childhood survival rates.You can read more about this fundamental demographic turning point on Our World in Data. http://take10charles.blogspot.com/2022/03/leslie-white-founded-evolutionary.html Leslie White founded evolutionary anthropology school based on Lewis Henry Morgan Charles Brown Problem with White's historical materialism was he based it in physics ( human efficiency in energy capture ; human ability to counter to second law of thermodynamics) ; _and not in Natural Historical Evolution or species population growth /Darwinian Fitness_ . His student well known for writing on White's evolutionary theory of efficiency of energy capture , and general and specific evolution of cultures , Marshall Sahlins , self-critically broke with White's energy capture thesis , but did not take up Natural Historical -Darwinian analysis-synthesis , because rightwing Social Darwinisms ( Spencer , sociobiology, evolutionary psychology, white supremacy ) dominated that field. However , importantly and critically , White and Sahlins championed fiercely SYMBOLIC SIGN COMMUNICATION AS THE DIFFERENTIA SPECIFICA OF HUMAN BEINGS. This is profoundly correct . I have developed very much anthropological science based in Darwinian-Blackwellian human Natural History and Evolution; and White-Sahlins-LeviStraussian Structural Anthropology and Semiotics. (In anthroplogical intellectual kindhip , I consider myself Son of Sahlins and Grandson of Leslie White - smiles) Here is Sahlins on his sublation- overcoming and preserving - of White's historical materialism ( my position is a negation of Sahlins's negation White's materialist physics determinism; mine is Marxist Natural History determinism with more human natural history knowledge than Darwin , Marx and Engels had) https://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/21/magazine/21DubaiSIDE-t.html Sept. 19, 2008 In the pre-’60s at the University of Michigan, rebellion consisted of listening gleefully to the anthropologist Leslie White going mano a mano with God. White was one of those maverick intellectuals and politicians, like Thorstein Veblen, Charles Beard and Robert La Follette, who came out of the rural American heartland to off the pieties-and powers-that-be. Some of these intellectuals were village atheists from the beginning. Others, like White, only shook off the idiocies of rural life when they went to the city and the university. We never knew White was a member of the Socialist Labor Party in the ’30s and early ’40s, contributing articles to The Weekly People under the name John Steel. Nor could you have guessed from his so-Americanized version of Marxism: a theory of cultural evolution based singularly on technological progress. Progress in the Neolithic, he claimed, came from the increase in the amount of energy harnessed per capita because of plant and animal domestication. He was not amused when I objected that energy “per capita” was the same as in the Old Stone Age, since the primary mechanical source remained the human body. ( CB: Come to think of it , after all these years of hearing Sahlins's critique, White's formula would have some validity if we just use "energy harnessed " period -no "per capta" ) Sahlins continues : "On the other hand, I have never repudiated White’s concept of culture as a thoroughly symbolic phenomenon. I never tired of repeating his dictum that no ape can appreciate the difference between holy water and distilled water — because there is none, chemically speaking. That, for me, resolved the contradiction in his own teaching and that of the many human scientists who separate culture from practical activity, as if the symbolic dimension of economic behavior were an afterthought of the material. The “economic basis” of society is culturally constructed. Even our supposedly “rational choices” are based on another, meaningful logic that, for example, makes steak a more prestigious food than hamburger, or women’s clothes different in significant ways from men’s. It turns out that materialism is a form of idealism, because it’s wrong, too. Marshall Sahlins is an emeritus professor of anthropology at the University of Chicago and the author most recently of “The Western Illusion of Human Nature.” https://anthropology.iresearchnet.com/leslie-a-white/ WHITE, LESLIE A. fig.1White accepted an appointment at the University of Buffalo in 1927. Following a visit to a nearby Seneca Indian Reservation, White read Lewis Henry Morgan’s League of the Iroquois. Morgan’s evolutionary ideas resonated with White and he read the works of other evolutionary theorists including Herbert Spenser and Edward B. Tylor. White joined the faculty of the University of Michigan following the retirement of Julian Steward in 1930. Despite tensions with other faculty and administration, he stayed at Michigan until his retirement in 1970. During his tenure, the institution was transformed into one of the leading centers for anthropological teaching and research in the country. White became a prolific writer while at Michigan, publishing The Science of Culture (1949), The Evolution of Culture: The Development of Civilization to the Fall of Rome (1959), and The Concept of Culture (1973). The Science of Culture is widely regarded as White’s most important work and outlines his ideas about the relationship between culture, culturology (the scientific study of culture), and cultural evolution. According to White, the primary force in cultural evolution is technology and a culture advances as “the amount of energy harnessed per capita per year increases or as the efficiency or means of controlling energy is increased.” As technology becomes more efficient (and more energy is harnessed), the social structure and ideological norms of the society change accordingly. In addition to his writings on evolution, White continued his lifelong interest in Lewis Henry Morgan and wrote several volumes on Morgan’s research and life. These include Excerpts From the European Travel Journal of Lewis H. Morgan (1937) and Pioneers in American Anthropology: The Bandelier-Morgan Letters 1837—1883 (1940). He was also an avid field researcher who published several monographs including The Acoma Indians (1932), The Pueblo of San Felipe (1932), and The Pueblo of Santa Ana, New Mexico (1942). White retired from the University of Michigan in 1970. Following his retirement, White moved to Santa Barbara and continued writing at the University of California. On March 31, 1975, he died of a heart attack. White will be remembered as a “neo-evolutionist” who reintroduced the concept of evolution into anthropological theory. References: Bohannan, P., & Glazer, M. (1988). High points in anthropology. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. Marcus, G. E., & Fischer, M. M. J. (1986). Anthropology as cultural critique: An experimental moment in the human sciences. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Morgan, L. H. (1960). The league of the Iroquois. New York: Corinth Books. Service, E. (1976). Leslie Alvin White 1900-1975. American Anthropologist, 78, 612-617. White, L. A. (1949). The science of culture: A study of man and civilization. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, Inc. White, L. A. (1973). The concept of culture. Minneapolis: Burgess Publishing Company Yes, Morgan's Societas / Civitas distinction is still fundamental in anthropology all the way to White's student Sahlins. Societas is the Stone Age; phylogenetically based kinship organizes society. With Civitas is the origin of the male supremacist family , private property and the state, a la Engels. On Jan 23, 2017, at 8:13 PM, Jim Farmelant < wrote:< No mention that White was a member of the Socialist Labor Party and that his neoevolutionism was in large degree inspired by his readings of Engels and of Lewis Henry Morgan, the 19th century American anthropologist, who studied American Indian tribes, andwas a friend of Charles Darwin, and whose work was admired by Darwin, Marx & Engels, and Freud, ---------- Original Message ---------- https://www.britannica.com/biography/Leslie-A-White Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2017 15:23:47 -0500 White considered his greatest contribution to anthropology to be his conception of culturology, outlined in a series of essays called The Science of Culture (1949). By culturology, White meant the application to culture of the organismic analogy of structure-function that Herbert Spencer had applied to society. This approach to culture was philosophically materialistic and nonreductionist. However, White was never a social Darwinist, and he opposed Spencer’s interpretations of the Darwinian terms “competition” and “survival of the fittest.” He promoted Tylor’s definition of culture and denied that cultural variation derived from racial differences among humans. what is an outline of Leslie a white's The Evolution of Culture (1973 AI Mode Tools AI Overview Leslie A. White’s The Evolution of Culture is the 1959 foundational text of neo-evolutionary anthropology. It argues that culture evolves as societies increase their per capita energy capture through technological efficiency. White divides culture into three interdependent subsystems—Technological, Sociological, and Ideological—with technology acting as the primary engine for evolutionary progress. en.wikipedia.org +1 The book systematically outlines cultural development, progressing from the earliest human societies through the fall of Rome. The structural outline of the book's core argument is as follows: 1. The Theory of Cultural Evolution The Energy Principle: White’s primary law of cultural evolution dictates that culture evolves as the amount of energy harnessed per capita per year increases, or as the efficiency of energy control improves. sk.sagepub.com Culture as Extrasomatic Adaptation: He defines culture as an extrasomatic (outside the body) means of adaptation, consisting of tools, beliefs, and social systems designed to ensure human survival in nature. bioculturalevolution.net +2 2. The Tripartite Structure of Culture White breaks down every cultural system into three interconnected components, asserting that changes begin in the material base and ripple upward: Technological Subsystem: The material, mechanical, physical, and chemical tools, as well as the techniques used to subsist. This is the primary determinant of cultural evolution. en.wikipedia.org +3 Sociological Subsystem: The interpersonal relations and social structures (e.g., kinship systems, political institutions, and economic organizations) that govern human behavior. Ideological Subsystem: The beliefs, values, knowledge, and philosophies used to adjust, interpret, and give meaning to the natural and social environments. 3. Stages of Cultural Development The text traces the evolution of human civilization through escalating stages of energy capture and technological advancement: The Eolithic and Paleolithic Stages: Characterized by reliance on human energy, rudimentary chipped stone tools, and fire. The Neolithic Revolution: The shift from hunting and gathering to agriculture and animal husbandry. This enabled humans to capture solar energy more efficiently, leading to sedentary villages, population booms, and the division of labor. The Age of Metals and Fuel: The mastery of metallurgy followed by the early use of non-human energy sources (wind and water). sociopedia.co +1 4. Societal and Ideological Consequences White demonstrates how these technological milestones necessitated massive changes to social and political structures. For instance, the agricultural revolution transformed societies from small bands based on kinship into large, complex states stratified by class, ownership, and formal government. sociopedia.co To explore the exact definitions and mechanics of his theory, you can refer to the full text available via the Internet Archive.