Modern Developments
Others on the left such as Australian bioethicist Peter Singer in A Darwinian Left have embraced modern evolutionary theory but reach different political and economic lessons than more conservative observers.
Meme theory, put forward by British ethologist and prominent advocate for atheism Richard Dawkins, proposes evolutionary mechanisms for the development and propagation of "ideas" as well as social institution such as religions. Meme theory also suggests that not only is genetic evolution taking place within human society, but memetic evolution is as well. The issue is then raised of diffusion of memes versus the diffusion of genes, and many would argue that the evolution and propagation of memes within human society far exceeds the importance of the evolution and propagation of genes.
Popular scientific author and ecologist Jared Diamond has also put forward materialistic explanations, that work within an evolutionary framework, to explain the differences between various cultures almost exclusively through the variations in environmental factors.
The theories of sociobiology and evolutionary psychology have been subjected to various leftist and feminist criticism. Some such critics, including geneticist and Marxist social commentator Richard Lewontin, dismiss these explanations as manifestations of a conservative and morally deleterious biological determinism. They claim that evolutionary accounts of human ethology claims that matters such as sexism and xenophobia are evolved and innate features of human behaviour, and therefore resistant to political change.
Read more about this topic: Evolutionary Theory And The Political Left
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