An Anthropologist Looks at Biology

Abstract

Thls article sets out the foundations for an adequate integration of anthropology within the wider field of biology. In the discourse of social anthropology, the concept of 'biology' is commonly matched to one side of an opposition between humamty and nature, setting up persons and organisms as mutually exclusive objects of study. In biology itself, however, the established neo-Darwinian synthesis virtually elimnates the organism as a real entity, and the extension of this paradigm to incorporate 'cultural inheritance' likewise elimnates the person. An alternative biology is proposed that takes the organism as its starting point, and that comprehends the social life of persons as an aspect of organic life in general. Thus an anthropology ofpersons is encompassed within a biology of organisms whose focus is on processes rather than events, replacing the 'population thinking' of Darwinian evolutionary biology with a logic of relationships. Biology is the science of living organisms; anthropology is the science of living people. In this article I want to propose that anthropology-including what passes as 'social' or 'cultural' in orientation-falls entirely within the domain of biology. But do not jump to conclusions. I am not a belated convert to sociobiology. To the contrary, I argue that in sociobiology, an impoverished biology that has lost touch with the reality of organisms meets an equally impoverished social science that leaves no conceptual space for real people. It is most unfortunate that the terms of the dialogue between biology and anthropology should have been thus pre-empted. I intend to show that central problems in current anthropological theory, concerning the generation, maintenance and transformation of structures in the process of social life, have their exact parallels in biology, but that their solution demands an approach that takes us far beyond the prevailing neo-Darwinian orthodoxy. In place of the kind of 'population thinking' (Mayr 1982: 45-7) that is the hallmark of Darwinian biology it is necessary to substitute a kind of 'relationships thinking', which locates the organism or person as a creative agent within a total field of relations whose transformations describe a process of evolution. I am offering, then, the prospect of a new synthesis between biology and social or cultural anthropology, but no more than a prospect, since much theoretical work remains to be done. I am also issuing a challenge, for the incorporation of human social life into a unified theory of organic evolution will require nothing less than a paradigm-shift within biology itself There are signs that such a shift is already taking place1, yet it seems that in the oppositional context of its confrontation with the humanities, neo-Darwinism is destined to take a last stand. So much is at stake. I shall proceed as follows. First, I shall show how 'biology' has been construed within the discourse of anthropology through its assimilation to one side of an ancient dichotomy between humanity and nature. I go on to describe how the notion of