How does social evolution differ from biological evolution?
(Two alternative perspectives on this question are of interest. See “What is wrong with the concept of human (social) evolution?” This contains an excellent review of the history of the question. Also see the working paper for the CLEA study group “Evolution and Progress.”) This is an unresolved question, largely due to the absence of hard data to understand the dynamics in either system. But one point of difference might be suggested, the idea of progress, and is illustrative of some important concepts. The concept of progress in biological evolution has been a controversial from the beginning (see the link above). We like to think that humans are the culmination of 5 billion years of evolution, the consequence of constant improvement of each organism along the way. But actually if you “ran the solution” again, the current state of species development would be very different and possibly with humans not even present. It is now generally accepted that the concept of progress, at least
