Natural Selection, Energetics, and "Cultural Materialism" [and Comments and Reply]

Abstract

Harris's cultural materialistic strategy of research must be more explicit in recognizing that it deals with nonlinear events that are constantly modified by natural-selective processes. These processes require a different kind of explanation, called here "selection explanation." Moreover, the tripartite notion of infrastructure/structure/superstructure and the mental/behavioral, emic/etic, and culture/nature dichotomies do not allow unambiguous classification of elements pertaining to the various categories. Different criteria based on conformance with laws of energy are proposed.