ABSTRACT
In Daniel Chirot's model of social evolution, the onset of stressors is followed by adaptive radiation. Thomas Carlyle believed in social control. Social control is presumably safer than its absence. Thomas Carlyle was clear that major social changes owe to the initiatives of special people. Prospective innovators are convinced that the premeditated application of science has nearly unlimited potential. The stressors created by the Industrial Revolution deprived women of valued social roles. Activists therefore sought a way to elevate their status. If revolutionary ideologies are closely linked to an unconstrained vision of social change, evolutionary perspectives are usually associated with the opposite. Evolutionary thinkers thus assume social change is constrained. The meme analog of genetic mutation implies that there is a generalized mechanism underlying all social change. Innovations in the ritual order derive from still other mechanisms. Enduring patterns of interpersonal relationships, when upset, can likewise foster a search for alternatives.
