ABSTRACT
In the popular mind everything that changes within society constitutes 'social change', from variations in the patterns of fashion to movements in population and general scientific advance. Under the strong influence of common expectations of cargo and supplies arriving in ships or planes, and of united messianic hopes, many island groups have experienced trance states, convulsions and collective seizure or hysteria. The word 'evolution' implies a scientific concept of development and change, an 'unrolling' or unfolding, a movement in some particular direction. A consideration of physical and biological factors involves such problems as the changing size and average age of a population, the varying balance between deaths and births, and the variations in the race, colour and culture in the differing elements of the population. Some simple societies, which are at the same level of technological, or technical, development, seem to have developed very different cultures.
