The ideas of Evans-Pritchard (1940) and Meyer Fortes (1945) were founded on this line of thought. They argued that societies were structured along unilineal descent groups. These kinds of groups operate like corporate groups. This means that these groups are stable and lasting social groups. They have well laid rules and guidelines on membership and associations. They also possess an inherent structure that controls these associations and though the allocating of roles, duties and responsibilities. The corporate groups are typified by universal principles like administration of property and protection against violence. These groups establish lasting social structures whose existence goes beyond the lifespan of their members. These structures are available not only for those who establishes them, but to other generations to come. The theory of Evans-Pritchard and Meyer Fortes was referred to as descent theory. This theory applied to the African context which was where the two carried out their research. The territorial partitions were lined up with lineages. The theory therefore combined blood and soil as related to each other. According to the two theorists, the main categorising element of social structures is the reckoning of relationship through decent. This theory was considered a lot buy scholars but later it was challenged and developed through establishment of other theories.
Many of the African societies fitted this model perfectly. In spite of this fact, many Africanists like Richards argued that the two theorists overlooked other factors that played part in the organisation of the society. Richards suggested that the two had knowingly downplayed inherent inconsistencies and put undue emphasis on the permanence of the local lineage structures and their importance in the organising of a society. These discrepancies were even more evident in the Asian community. According to Francis (2002), one such community in Asia is Papua New Guinea. Here the local patrilineal decent groups were split and had many non-agnates. Differences in status were not dependant on descent. Another factor was the fact that genealogies were too short to determine social solidarity by recognition of the same ancestor. Another problem was posed by the concept of cognant or bilateral kinship. This problem was associated with proposing that descent groups were the main element to social organizations, especially in primitive communities
The empirical facts by these theorists were only adapted by fiction. This meant that their view had no proper basis practically. The two had ignored a lot of other elements that played part in social organizations. Elements like interests, exploitation and competition had been overlooked. The two had also overlooked the role played by marriage and affinal links. This was all done at the interest of overemphasizing the role played by descent.
Some evolutionary theorists who felt that the structural functionalism was significant but not all inclusive developed other theories. Multilevel selection was a supporting theory to structural functionalism. This model was established as a way to account for other factors that affect the formation of the society. It accounts for persistent and spread behaviour inclinations. It is this theory that explains the development of altruism. This is achieved by observing the natural selection of groups and not individuals. Altruism is the character of selfless concern for the welfare of other people. It is an ethical principle that requires people to have the moral obligation to assist, serve or benefit other people. It calls for the sacrifice of personal interests for the benefit of others. In altruism, self interests are put aside for the sake of the interests of others.
The focus of this argument is whether groups can possess functional organisation just like individuals. This is also to determine whether groups can be drives for selection. For instance, it seeks to determine if those groups that were able to associate and cooperate well out-produced those that were not able to do so. This theory focuses more on fundamental concepts and not just the observable concepts.
Multilevel selection theory is not inclined towards personal or group selection, but can be employed in the evaluation of the balance between group and personal selection on a case-by-case analysis. This theory establishes a middle ground between group and individual selection. This theory has had more empirical proof than the Structural functionalist theory. Gene-culture co-evolution is a contemporary theory. This theory is applied to people that links evolutionary biology to contemporary socio-biology in justification for group selection. Here culture is handled as distinct evolutionary system. Culture operates parallel to the normal genetic evolution to develop human traits. It is evident that this ideology of linking genetic influence to cultural influence does not feature in other theories. This is a better concept than most of the other theories because it shows a more inclusive idea. It does not observe adaptability to social situations as being influenced by only one factor but more. This theory shows why human being is able to evolve distinct and highly adaptive characteristics to social pressures and environments. The kind of adaptation is usually quicker than when determined by genetic evolution only. The action of social or corporate learning is what allows people to gather information over generations. This makes it possible to store this information in cultural activities and transfer it over generations. This is also what makes it possible for culture to develop over time. Social learning leads to cultural evolution of strongly adaptive characters and behaviours. This evolution takes place alongside genetic evolution. This is what makes people in a certain community to have common characteristics and behaviours. The reason behind this is not a common descent but cultural evolution.
Other theorists like Herbert Gintis approaches cultural evolution in an arithmetical manner. In his view, communities that promote social standards, like in group selection, are likely to outlive those that do not. He demonstrates this by establishing a multi-level gene-culture co-evolutionally representation.
This representation shows the process whereby altruism social standards will prevent socially destructive standards. This way, the altruism social norms will be internalized.
However, one major drawback of the multilevel selection theory is that for the group to acquire similar behaviour, the behaviour must be first dispersed through the whole group. This process is referred to as regular evolution. This is explained by Mackie J. who argues in a case where there are many distinct groups each from with a distinct Evolutionally Stable Strategy (ESS), there will be selection among the distinct Evolutionally Stable Strategies, considering the fact that some are worse than others. In this case, in a situation where there is altruism, that group will be in a better competitive level than where individuals act on their own. This is the reason why societies are able to survive while they depend on each other. Even the groups that have more altruism will always outperform those that are selfish
These are some of the factors that the structural functionalism leaves out. All in all, the structural functionalist theory provided a basis for the development of these other contemporary theories. Genetic evolution alone cannot explain social adaptability and associations. Genetic evolution alone cannot explain social adaptability of people who gets to belong to a community without necessarily having a common descent with other members of the community.
The idea of multilevel selection theory sounds better suited to explain social adaptability. However, it does not quite give a proof for multilevel selection as an evolutionally process that is capable to establish altruism. Altruism is the greatest behaviour process that can raise survival fitness of societies. This is why there are other developments of inter-group interaction theories that are better than multilevel selection theory. It is evident therefore that the relationship between multilevel selection and altruism calls for investigations of other theories. Such theories like kin selection and reciprocal altruism can be considered.
The multilevel selection, though it is a development of structural functionalism theory is in a better position to explain adaptive characteristics of societies. The notion of individual groups as adaptive units can be maintained not only by evolution hypothesis but by experiential information on individual social groups in all cultures worldwide.
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