Tracing plasticity in the history of anthropological thought

Marvin Harris, Theories of Culture in Postmodern Times, Preface, p. 14

"At the same time, nineteenth-century efforts to use Darwinian biology to explain cultural differences and similarities have come full circle. These efforts at biologizing culture gyrate around the great god's natural selection and reproductive success. Yet everyone knows (or should know) that the most distinctive attribute of culture is precisely its plasticity and its ability to evolve independently of changes in the genome."