You certainly can see evolutionary processes at work, even if the data is
often not good enough to perform statistical tests on them.
On Tue, 22 Aug 1995, Danny Yee wrote:
> > "THE WORLD SYSTEM confronts the idea that historic long term
> > economic inter-connectedness did not begin, as some say, 500
> > years ago but rather 5,000. The book broadly poses a challenge to
> > Eurocentric world history and offers a humanocentric alternative
> > analysis addressed to a wide range of disciplines. The editors
> > have gathered an impressive array of scholars involved in world
> > system analysis, and include both statments of and responses to
> > the various aspects and issues created by these controvesial and
> > challenging theories of 'one world system.'
>
> The only work on 5 000 year world-system cycles I've read was
> the recent article in Current Anthropology, which I found really
> unconvincing. (The data seem so patchy for the earlier periods
> that trying to fit cycles to them without using real statistical
> methods seems really dubious.) What's the consensus (if any)
> on this theory in the WS community?
>
> Danny Yee.
>
>
>