Page 21 - The Gluckman Occasional Number Four

intelligence and flexibility to survive. This is a sociobiological
explanation, somewhat ex post facto and therefore subject to the
objection of circular reasoning and the possibility of purely random or
incidental trait development and survival. Therefore the question, like
others posed to find reasons for organic evolution in a blank historical
record, remains ultimately unanswerable. But it is fair to speculate that
given the nature of small hunter-gatherer groups linked internally by
kinship and therefore limited genetic variation, the range of types would
be limited. And such groups, competing in a harsh and unforgiving series
of ecological niches, need specialization—people who are more or less
aggressive, introspective, imaginative, disciplined, nurturing or inclined to
lead. Thus the phenomena described by astrology may confer an
advantage at the level of group survival: the traits traditionally assigned to
different zodiacal signs all have their use.
In that latter interpretation, Jung’s mandala of human attributes does
have correspondence with a horoscope—but only at a group level, an
overlay of all members’ strengths and weaknesses. Solitary hunters or
foragers may need identical traits to be successful, but our species did not
evolve to or from that sort of animal. It is probably safe to state that any
significant variability in humans, considered both as a gene pool and a set
of measurable qualities, will be definitively accepted or rejected as
following “astrological” influences within the next century—if properly
researched.