Why were nineteenth-century theories of social evolution criticized?

Nineteenth-century theories of social evolution, which posited that all societies progress along a single, predetermined, and inevitable path toward a Western-style civilization, were widely criticized and eventually rejected for several key reasons:

• Empirical Refutation: As research expanded, the growing body of empirical evidence contradicted the rigid, unilinear stages proposed by theorists like Lewis Henry Morgan and Sir Edward Burnett Tylor.12
• Western-Centric Bias: Critics argued that these theories were inherently racist and ethnocentric, as they used Western society as the ultimate standard of achievement and dismissed non-Western cultures as "primitive" or "fossilized" stages of the past.134
• Determinism: The theories were criticized for their rigid determinism, which failed to account for the complexity of historical processes, such as cultural diffusion, the convergence of traits, and the unique historical paths of different societies.12
• Methodological Flaws: Scholars like Franz Boas and the particularist school argued that the comparative method used by evolutionists was flawed. They advocated for cultural relativism, emphasizing that each culture must be understood within its own unique historical and social context rather than being ranked in an artificial hierarchy.53

Ultimately, these critiques shifted the focus of sociology and anthropology toward more nuanced, multilinear, or static perspectives, moving away from the assumption that all human progress is a singular, universal phenomenon.13