Solifuge: Yes, that makes sense. The issue is that of time. Cultural adaptation can occur at a much faster rate than evolution of the compared organisms.
It effectively said at one point that biological adaptation is better than the human form, cultural adaptation, because while biological creatures will always inherit the best traits, societies have things like misinformation that can be passed down. There are four things explicitly wrong with this.
Cosmology is a system of beliefs that answers metaphysical questions, specifically about the nature of existence. Religions generally do that, too, but so does other things (like say, science!).
Is... is that what the book is saying? That cosmology is strictly a religious thing?
It's in the chapter on religion. It has two paragraphs, under the sub-heading "The Search for Order and Meaning", under the heading "Some Functions of Religion". The definition of cosmology is "a system of beliefs that deals with fundamental questions in the religious and social order." The first paragraph is mostly examples of what it could explain. The second is about how it gives meaning to believers' lives.
I made it clear on the class discussion board that cosmology is not only of religious nature, but I'm not sure how much anyone cared.
Also, you'll get to the effects of language on society and even psychology in higher-level Anthropology courses. They might be glossing over things now to build a foundation for discussion.
I have no plans to take any more courses on anthropology; I'm taking sociology and psychology as high school dual-credit courses, and then I'm finished with my social science credits. These things interest me to a degree, but there's too much BS and conflicts between my thoughts and theirs, and overall it's not worth it to me. Not as college courses, anyway.
EDIT: I want to vomit. I don't feel well. I'm taking a break from this. It's becoming difficult to write more than a few unique sentences about how baseball promotes and strengthens social relationships. This is made harder considering that I don't understand how social interaction works.
EDIT2: I think I have stress-induced paranoia. Is that a thing?