The notion of caste encouraged a link between scholarship in entomology and sociology because it served as an example of a division of labour in which the participants seemed to be uncompromisingly adapted to special functions and sometimes even unique environments. To bolster the concept of caste, entomologists and sociologists referred to the complementary social or natural parallel and thereby appeared to generalize the concept and give it an appearance of familiarity. In the late 19th- and early 20th centuries, the perceived similarities between the Indian caste system and caste polymorphism in insects were used to create a correspondence or parallelism for the purpose of explaining or clarifying racial stratification in human societies; the explanations came particularly to be employed in the United States. Ideas from heredity and natural selection influenced some sociologists who believed that some groups were predetermined to belong to a lower social or occupational status. Chiefly through the work of W. Lloyd Warner at the University of Chicago, a group of sociologists sharing similar principles came to evolve around the creed of caste in the 1930s and 1940s.
The notion of caste encouraged a link between scholarship in entomology and sociology because it served as an example of a division of labour in which the participants seemed to be uncompromisingly adapted to special functions and sometimes even unique environments. To bolster the concept of caste, entomologists and sociologists referred to the complementary social or natural parallel and thereby appeared to generalize the concept and give it an appearance of familiarity. In the late 19th- and early 20th centuries the perceived similarities between the Indian caste system and caste polymorphism in insects were used to create a correspondence or parallelism for the purpose of explaining or clarifying racial stratification in human societies; the explanations came particularly to be employed in the United States. Ideas fr.om heredity and natural selection influenced some sociologists who believed that some groups were predetermined to belong to a lower social or occupational status. Chiefly through the work of W Lloyd Warner at the University of Chicago, a group of sociologists sharing similar principles came to evolve around the creed of caste in the 1930s and 1940s.