Towards a unified science of cultural evolution

2012

When I read this book's predecessor, Culture and the Evolutionary Process, not long after it came out 20 years ago, it seemed to me to offer a new and more productive future for my discipline, archaeology. There were many features that were attractive but one of the most refreshing was its lack of dogmatism. Like many other humanities and social science disciplines, in the mid 1980s archaeology, in Britain at least, was going through a period of major upheaval. In the case of archaeology the so-called processual approach that had been pioneered by authors such as Lewis Binford in the 1960s, with its emphasis on culture as adaptation and its rejection of history, was being challenged by views that emphasised the meaning of artefacts rather than their function, and cultural uniqueness arising from specific histories rather than universal adaptive processes. You had to choose one camp or the other; there was no room for fence-sitting. The evolutionary approach of dual inheritance theory advocated by Boyd and Richerson rejected this dilemma. Adaptation was important but so were specific histories. It could not merely be assumed that adaptive problems called into existence their own solutions. The dynamics of culture itself were important. Moreover, the very features of human culture that made it adaptive also opened up the possibility of maladaptive developments. If one accepted this perspective, establishing the importance of adaptive payoffs or the specifics of particular histories in understanding patterning in the archaeological record was not a matter of making a dogmatic commitment a priori but something to be elucidated in particular cases as a result of empirical work.

Biology & Philosophy, 2018

This paper addresses the question of how to understand the relationship between Cultural Evolutionary Science (CES) and the social sciences, given that they coexist and both study cultural change. I argue that CES is best understood as having a unificatory or integrative role between evolutionary biology and the social sciences, and that it is best characterized as a bridge field; I describe the concept of a bridge field and how it relates to other non-reductionist accounts of unification or integration used in the philosophy of science literature.

2020

Cultural evolution theory has long been inspired by evolutionary biology. Conceptual analogies between biological and cultural evolution have led to the adoption of a range of formal theoretical approaches from population dynamics and genetics. However, this has resulted in a research programme with a strong focus on cultural transmission. Here, we contrast biological with cultural evolution, and highlight aspects of cultural evolution that have not received sufficient attention previously. We outline possible implications for evolutionary dynamics and argue that not taking them into account will limit our understanding of cultural systems. We propose twelve key questions for future research, among which are calls to improve our understanding of the combinatorial properties of cultural innovation, and the role of development and life history in cultural dynamics. Finally, we discuss how this vibrant research field can make progress by embracing its multidisciplinary nature.

Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences, 2018

Culture evolves according to dynamics on multiple temporal scales, from individuals' minute-by-minute behaviour to millennia of cultural accumulation that give rise to population-level differences. These dynamics act on a range of entities-including behavioural sequences, ideas and artefacts as well as individuals, populations and whole species-and involve mechanisms at multiple levels, from neurons in brains to inter-population interactions. Studying such complex phenomena requires an integration of perspectives from a diverse array of fields, as well as bridging gaps between traditionally disparate areas of study. In this article, which also serves as an introduction to the current special issue, we highlight some specific respects in which the study of cultural evolution has benefited and should continue to benefit from an integrative approach. We showcase a number of pioneering studies of cultural evolution that bring together numerous disciplines. These studies illustrate t...

Journal of Human Evolution, 1984

The Relationship between Biological and Cultural Evolution Sociobiology has made good progress with tile explanation of animal social behaviour and social organization but has not so far made much progress with the understanding of human cultural activities. Conventionally, such activities are explained without reference to biological processes such as natural selection, survival, or inclusive fitness. This occurs, for instance, in social anthropology and sociology. Indeed, we need to recognize that there are major differences between the constituents of human cultures and of non-human social life, and also between the mechanisms by which those constituents come to achieve social coordination. Kinship systems provide one example. Such differences should not blind us to the fact that many facets of human cultural activity are ecologically adaptive. Economic anthropologists have long recognized this, but it is possible to extend the argument further than they have done, to bring in considerations of individual survival and reproductive success. Himalayan polyandry, together with its validating mythology, can he interpreted as a strategy by which inhospitable country is successfully exploited. The fact that human cultures can, like phenotypes of a physical kind, be seen, ultimately, as the outcome ofnatural selection, should not lead to the error ofconcluding that cultural rules are themselves extensions of'underlying neural characteristics of the human brain. Cultures are the outcomes of conscious human thinking, and their structure is related to the logic of this thinking, not inherited neural structures. Evidence indicates that, depending on ecological circumstances, cultures either pursue a strategy of fast or slow reproduction, and this is interpreted as the result of cultural evolution, or, more precisely, the success or Failure of individual decisions over time.

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

Human cultural traits—behaviors, ideas, and technologies that can be learned from other individuals—can exhibit complex patterns of transmission and evolution, and researchers have developed theoretical models, both verbal and mathematical, to facilitate our understanding of these patterns. Many of the first quantitative models of cultural evolution were modified from existing concepts in theoretical population genetics because cultural evolution has many parallels with, as well as clear differences from, genetic evolution. Furthermore, cultural and genetic evolution can interact with one another and influence both transmission and selection. This interaction requires theoretical treatments of gene–culture coevolution and dual inheritance, in addition to purely cultural evolution. In addition, cultural evolutionary theory is a natural component of studies in demography, human ecology, and many other disciplines. Here, we review the core concepts in cultural evolutionary theory as th...

Journal of Cognition and Culture, 2011

This paper reviews and clarifies five misunderstandings about cultural evolution identified by Henrich et al. (2008). First, cultural representations are neither discrete nor continuous; they are distributed across neurons that respond to microfeatures. This enables associations to be made, and cultural change to be generated. Second, ‘replicator dynamics’ do not ensure natural selection. The replicator notion does not capture the distinction between actively interpreted self-assembly code and passively copied self-description, which leads to a fundamental principle of natural selection: inherited information is transmitted, whereas acquired information is not. Third, this principle is violated in culture by the ubiquity of acquired change. Moreover, biased transmission is less important to culture than the creative processes by which novelty is generated. Fourth, there is no objective basis for determining cultural fitness. Fifth, the necessity of randomness is discussed. It is con...

Evolutionary Biology-new York, 2015

Darwinian models of cultural change have been motivated, in part, by the desire to provide a framework for the unification of the biological and the human sciences. In this paper, drawing upon a distinction between the evolution of enabling mechanisms for the acquisition and dissemination of knowledge (EEM) and the evolution of epistemic theses as cultural products (EET), we propose a model of how culture emerges as a product of biological evolution on the basis of the concept of reaction norms. The goal of this model is to provide a means for conceptualizing how the biological and the cultural realms are connected, when they start to disconnect, and what the key transitions are. We then assess the viability of a Darwinian approach to cultural change. We conclude that the prospects of producing a Darwinian model of cultural change that unifies the human sciences in a way that mirrors the unification of the biological sciences in the light of Darwin's theory are rather dim. Keywords Cultural evolution Á Darwin Á Epistemic theses Á Reaction norms ''Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution'' (Dobzhansky 1973). ''The processes whereby self-reproduction is accomplished are the essence of heredity. The basic discovery of genetics is that the units of self-replication are molecular-level systems called genes'' (Dobzhansky 1970). ''In the most general terms, a culture consists of the self-reproducing or reproducible products of the mental activities of a group of human individuals living in a society'' (Huxley 1955).

Recent debates about memetics have revealed some widespread misunderstandings about Darwinian approaches to cultural evolution. Drawing from these debates, this paper disputes five common claims: (1) mental representations are rarely discrete, and therefore models that assume discrete, gene-like particles (i.e., replicators) are useless; (2) replicators are necessary for cumulative, adaptive evolution; (3) content-dependent psychological biases are the only important processes that affect the spread of cultural representations; (4) the "cultural fitness" of a mental representation can be inferred from its successful transmission; and (5) selective forces only matter if the sources of variation are random. We close by sketching the outlines of a unified evolutionary science of culture.

Culture pervades human lives and has allowed our species to create niches all around the world and its oceans, in ways quite unlike any other primate. Indeed, our cultural nature appears so distinctive that it is often thought to separate humanity from the rest of nature and the Darwinian forces that shape it. A contrary view arises through the recent discoveries of a diverse range of disciplines, here brought together to illustrate the scope of a burgeoning field of cultural evolution and to facilitate cross-disciplinary fertilization. Each approach emphasizes important linkages between culture and evolutionary biology rather than quarantining one from the other. Recent studies reveal that processes important in cultural transmission are more widespread and significant across the animal kingdom than earlier recognized, with important implications for evolutionary theory. Recent archaeological discoveries have pushed back the origins of human culture to much more ancient times than traditionally thought. These developments suggest previously unidentified continuities between animal and human culture. A third new array of discoveries concerns the later diversification of human cultures, where the operations of Darwinian-like processes are identified, in part, through scientific methods borrowed from biology. Finally, surprising discoveries have been made about the imprint of cultural evolution in the predispositions of human minds for cultural transmission.

Humanities and Social Science Communications, 2023

It is widely believed that human culture originated in the appearance of Oldowan stone-tool production (circa 2.9 Mya) and a primitive but effective ability to copy detailed know-how. Cumulative cultural evolution is then believed to have led to modern humans and human culture via self-reinforcing gene-culture co-evolution. This outline evolutionary trajectory has come to be seen as all but self-evident, but dilemmas have appeared as it has been explored in increasing detail. Can we attribute even a minimally effective know-how copying capability to Oldowan hominins? Do Oldowan tools really demand know-how copying? Is there any other evidence that know-how copying was present? We here argue that this account, which we refer to as "Trajectory A", may be a red herring, and formulate an alternative "Trajectory B" that resolves these dilemmas. Trajectory B invokes an overlooked group-level channel of cultural inheritance (the Social Protocell) whereby networks of cultural traits can be faithfully inherited and potentially undergo cumulative evolution, also when the underpinning cultural traits are apelike in not being transmitted via know-how copying (Latent Solutions). Since most preconditions of Trajectory B are present in modern-day Pan, Trajectory B may even have its roots considerably before Oldowan toolmaking. The cumulative build-up of networks of non-cumulative cultural traits is then argued to have produced conditions that both called for and afforded a gradual appearance of the ability to copy know-how, but considerably later than the Oldowan.

2005

Biology & Philosophy, 2008

When I read this book's predecessor, Culture and the Evolutionary Process, not long after it came out 20 years ago, it seemed to me to offer a new and more productive future for my discipline, archaeology. There were many features that were attractive but one of the most refreshing was its lack of dogmatism. Like many other humanities and social science disciplines, in the mid 1980s archaeology, in Britain at least, was going through a period of major upheaval. In the case of archaeology the so-called processual approach that had been pioneered by authors such as Lewis Binford in the 1960s, with its emphasis on culture as adaptation and its rejection of history, was being challenged by views that emphasised the meaning of artefacts rather than their function, and cultural uniqueness arising from specific histories rather than universal adaptive processes. You had to choose one camp or the other; there was no room for fence-sitting. The evolutionary approach of dual inheritance theory advocated by Boyd and Richerson rejected this dilemma. Adaptation was important but so were specific histories. It could not merely be assumed that adaptive problems called into existence their own solutions. The dynamics of culture itself were important. Moreover, the very features of human culture that made it adaptive also opened up the possibility of maladaptive developments. If one accepted this perspective, establishing the importance of adaptive payoffs or the specifics of particular histories in understanding patterning in the archaeological record was not a matter of making a dogmatic commitment a priori but something to be elucidated in particular cases as a result of empirical work.

Human Ecology, 1973

By introducing the concept of the natural selection of individual organisms, Darwin was able to cut through the mystification surrounding theological discussions of the origin of species. By placing the concept of an individual “struggle for satisfaction” in an analogous conceptual framework, a similar feat may be performed with regard to the mystification and reification surrounding much of contemporary social science. The proposed theory states that individuals are the generating force behind the origin, spread, and transformations of sociocultural complexes and that all sociocultural phenomena are explicable in terms of the differential replication of ideas by individuals as this is conditioned by selective pressures generated by particular material conditions of life. The theory is used to illuminate certain key issues in evolution, such as adaptation, group selection, and free will

Human culture changes over time and varies across space. Two main approaches to study cultural evolution have developed in the last fifty years: human behavioural ecology and a suite of perspectives centred on the role of cultural transmission. The latter are often confusingly referred to with the name of the phenomenon they are trying to explain, ‘cultural evolution’. We argue that this is unhelpful and is generating confusion, including the claim that human behavioural ecology disregards cultural evolution. The aim of behavioural ecology is to explain human behaviours, and the vast majority of them are at least to some extent cultural. In addition, culture forms part of the ecology that determines the costs and benefits associated with adopting a behaviour. Thus, human behavioural ecologists have studied cultural evolution from the very beginning, even though they have not focussed on social learning. We explore three examples in detail: kinship systems, religious institutions, an...