scholarly journals Cultural group selection plays an essential role in explaining human cooperation: A sketch of the evidence

2014 ◽  
Vol 39 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Richerson ◽  
Ryan Baldini ◽  
Adrian V. Bell ◽  
Kathryn Demps ◽  
Karl Frost ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Transmission ◽  
Group Selection ◽  
Cultural Variation ◽  
Cultural Group ◽  
Quantitative Evidence ◽  
Cultural Group Selection ◽  
Target Article ◽  
Inheritance System ◽  
Patterns Of Behavior ◽  
Sufficient Variation

AbstractHuman cooperation is highly unusual. We live in large groups composed mostly of non-relatives. Evolutionists have proposed a number of explanations for this pattern, including cultural group selection and extensions of more general processes such as reciprocity, kin selection, and multi-level selection acting on genes. Evolutionary processes are consilient; they affect several different empirical domains, such as patterns of behavior and the proximal drivers of that behavior. In this target article, we sketch the evidence from five domains that bear on the explanatory adequacy of cultural group selection and competing hypotheses to explain human cooperation. Does cultural transmission constitute an inheritance system that can evolve in a Darwinian fashion? Are the norms that underpin institutions among the cultural traits so transmitted? Do we observe sufficient variation at the level of groups of considerable size for group selection to be a plausible process? Do human groups compete, and do success and failure in competition depend upon cultural variation? Do we observe adaptations for cooperation in humans that most plausibly arose by cultural group selection? If the answer to one of these questions is “no,” then we must look to other hypotheses. We present evidence, including quantitative evidence, that the answer to all of the questions is “yes” and argue that we must take the cultural group selection hypothesis seriously. If culturally transmitted systems of rules (institutions) that limit individual deviance organize cooperation in human societies, then it is not clear that any extant alternative to cultural group selection can be a complete explanation.

scholarly journals Transmission coupling mechanisms: cultural group selection

2010 ◽  
Vol 365 (1559) ◽  
pp. 3787-3795 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Boyd ◽  
Peter J. Richerson
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Transmission ◽  
Group Selection ◽  
Multiple Equilibria ◽  
Cultural Variation ◽  
Cultural Group ◽  
Cultural Group Selection ◽  
Cultural Adaption ◽  
Group Competition ◽  
Cultural Phylogenetics ◽  
Coupling Mechanisms

The application of phylogenetic methods to cultural variation raises questions about how cultural adaption works and how it is coupled to cultural transmission. Cultural group selection is of particular interest in this context because it depends on the same kinds of mechanisms that lead to tree-like patterns of cultural variation. Here, we review ideas about cultural group selection relevant to cultural phylogenetics. We discuss why group selection among multiple equilibria is not subject to the usual criticisms directed at group selection, why multiple equilibria are a common phenomena, and why selection among multiple equilibria is not likely to be an important force in genetic evolution. We also discuss three forms of group competition and the processes that cause populations to shift from one equilibrium to another and create a mutation-like process at the group level.

Cultural group selection follows Darwin's classic syllogism for the operation of selection

2016 ◽  
Vol 39 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Richerson ◽  
Ryan Baldini ◽  
Adrian V. Bell ◽  
Kathryn Demps ◽  
Karl Frost ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Natural Selection ◽  
Human Evolution ◽  
Group Selection ◽  
Species Group ◽  
Cultural Variation ◽  
Cultural Group ◽  
Cultural Group Selection ◽  
Selection Processes ◽  
Target Article

AbstractThe main objective of our target article was to sketch the empirical case for the importance of selection at the level of groups on cultural variation. Such variation is massive in humans, but modest or absent in other species. Group selection processes acting on this variation is a framework for developing explanations of the unusual level of cooperation between non-relatives found in our species. Our case for cultural group selection (CGS) followed Darwin's classic syllogism regarding natural selection: If variation exists at the level of groups, if this variation is heritable, and if it plays a role in the success or failure of competing groups, then selection will operate at the level of groups. We outlined the relevant domains where such evidence can be sought and characterized the main conclusions of work in those domains. Most commentators agree that CGS plays some role in human evolution, although some were considerably more skeptical. Some contributed additional empirical cases. Some raised issues of the scope of CGS explanations versus competing ones.

scholarly journals Cultural group selection is plausible, but the predictions of its hypotheses should be tested with real-world data

2016 ◽  
Vol 39 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Turchin ◽  
Thomas E. Currie
Keyword(s):  
Real World ◽  
Group Selection ◽  
Cultural Group ◽  
Real World Data ◽  
World Data ◽  
Cultural Group Selection ◽  
Target Article

AbstractThe evidence compiled in the target article demonstrates that the assumptions of cultural group selection (CGS) theory are often met, and it is therefore a useful framework for generating plausible hypotheses. However, more can be said about how we can test the predictions of CGS hypotheses against competing explanations using historical, archaeological, and anthropological data.

Cultural differentiation does not entail group-level structure: The case for geographically explicit analysis

2016 ◽  
Vol 39 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Malcolm Ross ◽  
Quentin Douglas Atkinson
Keyword(s):  
Spatial Patterns ◽  
Group Selection ◽  
Group Structure ◽  
Level Structure ◽  
Cultural Variation ◽  
Cultural Group ◽  
Group Level ◽  
Cultural Group Selection ◽  
Cultural Differentiation ◽  
Explicit Analysis

AbstractRicherson et al. argue that relatively large culturalFSTvalues provide evidence for group structure and therefore scope for group selection. However, recent research on spatial patterns of cultural variation demonstrates that, as in the genetic case, apparent group structure can be a consequence of geographic clines, not group barriers. Such a pattern limits the scope for cultural group selection.

Self-interested agents create, maintain, and modify group-functional culture

2016 ◽  
Vol 39 ◽  
Author(s):  
Manvir Singh ◽  
Luke Glowacki ◽  
Richard W. Wrangham
Keyword(s):  
Group Selection ◽  
Cultural Group ◽  
Agent Based ◽  
Cultural Group Selection ◽  
Target Article

AbstractWe agree that institutions and rules are crucial for explaining human sociality, but we question the claim of there not being “alternatives to CGS [that] can easily account for the institutionalized cooperation that characterizes human societies” (target article, sect. 7). Hypothesizing that self-interested individuals coercively and collaboratively create rules, we propose that agent-based hypotheses offer viable alternatives to cultural group selection (CGS).

The selective social learner as an agent of cultural group selection

2016 ◽  
Vol 39 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah Suárez ◽  
Melissa Koenig
Keyword(s):  
Social Learning ◽  
Group Selection ◽  
Cultural Group ◽  
Cultural Inheritance ◽  
Developmental Research ◽  
Cultural Group Selection ◽  
Cultural Information ◽  
Inheritance System ◽  
Informant Accuracy

AbstractDevelopmental research characterizes even the youngest learners as critical and selective, capable of preserving or culling cultural information on the bases of informant accuracy, reasoning, or coherence. We suggest that Richerson et al. adjust their account of social learning in cultural group selection (CGS) by taking into consideration the role of the selective learner in the cultural inheritance system.

scholarly journals Replicators, lineages, and interactors

2014 ◽  
Vol 37 (3) ◽  
pp. 276-277 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel J. Taylor ◽  
Joanna J. Bryson
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Food Processing ◽  
Group Selection ◽  
Evolutionary Process ◽  
Cultural Group ◽  
Agent Based Model ◽  
Agent Based ◽  
Cultural Group Selection ◽  
Target Article

AbstractThe target article argues that whole groups can act as interactors in an evolutionary process. We believe that Smaldino's discussion would be advanced by a more thorough analysis of the appropriate replicators and lineages for this model. We show that cultural evolution is necessarily a separate process from cultural group selection, and we also illustrate that the two processes may influence each other as demonstrated by an agent-based model of communicating food-processing skills.

Does cultural group selection explain the evolution of pet-keeping?

2016 ◽  
Vol 39 ◽  
Author(s):  
Harold Herzog
Keyword(s):  
Group Selection ◽  
Cultural Group ◽  
Cultural Group Selection ◽  
Intergroup Competition ◽  
Inheritance System ◽  
Group Variation

AbstractPet-keeping is highly variable across cultures in both frequency and form. Cultural group selection offers a plausible explanation for the development and spread of this uniquely human phenomenon in that pet-keeping involves an inheritance system, socially transmitted norms and preferences, substantial between-group variation, and (albeit indirectly) intergroup competition.

scholarly journals Social learning in cooperative dilemmas

2014 ◽  
Vol 281 (1787) ◽  
pp. 20140417 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shakti Lamba
Keyword(s):  
Social Learning ◽  
Cultural Transmission ◽  
Group Selection ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Cultural Norms ◽  
Cultural Group ◽  
Cultural Group Selection ◽  
Cooperative Strategies ◽  
Public Goods Games ◽  
Large Populations

Helping is a cornerstone of social organization and commonplace in human societies. A major challenge for the evolutionary sciences is to explain how cooperation is maintained in large populations with high levels of migration, conditions under which cooperators can be exploited by selfish individuals. Cultural group selection models posit that such large-scale cooperation evolves via selection acting on populations among which behavioural variation is maintained by the cultural transmission of cooperative norms. These models assume that individuals acquire cooperative strategies via social learning. This assumption remains empirically untested. Here, I test this by investigating whether individuals employ conformist or payoff-biased learning in public goods games conducted in 14 villages of a forager–horticulturist society, the Pahari Korwa of India. Individuals did not show a clear tendency to conform or to be payoff-biased and are highly variable in their use of social learning. This variation is partly explained by both individual and village characteristics. The tendency to conform decreases and to be payoff-biased increases as the value of the modal contribution increases. These findings suggest that the use of social learning in cooperative dilemmas is contingent on individuals' circumstances and environments, and question the existence of stably transmitted cultural norms of cooperation.

The burden of proof for a cultural group selection account

2016 ◽  
Vol 39 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pat Barclay ◽  
Daniel Brian Krupp
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Transmission ◽  
Group Selection ◽  
Social Evolution ◽  
Burden Of Proof ◽  
Cultural Group ◽  
Cultural Group Selection ◽  
Group Fitness ◽  
Human Social Evolution ◽  
Do So

AbstractRicherson et al. establish cultural group selection as a plausible force in human social evolution. However, they do not demonstrate its causal precedence for any trait, let alone its “essentialness.” To do so, they must show that a particular group trait was caused by cultural transmission, and directly caused differences in group fitness.

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