scholarly journals Cultural evolution by capital accumulation

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jean-Baptiste André ◽  
Nicolas Baumard
Keyword(s):  
Life History ◽  
Phenotypic Plasticity ◽  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Capital Accumulation ◽  
Division Of Labour ◽  
Cultural Knowledge ◽  
Technical Knowledge ◽  
Knowledge And Skills ◽  
New Knowledge ◽  
Effective Cost

In this article, we model cultural knowledge as a capital in which individuals invest at a cost. To this end, following other models of cultural evolution, we explicitly consider the investments made by individuals in culture as life history decisions. Our aim is to understand what then determines the dynamics of cultural accumulation. We show that culture can accumulate provided it improves the efficiency of people’s lives in such a way as to increase their productivity or, said differently, provided the knowledge created by previous generations improves the ability of subsequent generations to invest in new knowledge. Our central message is that this positive feedback allowing cultural accumulation can occur for many different reasons. It can occur if cultural knowledge increases people’s productivity, including in domains that have no connection with knowledge, because it frees up time that people can then spend learning and/or innovating. We also show that it can occur if cultural knowledge, and thus the higher level of resources that results from increased productivity, leads individuals to modify their life history decisions through phenotypic plasticity. Finally, we show that it can occur if technical knowledge reduces the effective cost of its own acquisition via division of labour. These results suggest that culture should not be defined only as a set of knowledge and skills but, more generally, as all the capital that has been produced by previous generations and that continues to affect current generations.

scholarly journals The rise of new knowledge types and their trailblazers, and the management of value chains

2007 ◽  
pp. 40-51
Author(s):  
Marcel Hoogenboom ◽  
Willem Trommel ◽  
Duco Bannink
Keyword(s):  
Information Technologies ◽  
Knowledge Society ◽  
Division Of Labour ◽  
Cultural Knowledge ◽  
Industrial Society ◽  
Value Chains ◽  
Technical Knowledge ◽  
New Professionals ◽  
Types Of Knowledge ◽  
Group Identities

In this article, the authors argue that there is no such thing as the knowledge society. Like many others authors, they claim that the fundamental transformations of our time can be typified as the end of the national ‘industrial society’ and the move towards some kind of global society dominated by the production and use of knowledge. They argue, however, that these transformations not necessarily produce a convergence of national and regional socio-economic structures. In industrial society two types of knowledge were dominant: ‘technical knowledge’ and ‘social knowledge’. In our time, the growing diverseness of individual and group identities produced by reflexivisation, globalisation and the advancement of information technologies calls for the development and application of a new type of knowledge: ‘cultural knowledge’. They analyse the consequences of the increased significance of cultural knowledge in the economic sphere in terms of the division of labour, and subsequently conceptualise three different types of knowledge societies: ‘the techno-cultural’, ‘the socio-cultural’ and the ‘socio-technical knowledge society’. Finally, they will portray three ‘categories’ of trailblazers of the knowledge societies, new professionals that perform ‘meta business functions’. These trailblazers directly or indirectly create new value chains by linking or destroying existing ones, and breaking up others in to pieces in order to create new combinations. These professionals, in other words, actively manage value chains.

scholarly journals Phenotypic plasticity of labile traits in the wild

2013 ◽  
Vol 59 (4) ◽  
pp. 485-505 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jon E. Brommer
Keyword(s):  
Life History ◽  
Phenotypic Plasticity ◽  
Statistical Approach ◽  
Scale Up ◽  
Population Level ◽  
Wild Populations ◽  
Quantitative Genetic ◽  
In The Wild ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Quantitative Genetic Parameters

Abstract Individual-based studies allow quantification of phenotypic plasticity in behavioural, life-history and other labile traits. The study of phenotypic plasticity in the wild can shed new light on the ultimate objectives (1) whether plasticity itself can evolve or is constrained by its genetic architecture, and (2) whether plasticity is associated to other traits, including fitness (selection). I describe the main statistical approach for how repeated records of individuals and a description of the environment (E) allow quantification of variation in plasticity across individuals (IxE) and genotypes (GxE) in wild populations. Based on a literature review of life-history and behavioural studies on plasticity in the wild, I discuss the present state of the two objectives listed above. Few studies have quantified GxE of labile traits in wild populations, and it is likely that power to detect statistically significant GxE is lacking. Apart from the issue of whether it is heritable, plasticity tends to correlate with average trait expression (not fully supported by the few genetic estimates available) and may thus be evolutionary constrained in this way. Individual-specific estimates of plasticity tend to be related to other traits of the individual (including fitness), but these analyses may be anti-conservative because they predominantly concern stats-on-stats. Despite the increased interest in plasticity in wild populations, the putative lack of power to detect GxE in such populations hinders achieving general insights. I discuss possible steps to invigorate the field by moving away from simply testing for presence of GxE to analyses that ‘scale up’ to population level processes and by the development of new behavioural theory to identify quantitative genetic parameters which can be estimated.

The Datafied Society

2017 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Big Data ◽  
Everyday Life ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Research Practices ◽  
Knowledge And Skills ◽  
Its Analysis ◽  
New Knowledge ◽  
Novel Methods ◽  
Way Of Thinking ◽  
Machine Readable

As machine-readable data comes to play an increasingly important role in everyday life, researchers find themselves with rich resources for studying society. The novel methods and tools needed to work with such data require not only new knowledge and skills, but also a new way of thinking about best research practices. This book critically reflects on the role and usefulness of big data, challenging overly optimistic expectations about what such information can reveal, introducing practices and methods for its analysis and visualisation, and raising important political and ethical questions regarding its collection, handling, and presentation.

scholarly journals Reading Habits of Users of Sardar Patel University: A Study

2017 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Dr. Shishir H. Mandalia
Keyword(s):  
Data Collection ◽  
Vital Role ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Reading Habits ◽  
Knowledge And Skills ◽  
Continued Education ◽  
New Knowledge ◽  
The World ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The University

Reading plays a vital role in life of a human. Reading provides experience through which the individual may expand his horizons of knowledge, identify, extend and intensify his interest and gains deeper understanding of himself, of other human beings and of the world. The study carried out to assess the reading habits of user of Sardar Patel University, VallabhVidyanagar, Anand, Gujarat. As a research tool; questionnaire was used for the data collection. Collected data were analyzed and tables were used to present the results of findings. Reading especially is a resource for continued education, for the acquisition of new knowledge and skills, for gaining information through media, especially newspapers, books, radio, television, and the computers. In this article investigator attempts to investigate the reading habits of users of the university.

scholarly journals TEACHING METHODS OF VERB TENSES

2020 ◽  
Vol 72 (2) ◽  
pp. 502-506
Author(s):  
A. Rauandina ◽  
◽  
Z. Babazhanova ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Teacher Training ◽  
Teaching Methods ◽  
Cognitive Abilities ◽  
Native Language ◽  
Grammatical Knowledge ◽  
Factors Affecting ◽  
Knowledge And Skills ◽  
New Knowledge ◽  
Modern Methods ◽  
Main Factors

The article considers the problem of teaching the native language. The main factors affecting the effectiveness of teaching the Kazakh language are identified. One of them is teacher training, and the second is the effective coordination of students' activities depending on the purpose of the lesson, especially the content of knowledge offered for teaching. The article also emphasizes the importance of identifying teaching methods that are consistent with the content of students' knowledge and skills. Thus, the authors of the article argue that "new knowledge must be associated with old knowledge." And also the article discusses the assimilation of grammatical knowledge, including the study of tenses of the verb. The verb is one of the most complex aspects of morphology. The article shows the modern methods of teaching the tenses of the verb. The revealed methods show that the accumulated language rules are not only knowledge, but also contribute to the development of cognitive abilities.

scholarly journals Major Evolutionary Transitions in Social Insects, the Importance of Worker Sterility and Life History Trade-Offs

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Abel Bernadou ◽  
Boris H. Kramer ◽  
Judith Korb
Keyword(s):  
Life History ◽  
Social Insects ◽  
Division Of Labour ◽  
Evolutionary Transitions ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Individual Fitness ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
Group Members ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Worker Sterility

The evolution of eusociality in social insects, such as termites, ants, and some bees and wasps, has been regarded as a major evolutionary transition (MET). Yet, there is some debate whether all species qualify. Here, we argue that worker sterility is a decisive criterion to determine whether species have passed a MET (= superorganisms), or not. When workers are sterile, reproductive interests align among group members as individual fitness is transferred to the colony level. Division of labour among cooperating units is a major driver that favours the evolution of METs across all biological scales. Many METs are characterised by a differentiation into reproductive versus maintenance functions. In social insects, the queen specialises on reproduction while workers take over maintenance functions such as food provisioning. Such division of labour allows specialisation and it reshapes life history trade-offs among cooperating units. For instance, individuals within colonies of social insects can overcome the omnipresent fecundity/longevity trade-off, which limits reproductive success in organisms, when increased fecundity shortens lifespan. Social insect queens (particularly in superorganismal species) can reach adult lifespans of several decades and are among the most fecund terrestrial animals. The resulting enormous reproductive output may contribute to explain why some genera of social insects became so successful. Indeed, superorganismal ant lineages have more species than those that have not passed a MET. We conclude that the release from life history constraints at the individual level is a important, yet understudied, factor across METs to explain their evolutionary success.

scholarly journals Mathematical Literacy as an Essential Criterion of Healthy Personality Development and of Effective Education with an Emphasis on Class Climate

2015 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 73-76
Author(s):  
Lívia Hasajová
Keyword(s):  
Personality Development ◽  
Educational Process ◽  
Mathematical Literacy ◽  
Knowledge And Skills ◽  
Class Climate ◽  
New Knowledge ◽  
Healthy Personality ◽  
Effective Education

AbstractPersonality development is determined by several factors; we have focused on the effect of mathematical literacy. Gaining new knowledge and skills not only from mathematics is influenced by class climate and the environment in which the educational process takes place.

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