scholarly journals Tempo and Mode in Cultural Macroevolution

2021 ◽  
Vol 19 (4) ◽  
pp. 147470492110666
Author(s):  
Peter Turchin ◽  
Sergey Gavrilets
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Change ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Rapid Change ◽  
Biological Evolution ◽  
Cultural Exchange ◽  
Global History ◽  
Rates Of Change ◽  
Acceleration And Deceleration ◽  
Cultural Multilevel Selection ◽  
Cultural Traits

Evolutionary scientists studying social and cultural evolution have proposed a multitude of mechanisms by which cultural change can be effected. In this article we discuss two influential ideas from the theory of biological evolution that can inform this debate: the contrast between the micro- and macro-evolution, and the distinction between the tempo and mode of evolution. We add the empirical depth to these ideas by summarizing recent results from the analyses of data on past societies in Seshat: Global History Databank. Our review of these results suggests that the tempo (rates of change, including their acceleration and deceleration) of cultural macroevolution is characterized by periods of apparent stasis interspersed by rapid change. Furthermore, when we focus on large-scale changes in cultural traits of whole groups, the most important macroevolutionary mode involves inter-polity interactions, including competition and warfare, but also cultural exchange and selective imitation; mechanisms that are key components of cultural multilevel selection (CMLS) theory.

scholarly journals The Search for a Paradigm in Archaeology Evolutionary Theory and the "Selectionist" School of Thought

2003 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Hugo F.V.. Cardoso
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Change ◽  
Culture Change ◽  
Culture Medium ◽  
Biological Evolution ◽  
Evolutionary Archaeology ◽  
Unit Of Selection ◽  
Temporal And Spatial ◽  
Cultural Traits ◽  
Differential Reproductive Success ◽  
Generic Process

According to evolutionary archaeology (the "selectionist" school of archaeological theory) the archaeological record can be explained in terms of generic Darwinian processes of evolution. Evolution is seen as the differential persistence of cultural traits and as the differential reproductive success of individuals in result of the cultural traits they possess. However, one of the major criticisms of evolutionary archaeology is concerned with the absence of a defined unit of selection. Evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins and others have suggested that the same generic process as biological evolution governs culture change and that culture evolves as a result of the differential replication of cultural units, the memes, that play an analogous role as genes. If this is so, it is suggested that the unit of selection that might be lacking in evolutionary archaeology is the meme. Since memetics (the study of memes as cultural replicators) is a theory of cultural change it has the potential to provide the explanatory framework for the temporal and spatial patterns of archaeological phenomena. Despite its potential, memetics seems to introduce Lamarckian processes of evolution in Ihe culture medium, which are not very explanatory. The purpose of this article is to show the potential of generic evolutionary processes in explanations of culture change and discuss the major problems involved in this theoretical approach.

Cultural evolution

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matteo Mameli ◽  
Kim Sterelny
Keyword(s):  
Natural Selection ◽  
Social Learning ◽  
Cultural Change ◽  
Biological Evolution ◽  
Phenotypic Traits ◽  
Or Groups ◽  
Cumulative Change ◽  
Cultural Traits ◽  
Changes Over Time ◽  
Over Time

Cultural traits are those phenotypic traits whose development depends on social learning. These include practices, skills, beliefs, desires, values, and artefacts. The distribution of cultural traits in the human species changes over time. But this is not enough to show that culture evolves. That depends on the mechanisms of change. In the cultural realm, one can often observe something similar to biology’s ‘descent with modification’: cultural traits are sometimes modified, their modifications are sometimes retained and passed on to others through social learning, until new modifications are added. In this way, new modifications are piled on top of old modifications, generating cumulative change. But, again, this is not enough to show that culture evolves. For culture to evolve, cumulative change must be the result of hidden-hand mechanisms similar to those that explain cumulative biological change. If cumulative cultural change cannot be explained in these terms, the analogy between cultural change and biological evolution is unhelpful. The best-known biological mechanism is natural selection. There are reasons to think that cultural change is at least sometimes due to natural-selection-like mechanisms. The adaptive fit often found between cultural traits and the environment in many cases has been built gradually and in a way that involves natural selection operating at the cultural level. The parallel with morphological adaptation is compelling. No complete and universally accepted account of natural-selection-like processes operating at the cultural level exists at this stage. But at least three kinds of processes seem possible: - A natural-selection-like process can be generated by culturally heritable differences in fitness between individuals. - A natural-selection-like process can be generated by culturally heritable differences in fitness between groups. - A natural-selection-like process can operate at the level of cultural variants themselves, independently of the effects that cultural variants have on the fitness of individuals or groups. The theory of memes (initially presented by Dawkins and then developed by Dennett) is one possible account of how (iii) might work; but other accounts exist too.

scholarly journals Evolution of cultural traits occurs at similar relative rates in different world regions

2014 ◽  
Vol 281 (1795) ◽  
pp. 20141622 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas E. Currie ◽  
Ruth Mace
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Change ◽  
Purifying Selection ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Rates Of Change ◽  
World Regions ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
General Rules ◽  
Cultural Traits ◽  
Sub Saharan ◽  
Patterns And Processes

A fundamental issue in understanding human diversity is whether or not there are regular patterns and processes involved in cultural change. Theoretical and mathematical models of cultural evolution have been developed and are increasingly being used and assessed in empirical analyses. Here, we test the hypothesis that the rates of change of features of human socio-cultural organization are governed by general rules. One prediction of this hypothesis is that different cultural traits will tend to evolve at similar relative rates in different world regions, despite the unique historical backgrounds of groups inhabiting these regions. We used phylogenetic comparative methods and systematic cross-cultural data to assess how different socio-cultural traits changed in (i) island southeast Asia and the Pacific, and (ii) sub-Saharan Africa. The relative rates of change in these two regions are significantly correlated. Furthermore, cultural traits that are more directly related to external environmental conditions evolve more slowly than traits related to social structures. This is consistent with the idea that a form of purifying selection is acting with greater strength on these more environmentally linked traits. These results suggest that despite contingent historical events and the role of humans as active agents in the historical process, culture does indeed evolve in ways that can be predicted from general principles

The Dawn of Civilization

2018 ◽  
pp. 234-263
Author(s):  
Kevin N. Laland
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Slow Rate ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Cultural Practices ◽  
Morphological Evolution ◽  
Biological Evolution ◽  
Genetic Evolution ◽  
The Third ◽  
The World ◽  
Adaptive Challenges

This chapter traces the evolution of human civilization from nomadic hunter-gatherer societies to the advent of agriculture and its large-scale impacts on the world. It describes this history in three ages of adaptive evolution. First, there was the age in which biological evolution dominated, in which we adapted to the circumstances of life in a manner no different from every other creature. Second came the age when gene–culture coevolution was in the ascendency. Through cultural activities, our ancestors set challenges to which they adapted biologically. In doing so, they released the brake that the relatively slow rate of independent environmental change imposes on other species. The results are higher rates of morphological evolution in humans compared to other mammals, with human genetic evolution reported as accelerating more than a hundredfold over the last 40,000 years. Now we live in the third age, where cultural evolution dominates. Cultural practices provide humanity with adaptive challenges, but these are then solved through further cultural activity, before biological evolution gets moving.

From Enlightened to Sublime: Musical Life under Stalin, 1930–1948

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pauline Fairclough
Keyword(s):  
Technical Progress ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
American Art ◽  
Cultural Exchange ◽  
Socialist Realism ◽  
The West ◽  
Musical Life ◽  
Cultural Narrative ◽  
Scale Shift ◽  
Concert Life

The years 1937–53 are generally thought of as stagnant ones for Soviet concert repertoire. This view, however, is predicated on a number of assumptions: first, that the drop in Western modernism in the schedules and its replacement by Soviet works had a stultifying effect on concert life; second, that the era of Socialist Realism was damagingly insular; and third, that cultural exchange ceased and Soviet composers lost touch with what was being composed in the West. This chapter challenges all those assumptions by analysing concert schedules of this period, presenting evidence of semi-formal/informal cultural exchange and considering the notion that Socialist Realism was not an isolated trend but part of a large-scale shift in European and American art whose importance has been side-lined in a still dominant cultural narrative of technical progress and complexity.

Change or Continuity in Cultures?

2019 ◽  
pp. 194-213
Author(s):  
Robert M. Fishman
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Change ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Cultural Continuity ◽  
Continuity And Change ◽  
Contemporary Politics ◽  
Recent Developments ◽  
Theoretical Question

This chapter poses the large theoretical question of what generates cultural change or continuity, and provides examples of both patterns in the cases examined in the book. The large-scale program of commemorations of Portugal’s Carnation Revolution is treated in depth, taking it as an example of a mechanism providing for cultural continuity in that post-revolutionary polity. Obviously, revolution itself contributed earlier to cultural change in that case. In the Spanish case efforts to promote cultural change during the Zapatero years, in the 15-M movement, and more recently in contemporary politics are taken up. The analysis searches for mechanisms of cultural change but also offers observations on why it is typically difficult for efforts at cultural change to achieve success as broad as that to be found in revolutionary Portugal. Complex combinations of continuity and change are also taken up. Recent developments in both Spain and Portugal are examined.

scholarly journals The genomic footprint of coastal earthquake uplift

2020 ◽  
Vol 287 (1930) ◽  
pp. 20200712 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elahe Parvizi ◽  
Ceridwen I. Fraser ◽  
Ludovic Dutoit ◽  
Dave Craw ◽  
Jonathan M. Waters
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Biological Evolution ◽  
Habitat Choice ◽  
Natural Experiments ◽  
Ecological Constraints ◽  
Dispersal Capacity ◽  
Interspecific Differences ◽  
Genome Wide ◽  
Genetic Patterns

Theory suggests that catastrophic earth-history events can drive rapid biological evolution, but empirical evidence for such processes is scarce. Destructive geological events such as earthquakes can represent large-scale natural experiments for inferring such evolutionary processes. We capitalized on a major prehistoric (800 yr BP) geological uplift event affecting a southern New Zealand coastline to test for the lasting genomic impacts of disturbance. Genome-wide analyses of three co-distributed keystone kelp taxa revealed that post-earthquake recolonization drove the evolution of novel, large-scale intertidal spatial genetic ‘sectors’ which are tightly linked to geological fault boundaries. Demographic simulations confirmed that, following widespread extirpation, parallel expansions into newly vacant habitats rapidly restructured genome-wide diversity. Interspecific differences in recolonization mode and tempo reflect differing ecological constraints relating to habitat choice and dispersal capacity among taxa. This study highlights the rapid and enduring evolutionary effects of catastrophic ecosystem disturbance and reveals the key role of range expansion in reshaping spatial genetic patterns.

A Spanish-Finnish Telecollaboration to Develop Intercultural Competence and Learner Autonomy

2016 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 36-53 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ruby Vurdien ◽  
Pasi Puranen
Keyword(s):  
Intercultural Competence ◽  
Learning Experience ◽  
Cultural Exchange ◽  
Intercultural Learning ◽  
Learning Tasks ◽  
Common Interests ◽  
Cultural Traits ◽  
Authentic Environment ◽  
Target Culture ◽  
Geographical Locations

Telecollaboration enables students from different geographical locations to interact in a more authentic environment, share their views with their partners, create profiles as well as build online communities enjoying common interests. With this in mind, a Spanish-Finnish task-based project was designed to examine how students perceived their cultural exchange via Facebook and the extent to which such online interactions assisted them in becoming autonomous learners. Nineteen Spanish and seventeen Finnish participants were provided with the opportunity to interact with each other outside the classroom with a view to exploring the target culture and, consequently, experiencing intercultural learning. The findings suggest that the learning experience was positive and that the participants felt motivated to examine each other's cultural traits and manage their own learning tasks. Sharing information and reciprocally exchanging views on comments are paramount in developing skills to become independent learners.

Flow field and acoustics characteristics of elliptical jet

2018 ◽  
Vol 90 (9) ◽  
pp. 1364-1371 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. Manigandan ◽  
Vijayaraja K.
Keyword(s):  
Flow Field ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Rapid Change ◽  
Supersonic Jet ◽  
Major Axis ◽  
Minor Axis ◽  
Shock Cell ◽  
Potential Core ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Elliptical Jet

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to present the results of mixing promotion and screech frequency of controlled elliptical supersonic jet. Design/methodology/approach Flow field characteristics of low-aspect-ratio elliptical jets are examined at over-expanded, under-expanded and correctly expanded conditions. The tabs are placed at elliptical jet exit along the major and minor axes. Findings The results show that the mixing done by the minor axis is superior to the tabs along major axis. At all pressure ratios, the content of jet noise and the frequency are high for the tabs along the major axis because of increase in the amplitude of screech frequency. Further the tabs along minor axis show a dominance of large-scale vertical structures. In under-expanded conditions, the shock cell shows the rapid change because of the presence of tabs. The tabs along minor axis are making the shock weaker, hence no evidence of axis switching. Practical implications To achieve the greater performance of jet, the authors need to reduce the potential core length of the issuing jet. This can be achieved by implementing different types of tabs at the exit of the nozzle. Originality/value The present paper represents the flow of controlled jet using inverted triangular tabs. By achieving the controlled jet flow, the performance of propulsion systems can be improved. This can be used in systems such as combustion chamber, missile’s noise reduction and thrust vector control.

Study on the Optimized Cutting Parameters for the Nuclear Channel Head

2011 ◽  
Vol 121-126 ◽  
pp. 3534-3540
Author(s):  
Zhong Hai Yu ◽  
Tian Chen ◽  
Di Shi Liu ◽  
Jing Wang
Keyword(s):  
Mathematical Model ◽  
Nuclear Power ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Production Efficiency ◽  
Biological Evolution ◽  
Cutting Parameters ◽  
Optimal Combination ◽  
Cnc Machining ◽  
Machining Efficiency ◽  
Complicated Shape

As one of the key components of the nuclear power equipments, the nuclear channel head has a complicated shape and is difficult to be machined. In this paper, the optimal combination of cutting parameters of large-scale nuclear channel head is researched. Considering the machining requirements and machining conditions, the cutting parameters optimized mathematical model is established to achieve the goal of maximum production efficiency. Meanwhile, the target functions and the corresponding constraint functions are analyzed. Finally, by using genetic algorithm of simulating biological evolution, the mathematic models of cutting parameters of CNC machining are compared and optimized. Then the optimized results are compared with the cutting parameters obtained through the trial-producing experience and manual of a small-size channel head. We conclude that the optimized cutting parameters can greatly increase the CNC machining efficiency of Nuclear Channel Head.

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