scholarly journals Selecting for Celibacy:  Cultural Evolution and the Puzzling Case of Buddhist Celibacy

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Caitlin Dalzell
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Genetic Selection ◽  
Vantage Point ◽  
Cultural Group ◽  
Cultural Selection ◽  
Group Cooperation

<p>Buddhist celibacy provides an example of religious behaviour which appears puzzling from the vantage point of genetic selection, but whose maintenance can be partially explained because of the dynamics of cultural selection. In this thesis, I examine how and why celibacy is maintained and perpetuated within Buddhism and how this relates to the explanations cultural selection offers for costs within groups. I argue that celibacy is adaptive because it divides Buddhist communities into two parts, stimulating innate tendencies towards in-group cooperation without the need for an outside group. Because Buddhist celibates are also materially non-productive their presence necessitates increased cooperative behaviours in lay communities. I argue that the endurance of the parts of Buddhist traditions which are necessary to maintaining celibate practise provides evidence that cultural selection has shaped the tradition to perpetuate and reinforce celibacy, a behaviour which is adaptive because it promotes cooperative behaviours within a divided cultural group. Celibacy increases the cultural fitness of Buddhist communities.</p>

scholarly journals Selecting for Celibacy:  Cultural Evolution and the Puzzling Case of Buddhist Celibacy

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Caitlin Dalzell
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Genetic Selection ◽  
Vantage Point ◽  
Cultural Group ◽  
Cultural Selection ◽  
Group Cooperation

<p>Buddhist celibacy provides an example of religious behaviour which appears puzzling from the vantage point of genetic selection, but whose maintenance can be partially explained because of the dynamics of cultural selection. In this thesis, I examine how and why celibacy is maintained and perpetuated within Buddhism and how this relates to the explanations cultural selection offers for costs within groups. I argue that celibacy is adaptive because it divides Buddhist communities into two parts, stimulating innate tendencies towards in-group cooperation without the need for an outside group. Because Buddhist celibates are also materially non-productive their presence necessitates increased cooperative behaviours in lay communities. I argue that the endurance of the parts of Buddhist traditions which are necessary to maintaining celibate practise provides evidence that cultural selection has shaped the tradition to perpetuate and reinforce celibacy, a behaviour which is adaptive because it promotes cooperative behaviours within a divided cultural group. Celibacy increases the cultural fitness of Buddhist communities.</p>

Cumulation

2019 ◽  
pp. 186-212
Author(s):  
Alberto Acerbi
Keyword(s):  
Digital Media ◽  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Cultural Selection ◽  
Cultural Domain ◽  
Cumulative Cultural Evolution ◽  
Efficient Mechanisms

Chapter 8 considers what cultural evolutionists call cumulative cultural evolution, that is, the idea that culture increases in complexity. For a cultural domain being defined as cumulative, it needs to show accumulation (more traits), improvement (traits are more efficient), and ratcheting (new traits build on previous innovations). The author proposes that this is not a necessary outcome, and that different domains show different signs of cumulation. It is suggested that the fidelity and the hyper-availability provided by digital media allow for more cumulation in domains where it was limited before. Not surprisingly, they also allow for the retention of vast amounts of useless information—junk culture. A central challenge for the coming years is thus finding efficient mechanisms of online cultural selection. Algorithmic selection is finally discussed, along with how mainstream criticisms, such as the fact that algorithms are biased or opaque to users, are not decisive arguments against their efficacy and utility.

Cultural Selection, Axiological Reasoning, and Paradiastole (I)

2007 ◽  
Vol 48 (1) ◽  
pp. 173-189 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. G. Runciman
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Practical Reasoning ◽  
Attitudes And Beliefs ◽  
Heritable Variation ◽  
Cultural Selection ◽  
Competitive Selection ◽  
Rhetorical Device ◽  
Selection For

In the course of cultural evolution, both attitudes and beliefs are continuously modified by heritable variation and competitive selection. For Raymond Boudon, this process is exactly the same in the two cases, since in both axiological and practical reasoning consensus depends on a shared acknowledgement that the agreed conclusions are the products of “strong” reasons. His argument is, however, open to objection on psychological and sociological as well as philosophical grounds, and is vulnerable to the traditional rhetorical device known as paradiastole.

scholarly journals The cultural evolution of cultural evolution

2021 ◽  
Vol 376 (1828) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Birch ◽  
Cecilia Heyes
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Self Assembly ◽  
Cultural Learning ◽  
Explicit Learning ◽  
Knowledge And Skills ◽  
Cultural Selection ◽  
Evolutionary Account ◽  
Learning Biases ◽  
Cumulative Cultural Evolution ◽  
Attentional Learning

What makes fast, cumulative cultural evolution work? Where did it come from? Why is it the sole preserve of humans? We set out a self-assembly hypothesis: cultural evolution evolved culturally. We present an evolutionary account that shows this hypothesis to be coherent, plausible, and worthy of further investigation. It has the following steps: (0) in common with other animals, early hominins had significant capacity for social learning; (1) knowledge and skills learned by offspring from their parents began to spread because bearers had more offspring, a process we call CS1 (or Cultural Selection 1); (2) CS1 shaped attentional learning biases; (3) these attentional biases were augmented by explicit learning biases (judgements about what should be copied from whom). Explicit learning biases enabled (4) the high-fidelity, exclusive copying required for fast cultural accumulation of knowledge and skills by a process we call CS2 (or Cultural Selection 2) and (5) the emergence of cognitive processes such as imitation, mindreading and metacognition—‘cognitive gadgets' specialized for cultural learning. This self-assembly hypothesis is consistent with archaeological evidence that the stone tools used by early hominins were not dependent on fast, cumulative cultural evolution, and suggests new priorities for research on ‘animal culture'. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Foundations of cultural evolution’.

scholarly journals The cultural evolution of cultural evolution

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Birch ◽  
cecilia heyes
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Self Assembly ◽  
Cultural Learning ◽  
Explicit Learning ◽  
Knowledge And Skills ◽  
Cultural Selection ◽  
Evolutionary Account ◽  
Learning Biases ◽  
Cumulative Cultural Evolution ◽  
Attentional Learning

What makes fast, cumulative cultural evolution work? Where did it come from? Why is it the sole preserve of humans? We set out a self-assembly hypothesis: cultural evolution evolved culturally. We present an evolutionary account that shows this hypothesis to be coherent, plausible, and worthy of further investigation. It has the following steps: (0) in common with other animals, early hominins had significant capacity for social learning; (1) knowledge and skills learned by offspring from their parents began to spread because bearers had more offspring, a process we call CS1 (or Cultural Selection 1); (2) CS1 shaped attentional learning biases; (3) these attentional biases were augmented by explicit learning biases (judgements about what should be copied from whom). Explicit learning biases enabled (4) the high-fidelity, exclusive copying required for fast cultural accumulation of knowledge and skills by a process we call CS2 (or Cultural Selection 2), and (5) the emergence of cognitive processes such as imitation, mindreading and metacognition – ‘cognitive gadgets’ specialised for cultural learning. This self-assembly hypothesis is consistent with archaeological evidence that the stone tools used by early hominins were not dependent on fast, cumulative cultural evolution, and suggests new priorities for research on ‘animal culture’.

Cultural selection and biased transformation: two dynamics of cultural evolution

2021 ◽  
Vol 376 (1828) ◽  
Author(s):  
Alex Mesoudi
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Change ◽  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Laboratory Experiments ◽  
Historical Analysis ◽  
Population Level ◽  
The Other ◽  
Cultural Dynamics ◽  
Cultural Selection ◽  
Fine Grained ◽  
Directional Change

Here, I discuss two broad versions of human cultural evolution which currently exist in the literature and which emphasize different underlying dynamics. One, which originates in population-genetic-style modelling, emphasizes how cultural selection causes some cultural variants to be favoured and gradually increase in frequency over others. The other, which draws more from cognitive science, holds that cultural change is driven by the biased transformation of cultural variants by individuals in non-random and consistent directions. Despite claims that cultural evolution is characterized by one or the other of these dynamics, these are neither mutually exclusive nor a dichotomy. Different domains of human culture are likely to be more or less strongly weighted towards cultural selection or biased transformation. Identifying cultural dynamics in real-world cultural data is challenging given that they can generate the same population-level patterns, such as directional change or cross-cultural stability, and the same cognitive and emotional mechanisms may underlie both cultural selection and biased transformation. Nevertheless, fine-grained historical analysis and laboratory experiments, combined with formal models to generate quantitative predictions, offer the best way of distinguishing them. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Foundations of cultural evolution’.

scholarly journals Enquire within: cultural evolution and cognitive science

2018 ◽  
Vol 373 (1743) ◽  
pp. 20170051 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cecilia Heyes
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Science ◽  
Learning Strategies ◽  
Cognitive Processes ◽  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Interdisciplinary Studies ◽  
Darwinian Evolution ◽  
Cultural Learning ◽  
Third Way ◽  
Cultural Selection ◽  
Cultural Domain

Cultural evolution and cognitive science need each other. Cultural evolution needs cognitive science to find out whether the conditions necessary for Darwinian evolution are met in the cultural domain. Cognitive science needs cultural evolution to explain the origins of distinctively human cognitive processes. Focusing on the first question, I argue that cultural evolutionists can get empirical traction on third-way cultural selection by rooting the distinction between replication and reconstruction, two modes of cultural inheritance, in the distinction between System 1 and System 2 cognitive processes. This move suggests that cultural epidemiologists are right in thinking that replication has higher fidelity than reconstruction, and replication processes are not genetic adaptations for culture, but wrong to assume that replication is rare. If replication is not rare, an important requirement for third-way cultural selection, one-shot fidelity , is likely to be met. However, there are other requirements, overlooked by dual-inheritance theorists when they conflate strong (Darwinian) and weak (choice) senses of ‘cultural selection’, including dumb choices and recurrent fidelity . In a second excursion into cognitive science, I argue that these requirements can be met by metacognitive social learning strategies , and trace the origins of these distinctively human cognitive processes to cultural evolution. Like other forms of cultural learning, they are not cognitive instincts but cognitive gadgets. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Bridging cultural gaps: interdisciplinary studies in human cultural evolution’.

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.

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