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.

Applications of Supercomputers in Population Genetics

2015 ◽  
pp. 176-200
Author(s):  
Gerard G. Dumancas
Keyword(s):  
Population Genetics ◽  
Natural Selection ◽  
Genetic Drift ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
Allele Frequency Distribution ◽  
Modern Approach ◽  
Mathematical Discipline ◽  
Modern Evolutionary Synthesis ◽  
Changes Over Time ◽  
Over Time

Population genetics is the study of the frequency and interaction of alleles and genes in population and how this allele frequency distribution changes over time as a result of evolutionary processes such as natural selection, genetic drift, and mutation. This field has become essential in the foundation of modern evolutionary synthesis. Traditionally regarded as a highly mathematical discipline, its modern approach comprises more than the theoretical, lab, and fieldwork. Supercomputers play a critical role in the success of this field and are discussed in this chapter.

scholarly journals Pragmatics and Language Evolution

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marieke Woensdregt ◽  
Kenny Smith
Keyword(s):  
Natural Selection ◽  
Social Learning ◽  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Computational Models ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Language Evolution ◽  
Biological Evolution ◽  
Cognitive Capacity ◽  
Food Sources ◽  
Evolutionary Mechanisms

Pragmatics is the branch of linguistics that deals with language use in context. It looks at the meaning linguistic utterances can have beyond their literal meaning (implicature), and also at presupposition and turn taking in conversation. Thus, pragmatics lies on the interface between language and social cognition. From the point of view of both speaker and listener, doing pragmatics requires reasoning about the minds of others. For instance, a speaker has to think about what knowledge they share with the listener to choose what information to explicitly encode in their utterance and what to leave implicit. A listener has to make inferences about what the speaker meant based on the context, their knowledge about the speaker, and their knowledge of general conventions in language use. This ability to reason about the minds of others (usually referred to as “mindreading” or “theory of mind”) is a cognitive capacity that is uniquely developed in humans compared to other animals. What we know about how pragmatics (and the underlying ability to make inferences about the minds of others) has evolved. Biological evolution and cultural evolution are the two main processes that can lead to the development of a complex behavior over generations, and we can explore to what extent they account for what we know about pragmatics. In biological evolution, changes happen as a result of natural selection on genetically transmitted traits. In cultural evolution on the other hand, selection happens on skills that are transmitted through social learning. Many hypotheses have been put forward about the role that natural selection may have played in the evolution of social and communicative skills in humans (for example, as a result of changes in food sources, foraging strategy, or group size). The role of social learning and cumulative culture, however, has been often overlooked. This omission is particularly striking in the case of pragmatics, as language itself is a prime example of a culturally transmitted skill, and there is solid evidence that the pragmatic capacities that are so central to language use may themselves be partially shaped by social learning. In light of empirical findings from comparative, developmental, and experimental research, we can consider the potential contributions of both biological and cultural evolutionary mechanisms to the evolution of pragmatics. The dynamics of types of evolutionary processes can also be explored using experiments and computational models.

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.

Monsters Everywhere

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mathias Clasen
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Change ◽  
Edgar Allan Poe ◽  
Horror Films ◽  
Human Biology ◽  
Stephen King ◽  
History Of ◽  
Possibility Space ◽  
Changes Over Time ◽  
Slasher Films ◽  
Over Time

The chapter gives an outline of the history of American horror across media, from prehistoric roots to postmodern slasher films and horror videogames. A specifically American literary horror tradition crystallizes in the mid-1800s, with authors such as Edgar Allan Poe, and is developed in the twentieth century by writers including H. P. Lovecraft. In that century, horror films—beginning with Universal’s monster films of the 1930s—became the dominant medium for the genre. Horror became a mainstream genre during the 1970s and 1980s, with the emergence of popular writers like Stephen King and many lucrative film releases. Slasher films dominated the 1980s and were reinvented in a postmodern version in the 1990s. Horror videogames became increasingly popular, offering high levels of immersion and engagement. The chapter shows that horror changes over time, in response to cultural change, but changes within a possibility space constrained by human biology.

scholarly journals Social learning and the replication process: an experimental investigation

2015 ◽  
Vol 282 (1808) ◽  
pp. 20150719 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maxime Derex ◽  
Romain Feron ◽  
Bernard Godelle ◽  
Michel Raymond
Keyword(s):  
Social Learning ◽  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Fitness Landscape ◽  
Social Information ◽  
Biological Evolution ◽  
Multiple Sources ◽  
Replication Process ◽  
Gradual Process ◽  
Observed Behaviour ◽  
Cultural Traits

Human cultural traits typically result from a gradual process that has been described as analogous to biological evolution. This observation has led pioneering scholars to draw inspiration from population genetics to develop a rigorous and successful theoretical framework of cultural evolution. Social learning, the mechanism allowing information to be transmitted between individuals, has thus been described as a simple replication mechanism. Although useful, the extent to which this idealization appropriately describes the actual social learning events has not been carefully assessed. Here, we used a specifically developed computer task to evaluate (i) the extent to which social learning leads to the replication of an observed behaviour and (ii) the consequences it has for fitness landscape exploration. Our results show that social learning does not lead to a dichotomous choice between disregarding and replicating social information. Rather, it appeared that individuals combine and transform information coming from multiple sources to produce new solutions. As a consequence, landscape exploration was promoted by the use of social information. These results invite us to rethink the way social learning is commonly modelled and could question the validity of predictions coming from models considering this process as replicative.

scholarly journals Studying cumulative cultural evolution in the laboratory

2008 ◽  
Vol 363 (1509) ◽  
pp. 3529-3539 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christine A Caldwell ◽  
Ailsa E Millen
Keyword(s):  
Natural Selection ◽  
Social Learning ◽  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Experimental Studies ◽  
Population Level ◽  
Experimental Methods ◽  
Cultural Processes ◽  
Cumulative Cultural Evolution ◽  
Adaptive Complexity ◽  
Over Time

Cumulative cultural evolution is the term given to a particular kind of social learning, which allows for the accumulation of modifications over time, involving a ratchet-like effect where successful modifications are maintained until they can be improved upon. There has been great interest in the topic of cumulative cultural evolution from researchers from a wide variety of disciplines, but until recently there were no experimental studies of this phenomenon. Here, we describe our motivations for developing experimental methods for studying cumulative cultural evolution and review the results we have obtained using these techniques. The results that we describe have provided insights into understanding the outcomes of cultural processes at the population level. Our experiments show that cumulative cultural evolution can result in adaptive complexity in behaviour and can also produce convergence in behaviour. These findings lend support to ideas that some behaviours commonly attributed to natural selection and innate tendencies could in fact be shaped by cultural processes.

Evolution of single characters in the Jurassic ammonite Kosmoceras

Paleobiology ◽  
1981 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 200-215 ◽  
Author(s):  
David M. Raup ◽  
Rex E. Crick
Keyword(s):  
Random Walk ◽  
Natural Selection ◽  
Temporal Variation ◽  
Genetic Drift ◽  
Null Hypothesis ◽  
Morphological Characters ◽  
Biological Interpretation ◽  
Changes Over Time ◽  
Biometrical Study ◽  
Over Time

The classic biometrical study of phyletic evolution in Kosmoceras (Brinkmann 1929) is evaluated using unpublished raw data provided by Professor Brinkmann. Most morphological characters show statistically significant changes over time yet it is difficult to provide an unequivocal biological interpretation for these changes. In a few cases, runs tests indicate that evolution was nonrandom in the sense that fewer reversals in the direction of evolution occurred than would be predicted from a null hypothesis based on a random walk. These cases suggest persistence of natural selection regimes for fairly long periods of time. In other cases, and with other kinds of testing, the random walk model cannot be rejected although failure to reject the hypothesis does not justify its acceptance! Thus, the contribution of random factors (either genetic drift or selection in a randomly changing environment) cannot be assessed with confidence. It is problematical also whether the Kosmoceras series represent significant evolution by phyletic gradualism or just the natural temporal variation that characterizes stasis (sensu Eldredge and Gould 1972).

scholarly journals Dynamical Disequilibrium, Transformation, and the Evolution and Development of Sustainable Worldviews

2013 ◽  
pp. 69-77
Author(s):  
Liane Gabora ◽  
Maegan Merrifield
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Biological Evolution ◽  
Evolutionary Process ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
Human Culture ◽  
Evolution And Development ◽  
Cumulative Change ◽  
Insight Into ◽  
Over Time ◽  
New Framework

This chapter begins by outlining a promising, new theoretical framework for the process by which human culture evolves inspired by the views of complexity theorists on the problem of how life began. Elements of culture, like species, evolve over time; that is, they exhibit cumulative change that is adaptive in nature. By studying how biological evolution got started, it is possible to gain insight into not just the specifics of biological evolution, but also general insights into the initiation of any evolutionary process that may be applicable to culture. The authors, thus, explore the implications of this new framework for culture on the transformative processes of individuals. Specifically, they address what this emerging perspective on cultural evolution implies for to go about attaining a sustainable worldview; that is, a web of habits, understandings, and ways of approaching situations that is conducive to the development of a sustainable world.

A theory of supply-driven evolution for cultural evolution

2013 ◽  
Vol 59 (2) ◽  
pp. 92-98
Author(s):  
Julian Z. Xue
Keyword(s):  
Natural Selection ◽  
General Theory ◽  
Cultural Change ◽  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Biological Evolution ◽  
Historical Change ◽  
Current Understanding ◽  
Cultural Variation ◽  
Selection Of

A process akin to biological evolution is one of the most promising candidates today for producing a general theory of cultural evolution. Current understanding of this process focuses on both drift as well as the selection of cultural variation as the primary vehicles of cultural change. Here, I show that natural selection can produce cultural change in the direction of the generation of cultural variation. I show how this mechanism can result in long-term cultural trends and how it adds to known mechanisms. I present examples to show how this theory is compatible with documented cultural and historical change.

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