Between Development and Evolution: How to Model Cultural Change

2002 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eva Jablonka
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Change ◽  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
General Framework ◽  
Genetic Model ◽  
Epigenetic Inheritance ◽  
Genetic System ◽  
Evolution And Development ◽  
The World ◽  
Somatic Selection ◽  
Development And Evolution

This chapter explores how the Darwinian model of evolution emerged as a major organising concept for explaining cultural change. It considers the application of the general framework of selection theory for thinking about cultural change and the evolution of other aspects of the world, but argues that the genic, neo-Darwinian model is inadequate for understanding cultural evolution. The chapter first discusses some of the properties of the genetic system and highlights the problems it poses for modelling cultural change, as well as some of the properties of the other inheritance systems known today (the epigenetic, the behavioural and the symbolic). It then suggests how changing the major assumptions of the classical genetic model gives rise to a view that denies a categorical distinction between evolution and development. It also argues that the classic neo-Darwinian assumptions about heredity and evolution must be abandoned in favour of more ‘Lamarckian’ genetic models that assign a central role to targeted genetic variation and somatic selection. Finally, it describes epigenetic inheritance systems, along with the transmission and selection of behavioural variants.

Sherry C. M. Lindquist and Asa Simon Mittman. With a Preface by China Miéville, Medieval Monsters: Terrors, Aliens, Wonders. New York: The Morgan Library & Museum, 2018, 175 pp., more than 90 colored ill.

Mediaevistik ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 284-284
Author(s):  
Albrecht Classen
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
General Framework ◽  
Femme Fatale ◽  
Ordinary People ◽  
Narrow Sense ◽  
The World ◽  
Evil Spirits ◽  
Morgan Library ◽  
Illustrated Book

This wonderfully illustrated book accompanied an exhibition that took place at the Morgan Library & Museum, New York, from June 8 to September 23, 2018, authored by two well established and respected art historian*s, who provide us with a sweeping view of the world of monsters and many other related creatures in medieval fantasy. While previous research mostly focused on monsters in the narrow sense of the word, i.e., grotesque and oversized human-like creatures normally threatening ordinary people in their existence, Lindquist and Mittman pursue a much broader perspective and incorporate also many other features in human imagination, including wonders, aliens, Jews, Muslims, strangers in general, the femme fatale, sirens, undines, mermaids (but there is no reference to the Melusine figure, though she would fit much better into the general framework), devils, and evil spirits. However, I do not understand why ‘gargoyles’ have been left out here. This vast approach allows them also to address the beasts from the Physiologus tradition, then natural wonders, giants, and then, quite surprisingly, religious scenes in psalters (148), depictions of nobles playing chess (150; where are the wild men alleged surrounding the players?), the whore of Babylon (153), figures from the Apocalypse, and anything else that smacks of wonder.

scholarly journals Beyond feasibility—the role of motivation to implement measures to enhance resilience

2021 ◽  
Vol 26 (5) ◽  
Author(s):  
Luzian Messmer ◽  
Braida Thom ◽  
Pius Kruetli ◽  
Evans Dawoe ◽  
Kebebew Assefa ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Food Security ◽  
Conceptual Framework ◽  
General Framework ◽  
Rural Livelihoods ◽  
Weather Forecast ◽  
Reduced Tillage ◽  
Shade Trees ◽  
The World ◽  
Cocoa Farmers

AbstractMany regions around the world are experiencing an increase in climate-related shocks, such as drought. This poses serious threats to farming activities and has major implications for sustaining rural livelihoods and food security. Farmers’ ability to respond to and withstand the increasing incidence of drought events needs to be strengthened and their resilience enhanced. Implementation of measures to enhance resilience is determined by decisions of farmers and it is important to understand the reasons behind their behavior. We assessed the viability of measures to enhance resilience of farmers to drought, by developing a general framework that covers economic-technical and psychological-cognitive aspects, here summarized under the terms (1) motivation and (2) feasibility. The conceptual framework was applied to cocoa farmers in Ghana and tef farmers in Ethiopia by using questionnaire-based surveys. A portfolio of five specific measures to build resilience (i.e., irrigation, shade trees, fire belts, bookkeeping, mulching, early mature varieties, weather forecast, reduced tillage, improved harvesting) in each country was evaluated with a closed-ended questionnaire that covered the various aspects of motivation and feasibility whereby farmers were asked to (dis)agree on a 5-point Likert scale. The results show that if the motivation mean score is increased by 0.1 units, the probability of implementation increases by 16.9% in Ghana and by 7.7% in Ethiopia. If the feasibility mean score is increased by 0.1 units, the probability of implementation increases by 24.9% in Ghana and by 11.9% in Ethiopia. We can conclude that motivation and feasibility matter, and we improve our understanding of measure implementation if we include both feasibility and motivation into viability assessments.

Misunderstanding and Misuse of Darwinism

2010 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 329-345
Author(s):  
Hubert Markl
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Ethnic Diversity ◽  
Mother Tongue ◽  
Human Species ◽  
Wilhelm Von Humboldt ◽  
Gregory Bateson ◽  
Neural Imaging ◽  
The World ◽  
True Meaning ◽  
The Many

The reason why I wavered a bit with this topic is that, after all, it has to do with Darwin, after a great Darwin year, as seen by a German scientist. Not that Darwin was very adept in German: Gregor Mendel’s ‘Versuche über Pflanzenhybriden’ (Experiments on Plant Hybrids) was said to have stayed uncut and probably unread on his shelf, which is why he never got it right with heredity in his life – only Gregory Bateson, Ronald A. Fisher, and JBS Haldane, together with Sewall Wright merged evolution with genetics. But Darwin taught us, nevertheless, in essence why the single human species shows such tremendous ethnic diversity, which impresses us above all through a diversity of languages – up to 7000 altogether – and among them, as a consequence, also German, my mother tongue, and English. It would thus have been a truly Darwinian message, if I had written this article in German. I would have called that the discommunication function of the many different languages in humans, which would have been a most significant message of cultural evolution, indeed. I finally decided to overcome the desire to demonstrate so bluntly what cultural evolution is all about, or rather to show that nowadays, with global cultural progress, ‘the world is flat’ indeed – even linguistically. The real sign of its ‘flatness’ is that English is used everywhere, even if Thomas L. Friedman may not have noticed this sign. But I will also come back to that later, when I hope to show how Darwinian principles connect both natural and cultural evolution, and how they first have been widely misunderstood as to their true meaning, and then have been terribly misused – although more so by culturalists, or some self-proclaimed ‘humanists’, rather than by biologists – or at least most of them. Let me, however, quickly add a remark on human languages. That languages even influence our brains and our thinking, that is: how we see the world, has first been remarked upon by Wilhelm von Humboldt and later, more extensively so, by Benjamin Whorf. It has recently been shown by neural imaging – for instance by Angela Friederici – that one’s native language, first as learned from one’s mother and from those around us when we are babies, later from one’s community of speakers, can deeply impinge on a baby’s brain development and stay imprinted in it throughout life, even if language is, of course, learned and not fully genetically preformed. This shows once more how deep the biological roots are that ground our cultures, according to truly Darwinian principles, even if these cultures are completely learned.

scholarly journals The Little Professor: Reflection on the Structure, Development and Evolution of the Adult in the Child

2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 79-86 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tânia Elizabeth Caetano Alves
Keyword(s):  
Personality Trait ◽  
Adult Life ◽  
Early Years ◽  
Structure Development ◽  
The World ◽  
Life Script ◽  
Development And Evolution

According to the concept of the Life Script, developed by Eric Berne, the fate of each individual is sketched in the early years of life. The subdivision of Child Ego State, known as Adult in the Child or Little Professor, is responsible for decoding the world throughout intuition and analogical thought and, thus, in one way or another, having physical and emotional survival guaranteed. The purpose of this article is to qualify and recognise the Adult in the Child and its relevance in the construction of personality trait, by studying the anatomical, physiological and emotional scenario in which the Adult in the Child develops itself. The author suggests that the peculiar stamina and wisdom held in the Adult in the Child may be present in adult life in a positive manner, even if the events that structured it were dramatic.

scholarly journals Uruguay, 1968. Algunas líneas de análisis derivadas del estudio de la protesta estudiantil en un país periférico

2019 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 129-143
Author(s):  
Vania Markarian
Keyword(s):  
Social Movements ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
Political Participation ◽  
Cultural Change ◽  
Student Movement ◽  
Political Polarization ◽  
The World ◽  
Growing Body ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Cycles Of Protest

This paper – focused on a deep analysis of the student movement that occupied the streets of Montevideo in 1968 – aims at proposing some analytical lines to understand this and other contemporary cycles of protest in different places of the world. After locating these events in a wide geography characterized both by political acceleration and the dramatic display of cultural change, four relevant themes in the growing body of literature on the «global Sixties» are raised. First, it is addressed the relationship between social movements and groups or political parties in these «short cycles» of protest. Second, the idea that violence was rather a catalyzer of political innovation rather than the result of political polarization is proposed. Third, it breaks down the diversity of possible links between culture, in a broad sense, and the forms of political participation in youth mobilizations. Finally, it can be more rewarding to look at different scales of analysis of these processes, from the strictly national to the transnational circulation of ideas and people.

scholarly journals Modelling cultural systems and selective filters

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fredrik Jansson ◽  
Elliot Aguilar ◽  
Alberto Acerbi ◽  
Magnus Enquist
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Change ◽  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Selection Process ◽  
Change Models ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Modelling Framework ◽  
Structure Changes ◽  
Cultural Systems ◽  
Cultural Domain ◽  
The Individual

A specific goal of the field of cultural evolution is to understand how processes of transmission and selection at the individual level lead to population-wide patterns of cultural diversity and change. Models of cultural evolution have typically assumed that traits are independent of one another and essentially exchangeable. But culture has a structure: traits bear relationships to one another that affect the transmission and selection process itself. Here we introduce a modelling framework to explore the effect of cultural structure on the process of learning. Through simulations, we find that introducing this simple structure changes the cultural dynamics. Based on a basic filtering mechanism for parsing these relationships, more elaborate cultural filters emerge. In a mostly incompatible cultural domain of traits, these filters organise culture into mostly (but not fully) consistent and stable systems. Incompatible domains produce small homogeneous cultures, while more compatibility increases size, diversity, and group divergence. When individuals copy based on a trait's features (here, its compatibility relationships) they produce more homogeneous cultures than when they copy based on the agent carrying the cultural trait. We discuss the implications of considering cultural systems and filters in the dynamics of cultural change.

The evolution and development of human social systems requires more than parasite-stress avoidance explanation

2012 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 88-89 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jason Grotuss
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Social Systems ◽  
The United States ◽  
Religious Practices ◽  
Evolution And Development ◽  
The World ◽  
Stress Avoidance ◽  
Geographical Locations

AbstractFincher & Thornhill (F&T) present a model of in-group assortative sociality resulting from differing levels of parasite-stress in differing geographical locations in the United States and the world. Their model, while compelling, overlooks some important issues, such as mutualistic associations with parasites that are beneficial to humans and how some religious practices increase parasite risk.

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.

Create It! Extend It!

2017 ◽  
pp. 117-132 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ugur Kılınç
Keyword(s):  
New Media ◽  
General Framework ◽  
Turning Point ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Historical Process ◽  
General Review ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
Marvel Comics

This study focuses on the historical process of DC Comics and Marvel Comics which are the leading companies that have made way for the comics to develop and take form in terms of advertising narrative. First of all, the history of DC Comics and Marvel Comics has been analyzed in a general framework in order to question the process in advertising history. At this point, the advertisements of these companies have been limited to the ones they have on the internet and the ones that give relevant data for the study. In addition to this, the study of narrative advertising of comics today, apart from the examples of DC Comics and Marvel Comics in their own cinematic universe, has been narrowed down to the Pegasus Airlines' commercial relating to Marvel Comics and Turkish Airlines' commercial relating to DC Comics. The result of a general review indicates that DC Comics and Marvel Comics have come to a turning point in terms of narrative advertising by creating a cinematic universe and with the means of new media becoming popular around the world.

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