Online research in philosophy

There is considerable scope for developing a more explicit role for ethnography within the research program proposed in the article. Ethnographic studies of cultural micro-evolution would complement experimental approaches by providing insights into the “natural” settings in which cultural behaviours occur. Ethnography can also contribute to the study of cultural macro-evolution by shedding light on the conditions that generate and maintain cultural lineages. (Published Online November 9 2006).

Evolutionary developmental biology (“evo-devo”) may provide insights and new methods for studies of cognition and cultural evolution. For example, I propose using cultural selection and individual learning to examine constraints on cultural evolution. Modularity, the idea that traits vary independently, can facilitate evolution (increase “evolvability”), because evolution can act on one trait without disrupting another. I explore links between cognitive modularity, evolutionary modularity, and cultural evolvability. (Published Online November 9 2006).

Darwinian evolution, defined as evolution arising from selection based directly on the properties of individuals, does not account for cultural constructs providing the organizational basis of human societies. The difficulty with linking Darwinian evolution to structural properties of cultural constructs is exemplified with kinship terminologies, a cultural construct that structures and delineates the domain of kin in human societies. (Published Online November 9 2006).

The analogy between biological and cultural evolution is not perfect. Yet, as Mesoudi et al. show, many of the vaunted differences between cultural and genetic evolution (for example, an absence of discrete particles of cultural inheritance, and the blurred distinction between cultural replicators and cultural phenotypes) are, on closer inspection, either illusory or peripheral to the validity of the analogy. But what about horizontal transmission? We strongly agree with the authors that the potential for horizontal transmission of cultural traits does not invalidate an evolutionary approach to culture. We suggest, however, that it does require a different evolutionary treatment. (Published Online November 9 2006).

If culture is defined as variation acquired and maintained by social learning, then culture is common in nature. However, cumulative cultural evolution resulting in behaviors that no individual could invent on their own is limited to humans, song birds, and perhaps chimpanzees. Circumstantial evidence suggests that cumulative cultural evolution requires the capacity for observational learning. Here, we analyze two models the evolution of psychological capacities that allow cumulative cultural evolution. Both models suggest that the conditions which allow the evolution of such capacities when rare are much more stringent than the conditions which allow the maintenance of the capacities when common. This result follows from the fact that the assumed benefit of the capacities, cumulative cultural adaptation, cannot occur when the capacities are rare. These results suggest why such capacities may be rare in nature.

Over the past several decades, we have argued that cultural evolution can facilitate the evolution of largescale cooperation because it often leads to more rapid adaptation than genetic evolution, and, when multiple stable equilibria exist, rapid adaptation leads to variation among groups. Recently, Lehmann, Feldman, and colleagues have published several papers questioning this argument. They analyze models showing that cultural evolution can actually reduce the range of conditions under which cooperation can evolve and interpret these models as indicating that we were wrong to conclude that culture facilitated the evolution of human cooperation. In the main, their models assume that rates of cultural adaption are not..

Analogies between biological and cultural evolution may be illuminating and suggest methods to pursue in the quest for a unified science of cultural evolution. Significant progress, however, is unlikely to be made by trying to fit cultural evolution neatly into a biological evolution schema. A key element defining and differentiating cultural evolution may be the role of conscious human choices. (Published Online November 9 2006).

The article develops a theoretical framework that is capable of integrating the biological foundations of emotions with their cultural and semantic formation.