Long before the origins of agriculture human ancestors had expanded across the globe into an immense variety of environments, from Australian deserts to Siberian tundra. Survival in these environments did not principally depend on genetic adaptations, but instead on evolved learning strategies that permitted the assembly of locally adaptive behavioral repertoires. To develop hypotheses about these learning strategies, we have modeled the evolution of learning strategies to assess what conditions and constraints favor which kinds of strategies. To build on prior (...) work, we focus on clarifying how spatial variability, temporal variability, and the number of cultural traits influence the evolution of four types of strategies: (1) individual learning, (2) unbiased social learning, (3) payoff-biased social learning, and (4) conformist transmission. Using a combination of analytic and simulation methods, we show that spatial—but not temporal—variation strongly favors the emergence of conformist transmission. This effect intensifies when migration rates are relatively high and individual learning is costly. We also show that increasing the number of cultural traits above two favors the evolution of conformist transmission, which suggests that the assumption of only two traits in many models has been conservative. We close by discussing how (1) spatial variability represents only one way of introducing the low-level, nonadaptive phenotypic trait variation that so favors conformist transmission, the other obvious way being learning errors, and (2) our findings apply to the evolution of conformist transmission in social interactions. Throughout we emphasize how our models generate empirical predictions suitable for laboratory testing. (shrink)

In a recent opinion piece, Denis Duboule has claimed that the increasing shift towards systems biology is driving evolutionary and developmental biology apart, and that a true reunification of these two disciplines within the framework of evolutionary developmental biology may easily take another 100 years. He identifies methodological, epistemological, and social differences as causes for this supposed separation. Our article provides a contrasting view. We argue that Duboule’s prediction is based on a one-sided understanding of systems biology as a science (...) that is only interested in functional, not evolutionary, aspects of biological processes. Instead, we propose a research program for an evolutionary systems biology, which is based on local exploration of the configuration space in evolving developmental systems. We call this approach—which is based on reverse engineering, simulation, and mathematical analysis—the natural history of configuration space. We discuss a number of illustrative examples that demonstrate the past success of local exploration, as opposed to global mapping, in different biological contexts. We argue that this pragmatic mode of inquiry can be extended and applied to the mathematical analysis of the developmental repertoire and evolutionary potential of evolving developmental mechanisms and that evolutionary systems biology so conceived provides a pragmatic epistemological framework for the EvoDevo synthesis. (shrink)

After introducing the new field of cultural evolution, we review a growing body of empirical evidence suggesting that culture shapes what people attend to, perceive and remember as well as how they think, feel and reason. Focusing on perception, spatial navigation, mentalizing, thinking styles, reasoning (epistemic norms) and language, we discuss not only important variation in these domains, but emphasize that most researchers (including philosophers) and research participants are psychologically peculiar within a global and historical context. This rising tide of (...) evidence recommends caution in relying on one’s intuitions or even in generalizing from reliable psychological findings to the species, Homo sapiens. Our evolutionary approach suggests that humans have evolved a suite of reliably developing cognitive abilities that adapt our minds, information-processing abilities and emotions ontogenetically to the diverse culturally-constructed worlds we confront. (shrink)

Hay una inconsistencia de la perspectiva analítica losó ca de frente a la estructura cerebral; ésta es más que regresión hacia los átomos del conocimiento, que para los analíticos clásicos está en el exterior. A la arquitectura cognitiva cerebral se la puede vislumbrar como un todo sintético que conjunta las dimensiones internas de la naturaleza humana con la externa, es decir que toma en cuenta tanto la exterioridad como la naturalidad y parte de ambas; en efecto el ordenamiento inteligente sabe (...) bordar lo instintivo y límbico con los datos que le da la sensorialidad y a su vez lo instintivo-límbico en lo lingüístico-lógico y lo sensorial en lo lingüístico-lógico para la plani cación y la decisión, elementos muy propios y al mismo tiempo simultáneos en la estructura cerebral. Por lo tanto, el absolutizar la analítica es realmente una reducción del conocimiento, más aún, la reducción del signi cado de los contenidos a los hechos y a la materia, es un contradictorio cerebral, por la naturaleza misma de su estructura que no parcializa ni reduce nada como si es el caso de lo analítico. El empirismo clásico y el del siglo pasado delante de los estudios de la estructura y funcionamiento del cerebro, resulta ser parcial, pues poseen una estructura reduccionista que se asimila totalitaria. No es que sea inválido totalmente, sino que es parcialmente válido, es decir que, si se analizan los contenidos desde la sensorialidad cerebral, es más o menos coherente, pero actualmente, quedarse sólo en ese campo e interpretación, e impertinencia cognitiva. (shrink)

Cultural selection models aim to explain cultural phenomena as the products of a selective process, often characterising institutions, practices, norms or behaviours as adaptations. I argue that a lack of attention has been paid to the explanatory power of cultural selection frameworks. Arguments for cultural selection frequently depend on demonstrating only that selection models can in principle be applied to culture, rather than explicitly demonstrating the explanatory payoffs that could arise from their application. Understanding when and how cultural selection generates (...) powerful explanations is crucial to evaluating cultural selection, as well as realising its promised epistemic and practical benefits. I argue that the ability for cultural selection to explain ‘design without a designer’ is crucial to successful and powerful cultural selection explanations. I introduce the strategy of comparing cultural selection to goal-directed agent accounts in order to evaluate when cultural selection can provide distinctive explanatory payoffs, drawing on two case studies to illustrate the benefits of this strategy. I argue that a focus on phenomena which cannot be explained through intention or agency-based explanations in particular could provide a fruitful avenue to identifying the cases where cultural selection can be insightfully applied. (shrink)

What makes humans moral beings? This question can be understood either as a proximate question or as an ultimate question. The question is about the mental and social mechanisms that produce moral judgments and interactions, and has been investigated by psychologists and social scientists. The question is about the fitness consequences that explain why humans have morality, and has been discussed by evolutionary biologists in the context of the evolution of cooperation. Our goal here is to contribute to a fruitful (...) articulation of such proximate and ultimate explanations of human morality. We develop an approach to morality as an adaptation to an environment in which individuals were in competition to be chosen and recruited in mutually advantageous cooperative interactions. In this environment, the best strategy is to treat others with impartiality and to share the costs and benefits of cooperation equally. Those who offer less than others will be left out of cooperation; conversely, those who offer more will be exploited by their partners. In line with this mutualistic approach, the study of a range of economic games involving property rights, collective actions, mutual help and punishment shows that participants' distributions aim at sharing the costs and benefits of interactions in an impartial way. In particular, the distribution of resources is influenced by effort and talent, and the perception of each participant's rights on the resources to be distributed. (shrink)