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Cultural Evolution and the Evolution of Cultural Information

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Abstract

Cultural evolution is normally framed in informational terms. However, it is not clear whether this is an adequate way to model cultural evolutionary phenomena and what, precisely, “information” is supposed to mean in this context. Would cultural evolutionary theory benefit from a well-developed theory of cultural information? The prevailing sentiment is that, in contradistinction to biology, informational language should be used nontechnically in this context for descriptive, but not explanatory, purposes. Against this view, this article makes the case for the need to take a proper biology-based “informational turn” in the cultural evolutionary sciences. I argue that the current vague use of informational language misses out on the potential benefits for advancing understanding of phenomena that information-theoretic reasoning has provided in other sciences, especially genetics. In particular, by emphasizing the informational aspects of cultural evolutionary processes, this approach can clarify some conceptual and methodological problems that have plagued cultural evolutionary theory since its inception, including (1) how to determine the channel conditions of cultural information flow, (2) the nature and scope of cultural information, and (3) how to quantify trends of cultural cumulation. More generally, theories of cultural evolution will be incomplete until the mechanisms underlying cultural processes are better understood and integrated into the explanations. This article explores the adequacy of an information-theoretic framework to accomplish these purposes.

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Fig. 1

(adapted from Laland et al. 2000, p. 134)

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Notes

  1. Not everybody agrees that information talk has played a positive role in biological explanations. Some classic criticisms are Sarkar (1996) and Griffiths (2001). See Griffiths and Stotz (2013) and Godfrey-Smith and Sterelny (2016) for reviews of the controversies.

  2. Defining culture at the phenotypic level does not necessarily exclude the possibility of using informational terminology for other descriptive purposes within the same conceptual framework. For instance, even though Cavalli-Sforza and Feldman define culture as “the total pattern of human behavior and its products embodied in thought, speech, action and artefacts” (1981, p. 3), they nevertheless define relationships between cultural individuals in terms of transmission and flow of information.

  3. It is important to bear in mind that it is in the context of Darwinian approaches to cultural evolution where “culture as information” is proposed to be a useful conceptualization—i.e., whether this definition is applicable outside of CET does not concern cultural evolutionists, nor this article.

  4. Given the tremendous impact that human culturally driven behavior has had on planet Earth, it is likely that these sorts of cases are rather common and may include the flora and fauna.

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Acknowledgments

Thanks goes to Grant Ramsey for reading and commenting on an earlier version of this article. I’d also like to thank James Difrisco, Andreas de Block, Karim Baraghith, Lin-Qing Chen, and the anonymous reviewers for their helpful suggestions. Part of this research was presented at the International Society for the History, Philosophy and Social Studies of Biology (Oslo, 2019). I thank the audience for their feedback.

Funding

This work was supported by the National Council for Science and Technology (Mexico; Grant Number: 710049).

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  1. Center for Logic and Philosophy of Science, Institute of Philosophy, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium

    Alejandro Gordillo-García

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Gordillo-García, A. Cultural Evolution and the Evolution of Cultural Information. Biol Theory 18, 30–42 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13752-022-00422-0

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