Behavioral and Brain Sciences 29 (4):329-347 (2006)
Abstract |
We suggest that human culture exhibits key Darwinian evolutionary properties, and argue that the structure of a science of cultural evolution should share fundamental features with the structure of the science of biological evolution. This latter claim is tested by outlining the methods and approaches employed by the principal subdisciplines of evolutionary biology and assessing whether there is an existing or potential corresponding approach to the study of cultural evolution. Existing approaches within anthropology and archaeology demonstrate a good match with the macroevolutionary methods of systematics, paleobiology, and biogeography, whereas mathematical models derived from population genetics have been successfully developed to study cultural microevolution. Much potential exists for experimental simulations and field studies of cultural microevolution, where there are opportunities to borrow further methods and hypotheses from biology. Potential also exists for the cultural equivalent of molecular genetics in “social cognitive neuroscience,” although many fundamental issues have yet to be resolved. It is argued that studying culture within a unifying evolutionary framework has the potential to integrate a number of separate disciplines within the social sciences.
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Keywords | cultural evolution cultural transmission culture evolution evolutionary archaeology evolutionary biology gene-culture coevolution memes social learning |
Categories | (categorize this paper) |
DOI | 10.1017/s0140525x06009083 |
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References found in this work BETA
The Modularity of Mind: An Essay on Faculty Psychology.Jerry A. Fodor - 1983 - Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
The Adapted Mind: Evolutionary Psychology and the Generation of Culture.Jerome H. Barkow, Leda Cosmides & John Tooby - 1992 - Oxford University Press.
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Citations of this work BETA
The Ontic Account of Scientific Explanation.Carl F. Craver - 2014 - In Marie I. Kaiser, Oliver R. Scholz, Daniel Plenge & Andreas Hüttemann (eds.), Explanation in the Special Sciences: The Case of Biology and History. Springer Verlag. pp. 27-52.
Ceteris Paribus Laws.Alexander Reutlinger, Gerhard Schurz, Andreas Hüttemann & Siegfried Jaag - 2019 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
A Variational Approach to Niche Construction.Axel Constant, Maxwell Ramstead, Samuel Veissière, John Campbell & Karl Friston - 2018 - Journals of the Royal Society Interface 15:1-14.
Cultural Evolution in Vietnam’s Early 20th Century: A Bayesian Networks Analysis of Hanoi Franco-Chinese House Designs.Quan-Hoang Vuong, Quang-Khiem Bui, Viet-Phuong La, Thu-Trang Vuong, Manh-Toan Ho, Hong-Kong T. Nguyen, Hong-Ngoc Nguyen, Kien-Cuong P. Nghiem & Manh-Tung Ho - 2019 - Social Sciences and Humanities Open 1 (1):100001.
Five Misunderstandings About Cultural Evolution.Peter Richerson - 2008 - Human Nature 19 (2):119-137.
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