If we are all cultural Darwinians what's the fuss about? Clarifying recent disagreements in the field of cultural evolution

被引:84
作者
Acerbi, Alberto [1 ,3 ]
Mesoudi, Alex [2 ,4 ]
机构
[1] Univ Bristol, Dept Archaeol & Anthropol, Bristol BS8 1UU, Avon, England
[2] Univ Durham, Dept Anthropol, Durham DH1 3LE, England
[3] Eindhoven Univ Technol, Sch Innovat Sci, Philosophy & Eth, NL-5600 MB Eindhoven, Netherlands
[4] Univ Exeter, Dept Biosci, Coll Life & Environm Sci, Human Biol & Cultural Evolut Grp, Penryn TR10 9FE, Cornwall, England
关键词
Cultural attraction; Cultural attractors; Cultural evolution; Cultural transmission; CUMULATIVE CULTURE; HUMAN-BEHAVIOR; TRANSMISSION; TECHNOLOGY; OVERIMITATION; ACQUISITION; MECHANISMS; COMPLEXITY; FREQUENCY; SELECTION;
D O I
10.1007/s10539-015-9490-2
中图分类号
N09 [自然科学史]; B [哲学、宗教];
学科分类号
01 ; 0101 ; 010108 ; 060207 ; 060305 ; 0712 ;
摘要
Cultural evolution studies are characterized by the notion that culture evolves accordingly to broadly Darwinian principles. Yet how far the analogy between cultural and genetic evolution should be pushed is open to debate. Here, we examine a recent disagreement that concerns the extent to which cultural transmission should be considered a preservative mechanism allowing selection among different variants, or a transformative process in which individuals recreate variants each time they are transmitted. The latter is associated with the notion of "cultural attraction". This issue has generated much misunderstanding and confusion. We first clarify the respective positions, noting that there is in fact no substantive incompatibility between cultural attraction and standard cultural evolution approaches, beyond a difference in focus. Whether cultural transmission should be considered a preservative or reconstructive process is ultimately an empirical question, and we examine how both preservative and reconstructive cultural transmission has been studied in recent experimental research in cultural evolution. Finally, we discuss how the relative importance of preservative and reconstructive processes may depend on the granularity of analysis and the domain being studied.
引用
收藏
页码:481 / 503
页数:23
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