Understanding Behaviorism
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A Different Kind of Animal: How Culture
© Copyright, Princeton University Press. No part of this book may be distributed, posted, or reproduced in any form by digital or mechanical means without prior written permission of the publisher. INTRODUCTION Stephen Macedo What makes humans special? Is it, as many have argued, our superior intelligence that sets us apart from other species? In the lectures and discussions that follow, Robert Boyd, a distinguished professor of human evolution and social change, refines the question and rejects the common answer. Putting aside the more familiar question of human unique- ness, Boyd asks why humans so exceed other species when it comes to broad indices of ecological success such as our ability to adapt to and thrive in such a wide variety of hab- itats across the globe. Ten thousand years ago, humans al- ready occupied the entire globe except Antarctica and a few remote islands. No other species comes close. What explains our outlier status if not our “big brains”? Humans adapt to a vast variety of changing environments not mainly by applying individual intelligence to solve prob- lems, but rather via “cumulative cultural adaptation” and, over the longer term, Darwinian selection among cultures with different social norms and moral values. Not only are humans part of the natural world, argues Boyd, but human culture is part of the natural world. Culture makes us “a different kind of animal,” and “culture is as much a part of human biology as our peculiar pelvis or the thick enamel that covers our molars.” With his many coauthors, especially Peter Richerson, Robert Boyd has for three decades pioneered an important approach to the study of human evolution that focuses on the population dynamics of culturally transmitted informa- tion. -
Contributions from Evolutionary Anthropology
Innovation in Cultural Systems Contributions from Evolutionary Anthropology edited by Michael J. O’Brien and Stephen J. Shennan The MIT Press Cambridge, Massachusetts London, England © 2010 Massachusetts Institute of Technology All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electronic or mechanical means (including photocopying, recording, or information storage and retrieval) without permission in writing from the publisher. MIT Press books may be purchased at special quantity discounts for business or sales promotional use. For information, please email [email protected] or write to Special Sales Department, The MIT Press, 55 Hayward Street, Cambridge, MA 02142. This book was set in Times Roman by SNP Best-set Typesetter Ltd., Hong Kong. Printed and bound in the United States of America. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Innovation in cultural systems : contributions from evolutionary anthropology / edited by Michael J. O’Brien and Stephen J. Shennan. p. cm.—(Vienna series in theoretical biology) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-262-01333-8 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. Physical anthropology. 2. Human evolution. 3. Social evolution. 4. Human beings–Origin. 5. Technological innovations. I. O’Brien, Michael J. II. Shennan, Stephen J. GN60.I56 2010 599.9–dc22 2009009084 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 1 Issues in Anthropological Studies of Innovation Michael J. O’Brien and Stephen J. Shennan It would be diffi cult to fi nd a topic in anthropology that has played as central a role as innovation in attempts to explain why and how human behavior changes. -
Cultural Group Selection Plays an Essential Role in Explaining Human Cooperation: a Sketch of the Evidence
BEHAVIORAL AND BRAIN SCIENCES (2016), Page 1 of 68 doi:10.1017/S0140525X1400106X, e30 Cultural group selection plays an essential role in explaining human cooperation: A sketch of the evidence Peter Richerson Emily K. Newton Department of Environmental Science and Policy, University of California– Department of Psychology, Dominican University of California, San Rafael, CA Davis, Davis, CA 95616 94901 [email protected] [email protected] http://emilyknewton.weebly.com/ www.des.ucdavis.edu/faculty/richerson/richerson.htm Nicole Naar Ryan Baldini Department of Anthropology, University of California–Davis, Graduate Group in Ecology, University of California–Davis, Davis, CA 95616 Davis, CA 95616 [email protected] https://sites.google.com/site/ryanbaldini/ [email protected] Adrian V. Bell Lesley Newson Department of Anthropology, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT 84112 Department of Environmental Science and Policy, University of California– [email protected] http://adrianbell.wordpress.com/ Davis, Davis, CA 95616 [email protected] [email protected] Kathryn Demps https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Lesley_Newson/ Department of Anthropology, Boise State University, Boise, ID 83725 [email protected] Cody Ross http://sspa.boisestate.edu/anthropology/faculty-and-staff/kathryn- Santa Fe Institute, Santa Fe, NM 87501 demps/ [email protected] http://scholar.google.com/citations?user=xSugEskAAAAJ Karl Frost Graduate Group in Ecology, University of California–Davis, Davis, CA 95616 Paul E. Smaldino [email protected] https://sites.google.com/site/karljosephfrost/ Department of Anthropology, University of California–Davis, Davis, CA 95616 [email protected] http://www.smaldino.com/ Vicken Hillis Department of Environmental Science and Policy, University of California– Timothy M. -
Tribal Social Instincts and the Cultural Evolution of Institutions to Solve Collective Action Problems
UC Riverside Cliodynamics Title Tribal Social Instincts and the Cultural Evolution of Institutions to Solve Collective Action Problems Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/981121t8 Journal Cliodynamics, 3(1) Authors Richerson, Peter Henrich, Joe Publication Date 2012 DOI 10.21237/C7clio3112453 Peer reviewed eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California Cliodynamics: the Journal of Theoretical and Mathematical History Tribal Social Instincts and the Cultural Evolution of Institutions to Solve Collective Action Problems Peter Richerson University of California-Davis Joseph Henrich University of British Columbia Human social life is uniquely complex and diverse. Much of that complexity and diversity arises from culturally transmitted ideas, values and skills that underpin the operation of social norms and institutions that structure our social life. Considerable theoretical and empirical work has been devoted to the role of cultural evolutionary processes in the evolution of social norms and institutions. The most persistent controversy has been over the role of cultural group selection and gene- culture coevolution in early human populations during Pleistocene. We argue that cultural group selection and related cultural evolutionary processes had an important role in shaping the innate components of our social psychology. By the Upper Paleolithic humans seem to have lived in societies structured by institutions, as do modern populations living in small-scale societies. The most ambitious attempts to test these ideas have been the use of experimental games in field settings to document human similarities and differences on theoretically interesting dimensions. These studies have documented a huge range of behavior across populations, although no societies so far examined follow the expectations of selfish rationality. -
What's in a Meme?
What’s in a Meme? The Development of the Meme as a Unit of Culture Garry Chick The Pennsylvania State University University Park, Pennsylvania, USA Presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association as part of the session, “Perceiving Culture: Unit Definition in Cultural Anthropology,” November 21, 1999. Please do not quote without permission. An earlier version of this paper is in press in Social Science Today (in Russian). Abstract Over the past 150 years numerous labels have been applied to the “parts” of culture. Some of these, including “themes,” “configurations,” “complexes,” and “patterns” are macro level. Micro level terms include “ideas,” “beliefs,” “values,” “rules,” “principles,” “symbols,” “concepts,” and a few others. The macro level labels often appear to be particular arrangements of micro level units. But which of these, if any, is the (or, an) operational unit of cultural transmission, diffusion, and evolution? Recently proposed units of cultural transmission typically derive from analogies made between cultural and biological evolution. Even though the unit of selection in biological evolution (i.e., the gene, the individual, or the group) is still under debate, the “meme,” originally suggested by Dawkins (1976) as a cultural analog of the gene, has been “selected” by many as a viable unit of culture. A “science of memes” (“memetics”) has been proposed (Lynch 1996) and numerous web sites devoted to the meme exist on the internet. This paper will trace the development of the meme and, in the process, critically address its utility as a unit of culture. 2 The whole history of science shows that advance depends upon going beyond “common sense” to abstractions that reveal unobvious relations and common properties of isolatable aspects of phenomena. -
Testing a Cultural Evolutionary Hypothesis,” Pg
ASEBL Journal – Volume 12 Issue 1, February 2016 February 2016 Volume 12, Issue 1 ASEBL Journal Association for the Study of (Ethical Behavior)•(Evolutionary Biology) in Literature EDITOR St. Francis College, Brooklyn Heights, N.Y. Gregory F. Tague, Ph.D. ~ ▬ EDITORIAL BOARD [click on last name of lead/author to navigate to text] Divya Bhatnagar, Ph.D. ▬ Kristy Biolsi, Ph.D. † Lesley Newson and Peter Richerson, “Moral Beliefs about Homosexuality: Kevin Brown, Ph.D. Testing a Cultural Evolutionary Hypothesis,” pg. 2 Alison Dell, Ph.D. Comments By: Robert A. Paul, pg. 21; Nicole A. Wedberg and Glenn Geher, pg. 23; Austin John Tom Dolack, Ph.D Jeffery and Todd Shackelford, pg. 24; Andreas De Block and Olivier Lemeire, pg. 27; James Waddington, pg. 29; Jennifer M. Lancaster, pg. 30 Wendy Galgan, Ph.D. Cheryl L. Jaworski, M.A. Newson’s and Richerson’s Reply to Comments, pg. 32 Joe Keener, Ph.D. ▬ † Craig T. Palmer and Amber L. Palmer, Eric Luttrell, Ph.D. “Why Traditional Ethical Codes Prescribing Self-Sacrifice Are a Puzzle to Evolutionary Theory: The Example of Besa,” pg. 40 Riza Öztürk, Ph.D. Comments By: Eric Platt, Ph.D. David Sloan Wilson, pg. 50; Guilherme S. Lopes and Todd K. Shackelford, pg. 52; Anja Müller-Wood, Ph.D. Bernard Crespi, pg. 55; Christopher X J. Jensen, pg. 57; SungHun Kim, pg. 60 SCIENCE CONSULTANT Palmer’s And Palmer’s Reply to Comments, pg. 61 Kathleen A. Nolan, Ph.D. ▬ EDITORIAL INTERN Lina Kasem † Aiman Reyaz and Priyanka Tripathi, “Fight with/for the Right: An Analysis of Power-politics in Arundhati Roy’s Walking with the Comrades,” pg. -
Lumsden-Wilson Theory of Gene Culture Coevolution (Human Sociobiology/Ethnography/Epigenetic Rules/Social Development) JOSEPH S
Proc. NatL Acad. Sci. USA Vol. 78, No. 6, pp. 3976-3979, June 1981 Population Biology Lumsden-Wilson theory of gene culture coevolution (human sociobiology/ethnography/epigenetic rules/social development) JOSEPH S. ALPER* AND ROBERT V. LANGEt *Department ofChemistry, University of Massachusetts, Boston, Massachusetts 02125; and tDepartment of Physics, Brandeis University, Waltham, Massachusetts 02154 Communicated by S. E. Luria, March 9, 1981 ABSTRACT A critique is presented of the Lumsden-Wilson ASSUMPTIONS OF THE THEORY theory [Lumsden, C. J. & Wilson, E. 0. (1980) Proc. Nati. Acad. Sci. USA 77, 4382-4386] of the transmission of cultural traits. An LW propose that we consider one cultural trait (called a "cul- analysis of the underlying assumptions and the mathematical na- turgen") at a time and study the mechanisms by which distri- ture of the theory clarifies its essentially reductionist and deter- butions of alternative forms of the trait in a society are estab- minist qualities. The mathematical functions governing the tran- lished. The central assumption of the LW theory is that there sition probability that an individual member of a group of a are genes that code for the rules that determine the probability specified size will switch from one trait to an alternative form of of changing from one alternative form of the trait to another. that trait is assumed to be genetically controlled although the sin- There is absolutely no evidence that any genes ofthis type exist gle independent variable of this function, the number of individ- and, as we shall argue more fully below, LW's claim that there uals characterized by each of the two forms of the trait, is envi- is evidence for the existence of such genes is invalid. -
The Histories and Origins of Memetics
Betwixt the Popular and Academic: The Histories and Origins of Memetics Brent K. Jesiek Thesis submitted to the Faculty of Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Masters of Science in Science and Technology Studies Gary L. Downey (Chair) Megan Boler Barbara Reeves May 20, 2003 Blacksburg, Virginia Keywords: discipline formation, history, meme, memetics, origin stories, popularization Copyright 2003, Brent K. Jesiek Betwixt the Popular and Academic: The Histories and Origins of Memetics Brent K. Jesiek Abstract In this thesis I develop a contemporary history of memetics, or the field dedicated to the study of memes. Those working in the realm of meme theory have been generally concerned with developing either evolutionary or epidemiological approaches to the study of human culture, with memes viewed as discrete units of cultural transmission. At the center of my account is the argument that memetics has been characterized by an atypical pattern of growth, with the meme concept only moving toward greater academic legitimacy after significant development and diffusion in the popular realm. As revealed by my analysis, the history of memetics upends conventional understandings of discipline formation and the popularization of scientific ideas, making it a novel and informative case study in the realm of science and technology studies. Furthermore, this project underscores how the development of fields and disciplines is thoroughly intertwined with a larger social, cultural, and historical milieu. Acknowledgments I would like to take this opportunity to thank my family, friends, and colleagues for their invaluable encouragement and assistance as I worked on this project. -
Genetic and Cultural Evolution: the Gap, the Bridge,... and Beyond
Continuing Commentary Phillips, h. D. & Edwards, W. (1966) Conservatism in a simple probability Slovie, P. Fischhoff, R. & Lichtenstein, S. (1976) Cognitive processes and inference task. Journal of Experimental Psychology 72:346-54. societal risk taking. In: Cognition and social behavior, ed. J. S. Carroll & Saks, M. J. & Kidd, R. F. (1980-81) Human information-processing and J. W. Payne. Erlbaum. adjudication: Trial by heuristics. Law and Society Review 15: 123-60. Tversky, A. & Kahneman, D. (1971) Belief in the law of small numbers. Schum, D. & Martin, A. W. (1980) Probabilistic opinion revision on the basis Psychological Bulletin 76:105-10. of evidence at trial: A Baconian or a Pascalian process? Rice University (1974) Judgement under uncertainty: Heuristics and biases. Science Department of Psychology Research Report 80-02. 185:1124-31. Commentary on Charles J. Lumsden and Edward O. Wilson (1982) Precis of Genes, Mind, and Culture. BBS 5:1-37. Abstract of the original article: Despite its importance, the linkage between genetic and cultural evolution has until now been little explored. An understanding of this linkage is needed to extend evolutionary theory so that it can deal for the first time with the phenomena of mind and human social history. We characterize the process of gene-culture coevolution, in which culture is shaped by biological imperatives while biological traits are simultaneously altered by genetic evolution in response to cultural history. A case is made from both theory and evidence that genetic and cultural evolution are inseverable, and that the human mind has tended to evolve so as to bias individuals toward certain patterns of cognition and choice rather than others. -
1 Introduction: the Evolution of Culture in a Microcosm
1 Introduction: The Evolution of Culture in a Microcosm Stephen C. Levinson Evolutionary speculation constitutes a kind of metascience, which has the same intellectual fascination for some biologists that metaphysical speculation possessed for some medieval scholastics. It can be considered a relatively harmless habit, like eating peanuts, unless it assumes the form of an obsession; then it becomes a vice. —R. V. Stanier, Some aspects of the biology of cells in H. Charles and B. Knight (eds.), Organization and Control in Prokaryotic Cells As the quotation here suggests, this volume is full of the vice of speculation. Yet any student of the human condition can hardly avoid it. Somehow culture—or at least the culture-bearing ape—evolved. An evolutionary perspective on human culture, which is much less fashionable now than it was 70 or more years ago, seems inevitable, yet the social sciences actively resist it, allowing ill-informed conjectures from other sci- ences (which does little to increase the interest from the social sciences of course). In this introductory chapter, I try to do two things: The first is to deal frontally, and speculatively, with what I take to be the “big questions” about the evolution of human culture. This may serve as a partial introduction to the more detailed explo- rations in other chapters in this volume. The second is to give the reader some grist for these speculative mills. I will argue that if we look at the details of any culture, it is quite clear that we need an evolutionary perspective to understand how such fea- tures could have arisen (note that such a perspective is quite consistent with other kinds of social science explanations). -
An Introduction to Sociobiology: Inclusive Fitness and the Core Genome Herbert Gintis
An Introduction to Sociobiology: Inclusive Fitness and the Core Genome Herbert Gintis June 29, 2013 The besetting danger is ...mistaking part of the truth for the whole...in every one of the leading controversies...both sides were in the right in what they affirmed, though wrong in what they denied John Stuart Mill, On Coleridge, 1867 A Mendelian populationhas a common gene pool, whichis itscollective or corporate genotype. Theodosius Dobzhansky, Cold Springs Harbor Symposium, 1953. The interaction between regulator and structural genes... [reinforces] the concept that the genotype of the individual is a whole. Ernst Mayr, Populations, Species and Evolution, 1970 Abstract This paper develops inclusive fitness theory with the aim of clarifying its appropriate place in sociobiological theory and specifying the associated principles that render it powerful. The paper introduces one new concept, that of the core genome. Treating the core genome as a unit of selection solves problems concerning levels of selection in evolution. 1 Summary Sociobiology is the study of biological interaction, both intragenomic, among loci in the genome, and intergenomic, among individuals in a reproductive popula- tion (Gardner et al. 2007). William Hamilton (1964) extended the theory of gene frequencies developed in the first half of the Twentieth century (Crow and I would like to thank Samuel Bowles, Eric Charnov, Steven Frank, Michael Ghiselin, Peter Godfrey-Smith, David Haig, David Queller, Laurent Lehmann, Samir Okasha, Peter Richerson, Joan Roughgarden, Elliot Sober, David Van Dyken, Mattijs van Veelen and Edward O. Wilson for advice in preparing this paper. 1 Kimura 1970, B¨urger 2000, Provine 2001) to deal with such behavior. -
It's Cooperation, Stupid
IT’S COOPERATION, STUPID Charles Leadbeater IT’S COOPERATION, STUPID WHY RICHARD DAWKINS, THOMAS HOBBES AND MILTON FRIEDMAN GOT IT WRONG Charles Leadbeater IN PARTNERSHIP WITH Institute for Public Policy Research 2012 ABOUT IPPR IPPR, the Institute for Public Policy Research, is the UK’s leading progressive thinktank. We produce rigorous research and innovative policy ideas for a fair, democratic and sustainable world. We are open and independent in how we work, and with offices in London and the North of England, IPPR spans a full range of local and national policy debates. Our international partnerships extend IPPR’s influence and reputation across the world. IPPR 4th Floor 14 Buckingham Street London WC2N 6DF T: +44 (0)20 7470 6100 E: [email protected] www.ippr.org Registered charity no. 800065 This paper was first published in March 2012. © 2012 The contents and opinions expressed in this paper are those of the author only. They do not necessarily represent the view of directors or trustees of IPPR. CONTENTS Acknowledgments ........................................................ 5 1. The assumption of selfishness ................................... 7 2. The science of cooperation ..................................... 12 3. Designing for cooperation ....................................... 35 4. Cooperation policy in action .................................... 46 5. Our cooperative future ............................................. 57 References ................................................................. 62 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank Nick Pearce at IPPR and Ed Mayo at Co-operatives UK for supporting this pamphlet and, along with Marc Stears, for providing very helpful comments while I was drafting it. IPPR wishes to thank Co-operatives UK for their intellectual and financial contribution to this paper. Co- operatives UK works to promote, develop and unite co-operative enterprises.