DOCSLIB.ORG

Cultural and Genetic Inheritance in the Constitution of Human Society

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Cultural and Genetic Inheritance in the Constitution of Human Society Review of Robert A. Paul Mixed Messages: Cultural and Genetic Inheritance in the Constitution of Human Society Herbert Gintis December 12, 2016 Robert A. Paul’s recent book is an extremely broad-ranging and informative in- vestigation of cultural dynamics in small-scale societies. Paul is a cultural anthro- pologist with a broad range of sociological knowledge concerning such societies. His theoretical framework is that of dual inheritance theory, which he applies it to a vast number of issues in different societies. His analysis is very successful scientifically and yet remains enjoyable throughout. He is an excellent writer and the book fits together well. Dual inheritance theory, as I explain below, arose as a theory of the interaction between genes and culture in the evolutionof our species—the only known species to which the notion of long-term cultural evolution applies. Paul’s interpretation of this theory is, however, purely cultural. This interpretation is idiosyncratic, but defensible because he is dealing with societies in time periods too short for extensive genetic evolution to have taken place. Paul’s version of dual inheritance theory posits that there are two compet- ing/conflicting systems of human sociality. The first is kinship/family, which we share with innumerable other species. The second is “tribal,” which does not sup- press family, but promotes cooperation, amity, and regard independent of kinship genealogy. He suggests that human cultural symbolic systems induce individuals to stress their cooperation and friendship with non-family, which accounts for our success as a species. Paul has thought deeply about thesematters, and his treatment is well worth thinking about. The reason this interpretation of dual inheritance theory is plausible is that humans share with innumerable sexually-reproducing species the tendency to favor family members over genealogically distant individ- uals. It follows that kin/family preference is genetic in a way that tribal preferences 1 are not (applying, as they do, only to our species). Paul stresses repeatedly that kinship/family and tribal cultural systems develop almost independently, and are often in conflict. The fitness-reducing nature of some cultural institutionswas stressed by Robert B. Edgertondecades ago in his in his Sick Societies: Challenging the Myth of Primitive Harmony (New York, Press, 1992), and curiously Paul does not reference this great book at all. I suspect that Paul prefers the term “dual inheritance” to “gene-culture coevolution” because the latter suggests harmony, not conflict, between the two systems. Paul’s treatment of human evolutionary theory is, however, not completely bal- anced. First, he refers to the masters of inclusive fitness theory only in the his- torical section of the book, and he misstates repeated the notion that individuals can spread their genes only by personal biological reproduction. This is not a big problem, but it is incorrect and very annoying. Moreover, it conflicts with one of Paul’s major building blocks, the kinship/familynexus. As was shown long ago by William—see, for instance, his collection of articles Narrow Roads of Gene Land, Oxford University Press, 1998—individuals can enhance their fitness both by rais- ing more offspring or by helping relatives to raise their offspring, precisely because relatives share more genes that randomly selected groups of individuals. Indeed, the main reason humans differentially help relatives is not that we share genes for kin-helpingwith other species, but because Hamilton’snotion of “inclusivefitness” appliesjust as much to humans as to other species. Genes that promote cooperation independent of kinship,the key to our success as a species, can also spread, accord- ing to standard population biology—see, for instance my recent book with Samuel Bowles, A Cooperative Species: Human Reciprocity and its Evolution (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2011). But the mechanisms are rather subtle and apply only to highly social species, as has been stressed by Bert Holldobler and Edward O. Wilson—see their inspiring work The Superorganism: The Beauty, Elegance, and Strangeness of Insect Societies (New York: Norton, 2008). A second imbalance in his treatment is that he makes no case whatever for the gene-side of dual inheritance theory, or what I prefer to call gene-culture coevo- lution, a process which is of fundamentally important interest in making humans what they are, independent from the clash of kinship/family versus tribal values. Gene-culture coevolution explores the evolutionary dynamic that applies to any species for which epigenetic information takes the form of culture that accumu- lates reliably and long-term across generations. That applies stronglyonly to Homo sapiens. The main point is that culture includes techniques and social norms that determine which genes will be evolutionarily rewarded in a given society. There- fore human genes are the product of human culture as much as the reverse. This theory was developed by Lumsden and Wilson (1981), Cavalli-Sforza and Feld- man (1981), and Boyd and Richerson (1985), and has become a major branch of 2 evolutionary theory. Indeed, it is supplies the basic framework of my recent book Individuality and Entanglement: The Moral and Material Bases of Human Social Life, Princeton University Press, 2016. I give, as an extended example of the intimate links between genes and culture in humans, the evolution of the physiology of communication. This example is important because it involves the development of key human genetic capacities that are the product of social structure as opposed to simple individual adaptation. The physiology of communication in humans is an emergent property of human social evolution (Gintis 2011). The example is especially relevant to this journal, which explores the evolutionary roots of the humanities. How are genes and human culture similar? Both genes and human culture con- sist of information passed across generations and subject to mutation and selection. How have humans managed to evolve their extraordinary capacity for verbal com- mumnication? Persuasive and informative speakers in the hunter-gatherer period of our existence were rewarded with higher quality mates and increased reproduc- tive opportunities. Their offspring inherited their cognitive and physiological com- municative powers. This is gene-culture coevolution of human communication, operating over tens and hundreds of thousands of years. The evolution of the physiology of speech and facial communication presents a theoretical challenge. It is easy to explain, if everyone else is gabbing away and you can only grunt and pant, why you might be handicapped in finding a spouse and teaching your children. But how could the use of complex phonics begin? When everyone is grunting and panting, what is the fitness benefit of being able to make more complex varieties of sounds? What is the fitness benefit of being able to interpret complex sounds? The answers are far from obvious and go far beyond simple individual fitness, or even inclusive fitness, maximization. For this reason, the evolution of the physiology of speech is a dramatically complex example of gene-culture coevolution. A most common error in the litera- ture is to consider language as a purely mental phenomenon that can be explained simply as a byproduct of brain size and intelligence. In fact, the ability to com- municate through facial sign and speech has required major changes in human physiology. These could only have come about because individuals with superior communication capacities were rewarded with more and healthier children. Why might this have occurred? The increased social importance of communication in human society rewarded genetic changes that facilitate speech. Regions in the motor cortex expanded in early humans to facilitate speech production. Concurrently, nerves and muscles to the mouth, larynx, and tongue became more numerous to handle the complexities of speech (Jurmain, Nelson, Kilgore and Travathan 1997). Parts of the cerebral cortex, Broca’s and Wernicke’s areas, which do not exist or are relatively small 3 in other primates, are large in humans and permit grammatical speech and com- prehension (Binder, Frost, Hammeke, Cox, Rao and Prieto 1997, Belin, Zatorre, Lafaille, Ahad and Pike 2000). Adult modern humans have a larynx low in the throat, a position that allows the throat to serve as a resonating chamber capable of a great number of sounds (Relethford 2007). The first hominids that have skeletal structures supporting this laryngeal placement are the Homo heidelbergensis, who lived from 800,000 to 100,000 years ago. In addition, the production of consonants requires a short oral cavity, whereas our nearest primate relatives have much too long an oral cavity for this purpose. The position of the hyoid bone, which is a point of attachment for a tongue muscle, developed in Homo sapiens in a manner permitting highly precise and flexible tongue movements. Another indication that the tongue has evolved hominids to facilitate speech is the size of the hypoglossal canal, an aperture that permits the hypoglossal nerve to reach the tongue muscles. This aperture is much larger in Neanderthals and humans than in early hominids and nonhuman primates (Dunbar 2005). Human facial nerves and musculature have also evolved to facilitate communication. This musculature is present in all vertebrates, but except in mammals it serves feeding and respiratory functions alone (Burrows 2008). In mammals, this mimetic muscu- lature attaches to the skin of the face, thus permitting the facial communication of such emotions as fear, surprise, disgust, and anger. In most mammals, however, a few wide sheetlike muscles are involved, rendering fine information differentiation impossible, whereas in primates, this musculature divides into many independent muscles with distinct points of attachment to the epidermis, thus permitting higher bandwidth facial communication. Humans have the most highly developed facial musculature by far of any primate species, with a degree of involvement of lips and eyes that is not present in any other species.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Students Spotlight View Mismannered in This Issue
    H UMAN BE H AVIOR & EVOLUTION SOCIETY Summer 2008 Newsletter In This Issue View From the President’s Window Spotlight The Student Voice Call for Nominations! Competition Winners Conference News HBES 2008 Japan The next HBES Conference will be held at California Letters From the Editors State University, Fullerton May 27-31, 2009. Announcements Nominations for the HBES Career Awards Job Announcements Darwin 200 in Chile Daniel. G Freedman: Submit your nominations for the HBES Lifetime & 1927-2008 Early Career Contribution Awards. Read more... Resources View Spotlight MisMannered Students From the President’s Window Richard D. Alexander Doug Kenrick The Student Voice | Aaron Blackwell Steve Gangestad Our HBES president is Steve Instead of the typical MisMannered is currently on It is time to nominate Gangestad, Distinguished interview, in this edition, a well-deserved hiatus. I’d a new HBES Student Professor of Psychology we here from Richard like to take this opportunity Representative. Current at the University of New Alexander, winner of the to say a big thank you to student rep Aaron Blackwell Mexico. In this issue, Steve inaugural HBES Lifetime Doug for entertaining us in puts out the call for students continues a discussion on Career Contribution Award. the last few newsletters! interested in this post. patterns of citiations in the Prof. Alexander contiunes Stay tuned for upcoming Also, read field. He his discussion editions of the provides of topics MisMannered the winning some data on included in column. I am abstracts the growth of his HBES sure it will be from this citations of 2008 Keynote a treat! year’s HBES EHB articles.
    [Show full text]
  • A Memetic Framework for Cooperative Coevolution of Recurrent Neural Networks
    Proceedings of International Joint Conference on Neural Networks, San Jose, California, USA, July 31 – August 5, 2011 A Memetic Framework for Cooperative Coevolution of Recurrent Neural Networks Rohitash Chandra, Marcus Frean and Mengjie Zhang Abstract— Memetic algorithms and cooperative coevolution refinement techniques has been a major focus of study in are emerging fields in evolutionary computation which have memetic computation. There is a need to use non-gradient shown to be powerful tools for real-world application problems based local search, especially in problems where gradient- and for training neural networks. Cooperative coevolution decomposes a problem into subcomponents that evolve inde- based approaches fail, as in the case of training recurrent net- pendently. Memetic algorithms provides further enhancement works in problems with long-term dependencies. Crossover- to evolutionary algorithms with local refinement. The use based local search methods are non-gradient based and have of crossover-based local refinement has gained attention in recently gained attention [8], [9]. In crossover based local memetic computing. This paper employs a cooperative coevo- search, efficient crossover operators which have local search lutionary framework that utilises the strength of local refine- ment via crossover. The framework is evaluated by training properties are used for local refinement with a population recurrent neural networks on grammatical inference problems. of a few individuals. They have shown promising results in The results show that the proposed approach can achieve comparison to other evolutionary approaches for problems better performance than the standard cooperative coevolution with high dimensions [9]. framework. Cooperative coevolution (CC) divides a large problem into smaller subcomponents and solves them independently I.
    [Show full text]
  • Biol B242 - Coevolution
    BIOL B242 - COEVOLUTION http://www.ucl.ac.uk/~ucbhdjm/courses/b242/Coevol/Coevol.html BIOL B242 - COEVOLUTION So far ... In this course we have mainly discussed evolution within species, and evolution leading to speciation. Evolution by natural selection is caused by the interaction of populations/species with their environments. Today ... However, the environment of a species is always partly biotic. This brings up the possiblity that the "environment" itself may be evolving. Two or more species may in fact coevolve. And coevolution gives rise to some of the most interesting phenomena in nature. What is coevolution? At its most basic, coevolution is defined as evolution in two or more evolutionary entities brought about by reciprocal selective effects between the entities. The term was invented by Paul Ehrlich and Peter Raven in 1964 in a famous article: "Butterflies and plants: a study in coevolution", in which they showed how genera and families of butterflies depended for food on particular phylogenetic groupings of plants. We have already discussed some coevolutionary phenomena: For example, sex and recombination may have evolved because of a coevolutionary arms race between organisms and their parasites; the rate of evolution, and the likelihood of producing resistance to infection (in the hosts) and virulence (in the parasites) is enhanced by sex. We have also discussed sexual selection as a coevolutionary phenomenon between female choice and male secondary sexual traits. In this case, the coevolution is within a single species, but it is a kind of coevolution nonetheless. One of our problem sets involved frequency dependent selection between two types of players in an evolutionary "game".
    [Show full text]
  • Evolution and Human Behaviour 3Rd Edition Pdf, Epub, Ebook
    EVOLUTION AND HUMAN BEHAVIOUR 3RD EDITION PDF, EPUB, EBOOK John Cartwright | --- | --- | --- | 9781137348012 | --- | --- Evolution and Human Behaviour 3rd edition PDF Book Since its first publication, The Expression has never been out of print, but it has also been described as Darwin's "forgotten masterpiece". He then invokes a principle of antithesis , through which opposite states of mind induce directly opposing movements. A discussion of the significance of Darwin's early notebooks can be found in Paul H. Aiyana K. Publications since ; see C. Zag rated it it was amazing Feb 13, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Who punishes promiscuous women? Darwin concluded work on the book with a sense of relief. Darwin also drew on his personal experience of the symptoms of bereavement and studied the text of Henry Maudsley 's Gulstonian lectures on Body and Mind. Although he had no experience in photographic publishing, Darwin suggested this new technique to John Murray. Charles Darwin. To ask other readers questions about Evolution and Human Behavior , please sign up. On 21 September , Darwin recorded a confused and disturbing dream in which he was involved in a public execution where the corpse came to life and claimed to have faced death like a hero. Average rating 4. The contributions to this volume demonstrate, with a high degree of theoretical and methodological sophistication--the maturity and freshness of this new paradigm in the study of human behavior. During the final and so-called genital stage of development, mature gratification is sought in a heterosexual love relationship with another. The first section includes two chapters that provide historical background on the development of human behavioral ecology and com-pare it to two complementary approaches in the study of evolution and human behavior, evolutionary psychology, and dual inheritance theory.
    [Show full text]
  • 1. a Dangerous Idea
    About This Guide This guide is intended to assist in the use of the DVD Daniel Dennett, Darwin’s Dangerous Idea. The following pages provide an organizational schema for the DVD along with general notes for each section, key quotes from the DVD,and suggested discussion questions relevant to the section. The program is divided into seven parts, each clearly distinguished by a section title during the program. Contents Seven-Part DVD A Dangerous Idea. 3 Darwin’s Inversion . 4 Cranes: Getting Here from There . 8 Fruits of the Tree of Life . 11 Humans without Skyhooks . 13 Gradualism . 17 Memetic Revolution . 20 Articles by Daniel Dennett Could There Be a Darwinian Account of Human Creativity?. 25 From Typo to Thinko: When Evolution Graduated to Semantic Norms. 33 In Darwin’s Wake, Where Am I?. 41 2 Darwin's Dangerous Idea 1. A Dangerous Idea Dennett considers Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection the best single idea that anyone ever had.But it has also turned out to be a dangerous one. Science has accepted the theory as the most accurate explanation of the intricate design of living beings,but when it was first proposed,and again in recent times,the theory has met with a backlash from many people.What makes evolution so threatening,when theories in physics and chemistry seem so harmless? One problem with the introduction of Darwin’s great idea is that almost no one was prepared for such a revolutionary view of creation. Dennett gives an analogy between this inversion and Sweden’s change in driving direction: I’m going to imagine, would it be dangerous if tomorrow the people in Great Britain started driving on the right? It would be a really dangerous place to be because they’ve been driving on the left all these years….
    [Show full text]
  • Evolutionary Cognitive Neuroscience Cognitive Neuroscience Michael S
    MD DALIM #870693 9/24/06 GREEN PURPLE Evolutionary Cognitive Neuroscience Cognitive Neuroscience Michael S. Gazzaniga, editor Gary Lynch, Synapses, Circuits, and the Beginning of Memory Barry E. Stein and M. Alex Meredith, The Merging of the Senses Richard B. Ivry and Lynn C. Robertson, The Two Sides of Perception Steven J. Luck, An Introduction to the Event-Related Potential Technique Roberto Cabeza and Alan Kingstone, eds., Handbook of Functional Neuroimaging of Cognition Carl Senior, Tamara Russell, and Michael S. Gazzaniga, eds., Methods in Mind Steven M. Platek, Julian Paul Keenan, and Todd K. Shackelford, eds., Evolutionary Cognitive Neuroscience Evolutionary Cognitive Neuroscience Edited by Steven M. Platek, Julian Paul Keenan, and Todd K. Shackelford The MIT Press Cambridge, Massachusetts London, England © 2007 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 informa- tion 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 special_sales@mitpress. mit.edu or write to Special Sales Department, The MIT Press, 55 Hayward Street, Cambridge, MA 02142. This book printed and bound in the United States of America. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Evolutionary cognitive neuroscience / edited by Steven M. Platek, Julian Paul Keenan, and Todd K. Shackelford. p. cm.—(Cognitive neuroscience) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 13: 978-0-262-16241-8 ISBN 10: 0-262-16241-5 1. Cognitive neuroscience. 2.
    [Show full text]
  • The Coevolution Theory of Autumn Colours Marco Archetti1* and Sam P
    Received 3 December 2003 FirstCite Accepted 25 February 2004 e-publishing Published online The coevolution theory of autumn colours Marco Archetti1* and Sam P. Brown2 1De´partement de Biologie, Section E´ cologie et E´ volution, Universite´ de Fribourg, Chemin du Muse´e 10, 1700 Fribourg, Switzerland 2Department of Zoology, University of Cambridge, Downing Street, Cambridge CB2 3EJ, UK According to the coevolution theory of autumn colours, the bright colours of leaves in autumn are a warning signal to insects that lay their eggs on the trees in that season. If the colour is linked to the level of defensive commitment of the tree and the insects learn to avoid bright colours, this may lead to a coevolutionary process in which bright trees reduce their parasite load and choosy insects locate the most profitable hosts for the winter. We try to clarify what the theory actually says and to correct some misun- derstandings that have been put forward. We also review current research on autumn colours and discuss what needs to be done to test the theory. Keywords: autumn colours; coevolution; biological signalling; trees; evolution 1. INTRODUCTION that is also variable. Leaf abscission and senescence may be preadaptations to the phenomenon of autumn colours, Why do leaves change their colour in autumn? Bright aut- but they are by no means the same thing. umn colours occur in many deciduous tree species and The second is that bright colours are not just the effect are well known to everybody. However, an evolutionary of the degradation of chlorophyll, but new pigments are explanation to this question has only recently been put actively produced in autumn (Duggelin et al.
    [Show full text]
  • Social Science Studies and Experiments with Web Applications
    Social Science Studies and Experiments with Web Applications Author Dawit Bezu Mengistu Supervisor Aris Alissandrakis Exam date 30 August 2018 Subject Social Media and Web Technologies Level Master Course code 5ME11E-VT18 Abstract This thesis explores a web-based method to do studies in cultural evolution. Cu- mulative cultural evolution (CCE) is defined as social learning that allows for the accumulation of changes over time where successful modifications are maintained un- til additional change is introduced. In the past few decades, many interdisciplinary studies were conducted on cultural evolution. However, until recently most of those studies were limited to lab experiments. This thesis aims to address the limitations of the experimental methods by replicating a lab-based experiment online. A web-based application was developed and used for replicating an experiment on conformity by Solomon Asch[1951]. The developed application engages participants in an optical illusion test within different groups of social influence. The major finding of the study reveals that conformity increases on trials with higher social influence. In addition, it was also found that when the task becomes more difficult, the subject's conformity increases. These findings were also reported in the original experiment. The results of the study showed that lab-based experiments in cultural evolution studies can be replicated over the web with quantitatively similar results. Keywords| Cumulative Cultural Evolution, web-based experiment, optical illusion, real-time communication 1 Dedication To Simon & Yohana 2 Acknowledgements I want to thank the Swedish Institute (SI) for granting me a scholarship. I would like to express my great appreciation to my supervisor Dr.
    [Show full text]
  • Information Systems Theorizing Based on Evolutionary Psychology: an Interdisciplinary Review and Theory Integration Framework1
    Kock/IS Theorizing Based on Evolutionary Psychology THEORY AND REVIEW INFORMATION SYSTEMS THEORIZING BASED ON EVOLUTIONARY PSYCHOLOGY: AN INTERDISCIPLINARY REVIEW AND THEORY INTEGRATION FRAMEWORK1 By: Ned Kock on one evolutionary information systems theory—media Division of International Business and Technology naturalness theory—previously developed as an alternative to Studies media richness theory, and one non-evolutionary information Texas A&M International University systems theory, channel expansion theory. 5201 University Boulevard Laredo, TX 78041 Keywords: Information systems, evolutionary psychology, U.S.A. theory development, media richness theory, media naturalness [email protected] theory, channel expansion theory Abstract Introduction Evolutionary psychology holds great promise as one of the possible pillars on which information systems theorizing can While information systems as a distinct area of research has take place. Arguably, evolutionary psychology can provide the potential to be a reference for other disciplines, it is the key to many counterintuitive predictions of behavior reasonable to argue that information systems theorizing can toward technology, because many of the evolved instincts that benefit from fresh new insights from other fields of inquiry, influence our behavior are below our level of conscious which may in turn enhance even more the reference potential awareness; often those instincts lead to behavioral responses of information systems (Baskerville and Myers 2002). After that are not self-evident. This paper provides a discussion of all, to be influential in other disciplines, information systems information systems theorizing based on evolutionary psych- research should address problems that are perceived as rele- ology, centered on key human evolution and evolutionary vant by scholars in those disciplines and in ways that are genetics concepts and notions.
    [Show full text]
  • The Evolution of Cultural Evolution
    Evolutionary Anthropology 123 ARTICLES The Evolution of Cultural Evolution JOSEPH HENRICH AND RICHARD McELREATH Humans are unique in their range of environments and in the nature and diversity of attempted to glean as much as they their behavioral adaptations. While a variety of local genetic adaptations exist within could from the aboriginals about nar- our species, it seems certain that the same basic genetic endowment produces arctic doo, an aquatic fern bearing spores foraging, tropical horticulture, and desert pastoralism, a constellation that represents they had observed the aboriginals us- a greater range of subsistence behavior than the rest of the Primate Order combined. ing to make bread. Despite traveling The behavioral adaptations that explain the immense success of our species are along a creek and receiving frequent cultural in the sense that they are transmitted among individuals by social learning and gifts of fish from the locals, they were have accumulated over generations. Understanding how and when such culturally unable to figure out how to catch evolved adaptations arise requires understanding of both the evolution of the psycho- them. Two months after departing logical mechanisms that underlie human social learning and the evolutionary (popu- from their base camp, the threesome lation) dynamics of cultural systems. had become entirely dependent on nardoo bread and occasional gifts of fish from the locals. Despite consum- In 1860, aiming to be the first Euro- three men (King, Wills and Gray) ing what seemed to be sufficient calo- peans to travel south to north across from their base camp in Cooper’s ries, all three became increasingly fa- Australia, Robert Burke led an ex- Creek in central Australia with five tigued and suffered from painful tremely well-equipped expedition of fully loaded camels (specially im- bowel movements.
    [Show full text]
  • The Evolution of Culture: from Primate Social Learning to Human Culture
    The evolution of culture: From primate social learning to human culture Laureano Castro and Miguel A. Toro† Departamento de Mejora Gene´tica Animal, Instituto Nacional de Investigacio´n y Tecnologı´aAgraria y Alimentaria, Carretera de la Corun˜a Kilo´metro 7, 28040 Madrid, Spain Edited by Francisco J. Ayala, University of California, Irvine, CA, and approved May 20, 2004 (received for review January 8, 2004) Cultural transmission in our species works most of the time as a insufficient to explain the adaptive success of human culture. He cumulative inheritance system allowing members of a group to proved that, as long as the only benefit of imitation is that incorporate behavioral features not only with a positive biological imitators avoid the cost of individual learning, imitation has no value but sometimes also with a neutral, or even negative, bio- effect at all on the evolving organism’s average fitness in the long logical value. Most of models of dual inheritance theory and run. Although imitators do very well when they are rare and gene-culture coevolution suggest that an increase, either qualita- individual learners are common, they do poorly when they are tive or quantitative, in the efficiency of imitation is the key factor common and individual learners are rare. This means that at to explain the transformation of primate social learning in a equilibrium the mean fitness of the population as a whole is the cumulative cultural system of inheritance as it happens during same as that in a population of purely individual learners. hominization. We contend that more efficient imitation is neces- Boyd and Richerson (7) have shown that Roger’s result is sary but not enough for this transformation to occur and that the robust.
    [Show full text]
  • Insufficient Emotion: Soul-Searching by a Former Indicter of Strong
    Emotion Review Vol. 2, No. 3 (July 2010) 234–239 © 2010 SAGE Publications and The International Society for Research on Emotion Insufficient Emotion: Soul-searching by a Former ISSN 1754-0739 DOI: 10.1177/1754073910362598 Indicter of Strong Emotions er.sagepub.com George Loewenstein Department of Social & Decision Sciences, Carnegie Mellon University, USA Abstract Contrary to the many accounts of the destructive effects of strong emotions, this article argues that the most serious problems facing the world are caused by a deficiency rather than an excess of emotions. It then shows how an evolutionary account of emotion can explain when and why such deficiencies occur. Keywords decision making, emotion At that moment I was fully aware for the first time how far advanced the researchers have argued that these types of emotions are benefi- process of paralysis already was in me – it was if I were moving through cial, based on the finding that their absence, whether due to brain flowing, bright water without being halted or taking root anywhere, and I damage (Damasio, 1994) or experimental intervention (e.g., knew very well that this chill was something dead and corpse-like, not yet Wilson & Schooler, 1991) tends to degrade the quality of decision surrounded by the foul breath of decomposition but already numbed beyond recover, a grimly cold lack of emotions. making. Representing a similar perspective, there are myriad (Stefan Zweig, 1922 / 2004, p. 19) stories, presented in books such as The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals That Protect Us From Violence (De Becker, 1997), of Do emotions help or hurt decision making? This question has people who report having survived against the odds as a result of been the focus of much implicit and explicit debate.
    [Show full text]