The Origins and Evolution of Culture (original) (raw)
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Human Evolution, 2005
The Western idea of culture is built in opposition to that of nature. Among anthropologist the culture is a complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, law, custum and any capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society. The human specificity of culture is now openly discussed, the idea of an envolved structural base to behaviour is more admitted by the community of scientist but the question of an hereditary base to cultural traits is still unsolved.
The Evolution and Evolvability of Culture
Mind & Language, 2006
In this paper I argue, first, that human lifeways depend on cognitive capital that has typically been built over many generations. This process of gradual accumulation produces an adaptive fit between human agents and their environments; an adaptive fit that is the result of hidden-hand, evolutionary mechanisms. To explain distinctive features of human life, we need to understand how cultures evolve. Second, I distinguish a range of different evolutionary models of culture. Third, I argue that none of meme-based models, dual inheritance models, nor Boyd and Richerson's models fully succeed in explaining this adaptive fit between agent and the world. I then briefly develop an alternative. Finally, I explore (in a preliminary way) constraints on cultural adaptation. The processes of cultural evolution sometimes built a fit between agents and their environment, but they do not always do so. Why is folk medicine, for example, so much less reliable than folk natural history?
To understand the origin of life we must first understand the role of normativity
Biosemiotics
Deacon develops a minimal model of a nonparasitic virus to explore how nucleotide sequences came to be characterized by a code-like informational codependence at the origin of life. The model serves to problematize the concept of biological normativity because it highlights two common yet typically implicit assumptions: (1) that life could consist as an inert form, were it not for extrinsic sources of physical instability, and (2) that life could have originated as a singular self-contained individual. I propose that the origin of life, the genetic code, and biological normativity more generally, lead us to reject this passive individualism.
2009
Chapter 1: Five Arguments for a New Theory of Biological Individuation 1.1 Ontophylogenesis 1.2 Random man 1.3 The same kind of laws govern biology and physics 1.4 The first principle of biology 1.5 Man lost in the Amazonian forest Chapter 2: What is a Probabilistic Process? Summary of the chapter 2.1 There is no qualitative difference between determinism and probabilism 2.2 Errors related to using probability 2.2.1 Probability does not deny causality 2.2.2 Probability is not incompatible with reproducibility 2.2.3 Probability, accident and contingency are not synonymous 2.2.4 Probability is not noise Chapter 3: The Determinism of Molecular Biology Summary of the chapter 3.1 Order from order 3.2 Stereospecific self-assembly 3.3 Genetic programming and signalling Chapter 4: The Contradiction in Genetic Determinism Summary of the chapter 4.1 The non-specificity of biological molecules 4.1.1 Non-specificity in metabolism 4.1.2 Non-specificity in the immune reaction 4.1.3 Non-specificity in cell signalling 4.1.4 Non-specificity in the control of gene expression 4.1.5 Overall non-specificity of protein networks 4.2 The causes of molecular non-specificity 4.2.1 The multiplicity of interaction domains 4.2.2 The plasticity of interaction sites 4.2.3 Molecular disorder 4.2.4 Specificity is not an experimental concept 4.3 The consequence of molecular non-specificity: Return to holism 4.3.1 The network won't work 4.3.2 Negating the principle of order from order Chapter 5: Self-Organisation Does Not Resolve the Contradiction in Genetic Determinism Summary of the chapter 5.1 The scientific principles xvi The Origin of Individuals 5.2 Philosophical holism 5.3 Biological holism 5.3.1 The neo-vitalistic holism of Hans Driesch 5.3.2 The neo-vitalistic holism of Walter Elsasser 5.3.3 Self-organisation according to Prigogine 5.3.4 Self-organisation according to Stuart Kauffman 5.3.5 Self-organisation according to Atlan 5.3.6 Self-organisation according to Weiss 5.3.7 Self-organisation according to Kirschner, Gerhardt and Mitchison 5.4 Self-organisation does not exist Chapter 6: Hetero-organisation Summary of the chapter 6.1. Ontogenesis and phylogenesis are but one process 6.1.1 The model of the heap of cells and the origin of multicellularity 6.1.2 The organism interiorises its environment 6.1.3 The organism functions for the cells, not the reverse 6.2 The deterministic theory of cell differentiation 6.2.1 Embryonic induction 6.2.2 The instructive model 6.2.3 The instructive model trips up against the contradiction in genetic determinism Contents xvii 6.2.4 The instructive model does not account for variability in cell differentiation 6.2.5 The instructive model does not account for stochastic gene expression 6.3 The Darwinian theory of cell differentiation 6.3.1 From differentiation to cell identification 6.3.2 From metabolic selection to stabilisation by the 'signal-food' 6.3.3 Role of signals in the Darwinian model 6.3.4 Mode of action of a signal (selector, signal-food) 6.3.5 Experimental data relating to cell selection and stabilisation 6.3.6 Testable predictions of the Darwinian model 6.4 Simulation of the Darwinian model 6.4.1 Interstabilisation and autostabilisation produce different effects 6.4.2 Cell selection creates organised structures 6.4.3 Spontaneous growth arrest is the result of equilibrium between cell selection and phenotype autostabilisation 6.4.4 A new conception of cancer 6.4.5 The role of morphogenetic gradients in the Darwinian model 6.4.6 Does the Darwinian model lead to the emergence of new properties? 6.4.7 Is the body a cell ecosystem? xviii The Origin of Individuals 6.5 Models of gene expression 6.5.1 Networks with noise 6.5.2 Self-organisation model of chromatin 6.5.3 The stochastic expression of genes subject to natural selection Chapter 7: Biology's Blind Spot Summary of the chapter 7.1 Generation according to Hippocrates 7.2 Generation according to Aristotle 7.3 The pangenetic theory 7.4 The return of Form 7.5 The contradiction in genetic determinism is a consequence of genetic essentialism 7.6 Beyond the species Conclusion: A Research Programme and Ethical Principle based on Ontophylogenesis Glossary
Journal of Bioeconomics, 2000
Reconstructing evolution from a`gene's-eye' point of view has been one of the most challenging intellectual adventures of the late 20th century. J. Maynard Smith & Eo È rs Szathma Âry are among the most prominent of the adventurers. Here they present a very accessible summa of their views, written for a general, interdisciplinary readership. The main question they examine is how ways of transmitting information have changed. Changes in the methods of information storage, transmission and translation establish major transitions' in evolution. Smith & Szathma Âry identify eight of these transitions. The ®rst leads from replicating molecules to populations of molecules in compartments or membranes; the second leads from independent replicators consisting of simple molecules, to their linkage in chromosomes; in the third, DNA appears together with protein, derived from RNA in its previous double function as gene and enzyme; the fourth step is from prokaryotes to eukaryotes; in the ®fth, sex is invented; the sixth results in multicellular organisms; the seventh in colonies of organisms which can be likened to a superorganism; and the ®nal step leads from primate societies to human societies and to the paramount importance of language. The steps involved in each transition are explained as far as possible in terms of what we might call the principle of sel®sh information'. This principle can be explained as a mechanism whereby each change in genetic information that leads to a more ef®cient reproduction of itself gives it an advantage over its competitors. The genes that (through their impacts on the ®tness or behavior of the organism) cause more copies of themselves to be present in future generations, will generally be selected.
Genes, Brains, Minds: The Human Complex
Palgrave Macmillan US eBooks, 2005
Earth is the planet where the most complex creativity of which we are aware has taken place; and on this Earth, the most complex creative thing known to us is the human mind. John Maynard Smith and Eörs Szathmáry analyze "the major transitions in evolution" with the resulting complexity, asking, "how and why this complexity has increased in the course of evolution." "Our thesis is that the increase has depended on a small number of major transitions in the way in which genetic information is transmitted between generations." Critical innovations have included "the origin of the genetic code itself," "the origin of eukaryotes from prokaryotes," "meiotic sex," "multicellular life," "animal societies," and especially "the emergence of human language with a universal grammar and unlimited semantic representation," this last innovation making possible human culture (1995, pp. 3, 14). Maynard Smith, the dean of theoretical biologists, finds that each of these innovative levels is surprising, not scientifically predictable on the basis of the biological precedents. He and his colleague are deeply impressed with the cybernetic and, eventually, cognitive character of what has taken place in natural history, expressed so strikingly in the human mind. What makes the critical difference in evolutionary history is increase in the information possibility space, which is not something inherent in the precursor materials, nor in the evolutionary system, nor something for which biology has an evident explanation, although all these events, when they happen, are retrospectively interpretable in biological categories-at least all except perhaps culture are. The biological explanation is modestly incomplete, recognizing the importance of the genesis of new information channels. Since we humans find ourselves at the apex of these complex events, it becomes us ? as far as we can, to figure out what to make of ourselves, both who we are and where we are. We proceed with an analysis of nature and culture, adapted versus adaptable minds, genes making human brains, human minds making brains, and the spirited human self and our self-transcendence, THE HUMAN COMPLEX 11 At such levels of complexity, we will often be in "over our heads"; but one conclusion is inescapable: what is in our heads is as startling as anything else yet known in the universe. We will be left wondering how far what is going on in our heads is a key, at cosmological and metaphysical levels, to what is going on over our heads. Nature and Culture _________________ Both "nature" and "culture" have multiple layers of meaning. If one is a metaphysical naturalist, nature is all that there is, and so all things in culturecomputers, artificial limbs, or presidential elections-are natural. Nature has no contrast class. At another level, however, culture contrasts with nature; and we need to be adequately discriminating about the real differences between them. Animals, much less plants, do not form cumulative transmissible cultures. Information in wild nature travels intergenerationally largely on genes; information in human culture travels neurally as persons are educated into transmissible cultures. The determinants of animal and plant behavior are never anthropological, political, economic, technological, scientific, philosophical, ethical, or religious. The intellectual and social heritage of past generations, lived out in the present, reformed and transmitted to the next generation, is regularly decisive in culture. Culture, by Margaret Mead's account, is "the systematic body of learned behavior which is transmitted from parents to children" (1989, p. 11). 1 Culture, according to Edward B. Tyler's classic definition, is "that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society" (1903, p. 1). Animal ethologists have complained that such accounts of culture are too anthropocentric (indeed chauvinistic!) and need to be more inclusive of animals (de Waal, 1999). Partly because of new animal behaviors observed, but mostly by enlarging (or, if you like, shrinking) the definition, it has become fashionable to claim that animals have culture. Robert Boyd and Peter J. Richerson revise the definition: "Culture is information capable of affecting individuals' phenotypes which they acquire from other conspecifics by teaching or imitation" (1985, p, 33). The addition of "imitation" greatly expands and simultaneously dilutes what counts as culture. By this account, there is culture when apes "ape" each other, but also culture in horses and dogs, beavers, rats-wherever animals imitate the behaviors of parents and conspecifics. Geese, with a genetic tendency to migrate, learn the route by following others; warblers, with a tendency to sing, learn to sing better when they hear others. Whales and dolphins communicate by copying the noises they hear from others; this vocal imitation constitutes culture at sea (Rendell and Whitehead 2001). But with culture extending from people to warblers, it has become a nondiscriminating category for the concerns we wish to analyze here.
Culture from infrahumans to humans: Essays in the philosophy of biology
2007
It has become increasingly common to explain the behavior of animals-from sperm whales to songbirds-in terms of culture. But what is animal culture, what is its relationship to other biological concepts and to human culture, and what impact does culture have on a species' evolution and ecology? My dissertation is an attempt to answer these questions. After an introductory chapter, the dissertation begins (Chapter 2) with a proposal for a novel concept of culture and a critique of the existing ways in which culture has been characterized. These characterizations include views from cultural anthropology as well as attempts to apply the concept of culture to animals.
The Concept of Culture: Bioculturology and Evolutionary Social Sciences
ABSTRAKT Předmětem studie je analýza současného stavu konceptu kultury v antropologii, a to v kontextu konstatované krize jak antropologie jako holistické vědy o člověku, tak konceptu kultury jako klíčového epistemologického nástroje v antropologii. Zvláštní pozornost je věnována analýze evolučních teorií kultury, které jsou formulovány v tzv. evolučních sociálních vědách. Autor diskutuje biokulturologii jako výzkumnou strategii, která umožní dialog mezi společenskými a přírodními vědami, a to zejména s ohledem na evoluční teorie kultury, které jsou stále předmětem diskuzí a sporů. V závěru studie věnuje autor pozornost původu pojmů příroda a kultura a formuluje tezi, že spor o evoluční teorie kultury má kořeny právě v historických kořenech uvedených pojmů.
The Fundamental Constraint on the evolution of culture
This paper argues that there is a general constraint on the evolution of culture. This constraint – what I am calling the Fundamental Constraint – must be satisfied in order for a cultural system to be adaptive. The Fundamental Constraint is this: for culture to be adaptive there must be a positive correlation between the fitness of cultural variants and their fitness impact on the organisms adopting those variants. Two ways of satisfying the Fundamental Constraint are introduced, structural solutions and evaluative solutions. Because of the limitations on these solutions, this constraint helps explain why there is not more culture in nature, why the culture that does exist has the form it has, and why complex, cumulative culture is restricted to the human species.
Evolution and deep structures in culture
Physics of Life Reviews, 2013
This is a fascinating article dealing with some core questions in culture dynamics, in a thoroughly multidisciplinary way: spanning from genetics to archaeology and music. This article summarizes why a purely selectionist theory of cultural evolution might be inappropriate and presents an alternative evolutionary framework for culture based on communal exchange following a coherent line of research [11,12]. The Author starts with a thorough exploration of the algorithmic structure of natural selection. She clarifies how Darwin had to balance accumulation and obliteration of new evolutionary traits over a stable set of transmissible ones. Von Neumann [23] defined a minimal algorithmic structure capable to lead the evolutionary process. This should include an informational stable core, as a coded message, which would be both duplicated and translated several times along the process. The coded message should be protected by environmental influences in order to retain invariance: its replicas should be authentic. Eventually acquired or modified traits (mutations) should be discarded as some sort of evolutionary dust and noise. The article aims to develop a theory of cultural evolution that can (1) explain why humans alone have evolved "complex, cumulative, open-ended culture", (2) propose "specific features of humans that enabled culture to evolve", and (3) "predict whether new life forms, whether natural, artificial, or found elsewhere in our universe, should be able to evolve culture on the basis of these features". In the study of evolutionary principles of culture evolution we have to consider at the same time its transmission, innovation and retention over generations. The case that ideas could be equivalents of genotype and artefacts of phenotype could find objections. A definition of ideas could be vague or over-determined. Artefacts, for example a car or a music script, are not capable of self-replication (autopoiesis). A focus on artefacts and artistic expressions could lead to difficulties related to their iconic nature, in semiotic terms, and the identification of markers for underlying codes might be left to inferential and subjective approaches. The Author presents a focus on memes and their possible function as analogues of genes in cultural processes. Memes, when their definition was proposed [6], referred to mimesis as imitation and its viral epidemiology. The cumulative evolution of genes depends on biological selection pressures neither too great nor too small in relation to mutation-rates. There seems no reason to think that the same balance will exist in the selection pressures on memes. In meme theory a definition of code scripts (analogous to the DNA of genes) is missing and the instability of meme mutation mechanisms is not well assessed.