A Darwinian Theory of Cultural Evolution Can Promote an Evolutionary Synthesis for the Social Sciences

Biological Theory

Volumn 2, Issue 3, 2007, Pages 263-275

  Mesoudi, Alex ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

cultural evolution; cultural transmission; Darwinian evolution; evolutionary synthesis; gene culture coevolution; population thinking

Indexed keywords

EID: 48549095542     PISSN: 15555542     EISSN: 15555550     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1162/biot.2007.2.3.263     Document Type: Article

References (122)

1. Arnold SJ, Pfrender ME, Jones AG (2001) The adaptive landscape as a conceptual bridge between micro- and macroevolution. Genetica 112–113: 9–32.
2. Asch SE (1951) Effects of group pressure on the modification and distortion of judgments. In: Groups, Leadership, and Men (Guetzkow H, ed), 177–190. Pittsburgh, PA: Carnegie.
3. Atran S (2001) The trouble with memes: Inference versus imitation in cultural creation. Human Nature 12: 351–381.
4. Aunger R, ed (2000a) Darwinizing Culture. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
5. Aunger R (2000b) The life history of culture learning in a face-to-face society. Ethos 28: 1–38.
6. Aunger R (2002) The Electric Meme. New York: Free Press.
7. Bangerter A (2000) Transformation between scientific and social representations of conception: The method of serial reproduction. British Journal of Social Psychology 39: 521–535.
8. Bartlett FC (1932) Remembering. Oxford: Macmillan.
9. Basalla G (1988) The Evolution of Technology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
10. Baum WM, Richerson PJ, Efferson CM, Paciotti BM (2004) Cultural evolution in laboratory microsocieties including traditions of rule giving and rule following. Evolution and Human Behavior 25: 305–326.
11. Bentley RA, Hahn MW, Shennan SJ (2004) Random drift and culture change. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B 271: 1443–1450.
12. Bettinger RL, Eerkens J (1999) Point typologies, cultural transmission, and the spread of bow-and-arrow technology in the prehistoric Great Basin. American Antiquity 64: 231–242.
13. Binford L (1963) “Red Ochre” caches from the Michigan area: A possible case of cultural drift. Southwestern Journal of Anthropology 19: 89–108.
14. Blackmore S (1999) The Meme Machine. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
15. Boyd R, Richerson PJ (1985) Culture and the Evolutionary Process. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
16. Boyd R, Richerson PJ (2005) The Origin and Evolution of Cultures. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
17. Campbell DT (1965) Variation and selective retention in socio-cultural evolution. In: Social Change in Developing Areas (Barringer HR, Blanksten GI, Mack RW, eds), 19–49. Cambridge, MA: Schenkman.
18. Campbell DT (1974) Evolutionary epistemology. In: The Philosophy of Karl Popper (Schilpp PA, ed), 413–463. La Salle, IL: Open Court.
19. Carneiro RL (1970) A theory of the origin of the state. Science 169: 733–738.
20. Carroll RL (2000) Towards a new evolutionary synthesis. Trends in Ecology and Evolution 15: 27–32.
21. Carroll RL (2005) Endless Forms Most Beautiful. New York: Norton.
22. Cavalli-Sforza LL, Feldman MW (1981) Cultural Transmission and Evolution. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
23. Charlesworth B, Lande R, Slatkin M (1982) A neo-Darwinian commentary on macroevolution. Evolution 36: 474–498.
24. Chua HF, Leu J, Nisbett RE (2005) Culture and diverging views of social events. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 31: 925–934.
25. Constant EW (1980) The Origins of the Turbojet Revolution. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
26. Darwin C (1968) The Origin of Species. London: Penguin. Orig. 1859.
27. Darwin C (2003) The Descent of Man. London: Gibson Square. Orig. 1871.
28. Dawkins R (1976) The Selfish Gene. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
29. Dobzhansky T (1937) Genetics and the Origin of Species. New York: Columbia University Press.
30. Elena SF, Lenski RE (2003) Evolution experiments with microorganisms: The dynamics and genetic bases of adaptation. Nature Reviews Genetics 4: 457–469.
31. Feldman MW, Laland KN (1996) Gene-culture coevolutionary theory. Trends in Ecology and Evolution 11: 453–457.
32. Fracchia J, Lewontin RC (1999) Does culture evolve? History and Theory 38: 52–78.
33. Freeman D (1974) The evolutionary theories of Charles Darwin and Herbert Spencer. Current Anthropology 15: 211–237.
34. Ghiselin MT (1969) The Triumph of the Darwinian Method. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
35. Goldschmidt R (1940) The Material Basis of Evolution. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
36. Gould SJ, Eldredge N (1977) Punctuated equilibria: The tempo and mode of evolution reconsidered. Paleobiology 3: 115–151.
37. Greenberg JH (1959) Language and Evolution. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill.
38. Halder G, Callerts P, Gehring WJ (1995) Induction of ectopic eyes by targeted expression of the eyeless gene in Drosophila. Science 267: 1788–1792.
39. Hamilton WD (1964) The genetical evolution of social behaviour I and II. Journal of Theoretical Biology 7: 1–52.
40. Henrich J (2001) Cultural transmission and the diffusion of innovations. American Anthropologist 103: 992–1013.
41. Henrich J, Boyd R (1998) The evolution of conformist transmission and the emergence of between-group differences. Evolution and Human Behavior 19: 215–241.
42. Henrich J, Boyd R, Richerson PJ (in press) Five misunderstandings about cultural evolution. Human Nature
43. Henrich J, Gil White FJ (2001) The evolution of prestige. Evolution and Human Behavior 22: 165–196.
44. Henrich J, McElreath R (2003) The evolution of cultural evolution. Evolutionary Anthropology 12: 123–135.
45. Hewlett B, Cavalli-Sforza LL (1986) Cultural transmission among Aka pygmies. American Anthropologist 88: 922–934.
46. Hodgson GM (2001) Is social evolution Lamarckian or Darwinian? In: Darwinism and Evolutionary Economics (Laurent J, Nightingale J, eds), 87–118. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.
47. Hull DL (1980) Individuality and selection. Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics 11: 311–332.
48. Hull DL (2000) Taking memetics seriously. In: Darwinizing Culture (Aunger R, ed), 43–68. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
49. Huxley JS (1942) Evolution, the Modern Synthesis. London: Allen and Unwin.
50. Ingold T (2000) The poverty of selectionism. Anthropology Today 16: 1–2.
51. Ingold T (2007) The trouble with ‘evolutionary biology’. Anthropology Today 23: 3–7.
52. Insko CA, Gilmore R, Drenan S, Lipsitz A, Moehle D, Thibaut JW (1983) Trade versus expropriation in open groups: A comparison of two types of social power. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 44: 977–999.
53. Insko CA, Thibaut JW, Moehle D, Wilson M, Diamond WD, Gilmore R, Solomon MR, Lipsitz A (1980) Social evolution and the emergence of leadership. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 39: 431–448.
54. Jablonka E, Lamb M (1995) Epigenetic Inheritance and Evolution. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
55. Jablonka E, Lamb MJ (2005) Evolution in Four Dimensions. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
56. James W (1880) Great men, great thoughts, and the environment. Atlantic Monthly 46: 441–459.
57. Kameda T, Nakanishi D (2002) Cost-benefit analysis of social/cultural learning in a nonstationary uncertain environment. Evolution and Human Behavior 23: 373–393.
58. Kameda T, Nakanishi D (2003) Does social/cultural learning increase human adaptability? Rogers’ question revisited. Evolution and Human Behavior 24: 242–260.
59. Kashima Y (2000a) Maintaining cultural stereotypes in the serial reproduction of narratives. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 26: 594–604.
60. Kashima Y (2000b) Recovering Bartlett’s social psychology of cultural dynamics. European Journal of Social Psychology 30: 383–403.
61. Kendal JR, Laland KN (2000) Mathematical models for memetics. Journal of Memetics 4 (1). http://cfpm.org/jom-emit/2000/vol4/kendaLjr&laland_km.html
62. Kimura M (1983) The Neutral Theory of Molecular Evolution. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
63. Kutschera U, Niklas KJ (2004) The modern theory of biological evolution: An expanded synthesis. Naturwissenschaften 91: 255–276.
64. Laland KN, Brown GR (2002) Sense and Nonsense. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
65. Laland KN, Kumm J, Feldman MW (1995) Gene-culture coevolutionary theory: A test-case. Current Anthropology 36: 131–156.
66. Lamarck JB (1809). Philosophie zoologique. Paris: Dentu.
67. Lewontin RC (1970) The units of selection. Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics 1: 1–18.
68. Mayr E (1942) Systematics and the Origin of Species. New York: Columbia University Press.
69. Mayr E (1963) Animal Species and Evolution. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
70. Mayr E (1980) Prologue: Some thoughts on the history of the evolutionary synthesis. In: The Evolutionary Synthesis (Mayr E, Provine W, eds), 1–48. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
71. Mayr E (1982) The Growth of Biological Thought. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
72. Mayr E, Provine W, eds (1980) The Evolutionary Synthesis. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
73. McElreath R, Lubell M, Richerson PJ, Waring TM, Baum W, Edsten E, Efferson C, Paciotti B (2005) Applying evolutionary models to the laboratory study of social learning. Evolution and Human Behavior 26: 483–508.
74. Mesoudi A (2007a) Extended evolutionary theory makes human culture more amenable to evolutionary analysis. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 30.
75. Mesoudi A (2007b) Using the methods of social psychology to study cultural evolution. Journal of Social, Evolutionary and Cultural Psychology 1: 35–58.
76. Mesoudi A (in press) Foresight in cultural evolution. Biology and Philosophy.
77. Mesoudi A, O’Brien MJ (2008) The cultural transmission of Great Basin projectile point technology: An experimental simulation. American Antiquity
78. Mesoudi A, Whiten A (2004) The hierarchical transformation of event knowledge in human cultural transmission. Journal of Cognition and Culture 4: 1–24.
79. Mesoudi A, Whiten A, Dunbar RIM (2006a) A bias for social information in human cultural transmission. British Journal of Psychology 97: 405–423.
80. Mesoudi A, Whiten A, Laland KN (2004) Is human cultural evolution Darwinian? Evidence reviewed from the perspective of The Origin of Species. Evolution 58: 1–11.
81. Mesoudi A, Whiten A, Laland KN (2006b) Towards a unified science of cultural evolution. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 29: 329–383.
82. Morgan LH (1877) Ancient Society. New York: Henry Holt.
83. Muller M (1870) The science of language. Nature 1: 256–259.
84. Neiman FD (1995) Stylistic variation in evolutionary perspective: Inferences from decorative diversity and interassemblage distance in Illinois Woodland ceramic assemblages. American Antiquity 60: 7–36.
85. Nelson RR, Winter SG (1982) An Evolutionary Theory of Economic Change. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
86. Nichols S (2002) On the genealogy of norms: A case for the role of emotion in cultural evolution. Philosophy of Science 69: 234–255.
87. O’Brien MJ, Lyman RL (2000) Applying Evolutionary Archaeology. New York: Kluwer.
88. O’Brien MJ, Lyman RL (2002) Evolutionary archeology: Current status and future prospects. Evolutionary Anthropology 11: 26–36.
89. Odling Smee FJ, Laland KN, Feldman M (2003) Niche Construction. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
90. Okasha S (2006) Evolution and the Levels of Selection. New York: Oxford University Press.
91. Pagel M, Mace R (2004) The cultural wealth of nations. Nature 428: 275–278.
92. Petroski H (1994) The Evolution of Useful Things. New York: Vintage.
93. Pitt-Rivers AL (1875) On the evolution of culture. Journal of the Anthropological Institute 4: 293–308.
94. Plotkin H, ed (1982) Learning, Development, and Culture: Essays in Evolutionary Epistemology. New York: Wiley.
95. Plotkin H (2002) The Imagined World Made Real. London: Penguin.
96. Popper KR (1979) Objective Knowledge: An Evolutionary Approach. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
97. Rensch B (1947) Neuere Probleme der Abstammungslehre. Die transspezifische Evolution. Stuttgart: Enke.
98. Richerson PJ, Boyd R (2005) Not By Genes Alone. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
99. Rindos D (1985) Darwinian selection, symbolic variation, and the evolution of culture. Current Anthropology 26: 65–88.
100. Rogers E (1995) The Diffusion of Innovations. New York: Free Press.
101. Sahlins M, Service E (1960) Evolution and Culture. Michigan: Ann Arbor.
102. Schotter A, Sopher B (2003) Social learning and coordination conventions in intergenerational games: An experimental study. Journal of Political Economy 111: 498–529.
103. Schwartz T, Mead M (1961) Micro- and macro-cultural models for cultural evolution. Anthropological Linguistics 3: 1–7.
104. Semon R (1921) The Mneme. London: Allen and Unwin.
105. Service ER (1975) Origins of the State and Civilization: The Process of Cultural Evolution. New York: Norton.
106. Shennan SJ (2002) Genes, Memes and Human History. London: Thames and Hudson.
107. Shennan SJ, Wilkinson JR (2001) Ceramic style change and neutral evolution: A case study from neolithic Europe. American Antiquity 66: 577–593.
108. Simpson GG (1944) Tempo and Mode in Evolution. New York: Columbia University Press.
109. Sober E, Wilson DS (1998) Unto Others: The Evolution and Psychology of Unselfish Behavior. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
110. Soltis J, Boyd R, Richerson PJ (1995) Can group-functional behaviors evolve by cultural group selection? An empirical test. Current Anthropology 36: 473–494.
111. Spencer H (1896) The Principles of Sociology. New York: Appleton.
112. Sperber D (2000) Why memes won’t do. In: Darwinizing Culture (Aunger R, ed), 163–174. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
113. Stebbins GL (1950) Variation and Evolution in Plants. New York: Columbia University Press.
114. Steward J (1955) Theory of Culture Change. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press.
115. Turchin P (2003) Historical Dynamics: Why States Rise and Fall. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
116. Tylor EB (1871) Primitive Culture. London: John Murray.
117. Watson JD, Hopkins NH, Roberts JW, Weiner AM (1987) Molecular Biology of the Gene. Menlo Park, CA: Benjamin/Cummings.
118. Weismann A (1883) Über die Vererbung. Jena: Gustav Fisher.
119. White L (1959) The Evolution of Culture. New York: McGraw-Hill.
120. Whiten A, Horner V, Litchfield C, Marshall-Pescini S (2004) How do apes ape? Learning and Behavior 32: 36–52.
121. Wright S (1932) The roles of mutation, inbreeding, crossbreeding and selection in evolution. Proceedings of the Sixth International Congress of Genetics 1: 356–366.
122. Ziman J, ed (2000) Technological Innovation as an Evolutionary Process. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.