how culture transformed human evolution
DESCRIPTION
presentation by Robert BoydTRANSCRIPT
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How culture transformed human evolution
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Cumulative cultural evolution
1. Essential for human super adaptation
2. Requires people to ignore “reason”
3. Leads to novel behaviors
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Cumulative cultural evolution
1. Essential for human super adaptation
2. Requires people to ignore “reason”
3. Leads to novel behaviors
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Apes
Lions
Wolves
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60kya
30kya
50kya
40kya
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Usual explanation:
We’re smarter than the average bear
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These inferences are played out internally in mental models of the world, governed by intuitive conceptions of physics, biology, and psychology, including the psychology of animals. It allows humans to invent tools, traps, and weapons, to extract poisons and drugs from other animals and plants…. These cognitive stratagems are devised on the fly in endless combination suitable to the local ecology. They arise by mental design, and are deployed, tested, and fine‐tuned by feedback in the lifetimes of individuals…
Steven Pinker, “The cognitive niche”, PNAS 2010
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Humans are smart…
But not nearly smart enough
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Your new home
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Not a ridiculous question
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You need warm clothing
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• What animal?
• Harvested when?
• How to cure?
• What design?
• Where to get thread?
• Needles?
• How to stitch?
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You need a bow to hunt caribou
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You need shelter, light and water
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And much, much more
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So, will you make it?
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Humans learn from each other
⇒ Spreads cost of innovation over many individuals
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Cumulative cultural evolution
1. Essential for human super adaptation
2. Requires people to ignore “reason”
3. Leads to novel behaviors
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Imitation evolves, but no increase in adaptability
Frequency of Imitators 0 1
Fitness of Imitators
Fitness of Learners
Cost of Learning
Average Fitness at Equilibrium
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Has to make individual learning more efficient
Frequency of Imitators 0 1
Average Fitness at Equilibrium
Average Fitness at Equilibrium
Fitness of Imitators
Fitness of Learners
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1. Imitation allows selective learning
2. Imitation allows accumulation of small improvements
⇒ Ignore reason and copy others
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Cumulative cultural evolution
1. Essential for human super adaptation
2. Requires people to ignore “reason”
3. Leads to novel behaviors
![Page 27: How Culture Transformed Human Evolution](https://reader033.vdocuments.us/reader033/viewer/2022042903/568c49fb1a28ab4916964b68/html5/thumbnails/27.jpg)
Cultural adaptation creates a tradeoff
• Benefit: low cost information.
• But, have to be credulous…
• Result: “Maladaptive” ideas can spread
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Content biases spread false beliefs
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Prestige biases spread maladaptive beliefs
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Prestige biases spread maladaptive beliefs
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Credibility enhancing displays spread costly behaviors
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Rapid cultural evolution can increase variation among groups
Bell et al PNAS 2009
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Sarah Mathew
Increase variation among groups ⇒ spread of group beneficial norms
Mathew and Boyd PNAS 2010
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Increase variation among groups ⇒ spread of group beneficial norms
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Does cultural evolution override biology?
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