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The Evolution and Evolvability of Culture
Author(s) -
Sterelny Kim
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
mind and language
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.905
H-Index - 68
eISSN - 1468-0017
pISSN - 0268-1064
DOI - 10.1111/j.0268-1064.2006.00309.x
Subject(s) - evolvability , adaptation (eye) , cognitive science , inheritance (genetic algorithm) , action (physics) , dual (grammatical number) , epistemology , process (computing) , natural (archaeology) , computer science , sociology , psychology , history , philosophy , evolutionary biology , biology , biochemistry , linguistics , physics , archaeology , quantum mechanics , neuroscience , gene , operating system
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?