Martín Mostaza, de Fermín Solís. <i>Los días más largos, El año que vimos nevar </i>y<i> Mi organismo en obra</i>s

This chapter describes a variety of approaches to modeling social learning, cultural evolution, and gene-culture coevolution. The model-building exercise typically starts with a set of assumptions about the key processes to be explored, along with the nature of their relations. These assumptions are then translated into the mathematical expressions that constitute the model. The operation of the model is then investigated, normally using a combination of analytical mathematical techniques and simulation, to determine relevant outcomes, such as the equilibrium states or patterns of change over time. The chapter presents examples of the modeling of cultural transmission and considers parallels between cultural and biological evolution. It then discusses theoretical approaches to social learning and cultural evolution, including population-genetic style models of cultural evolution and gene-culture coevolution, neutral models and random copying, social foraging theory, spatially explicit models, reaction-diffusion models, agent-based models, and phylogenetic models.

This paper discusses F. A. Hayek's theory of spontaneous order and cultural evolution. After briefly outlining the main elements of Hayek's approach, we review some of the criticisms addressed to his evolutionary theory. In particular, we discuss a number of paradoxes generated by his view of spontaneous cultural evolution. In our view, these paradoxes result from an insufficiently specified theoretical environment in which cultural and social evolution are taking place. Namely, Hayek does not spend much time discussing the precise nature of political markets that are nonetheless crucial for the persistence and the change of institutional outcomes. Likewise, Hayek places himself outside of his own theory of cultural evolution, for he lacks a model of how ideas and intellectuals affect the choice of one of the multiple evolutionary equilibria. We outline one such model, which uses the notion of sympathy as its main driving mechanism. Taken together, we claim that an explicit analysis of politics and a model of influence of ideas would have helped to resolve some of the key incongruities in Hayek's evolutionary work.

In A History of Humanity, Manning argues that human energies and activities created our world, and that the influence of nature is receding. Our achievements have created a “human system” that reproduces and transforms itself both locally and globally. The natural world is becoming marginalized, but it is not yet tamed, as greenhouse gasses rise, presaging disaster for humanity. Manning traces four agencies of change in human history—biological, cultural, and social evolution (the three most commonly discussed) and Gaia, the system of life on earth as part of the natural environment. The human system started as an insignificant factor in Gaia but has grown to become the greatest influence of all. Manning calls human history an exercise in the exploitation of Gaia’s natural resources by individuals and groups grappling with ways to cooperate. This study is history on a grand scale, “big history” if you like, which has become a mildly fashionable genre in recent years.The narrative that forms of the core of Manning’s synthesis comes in three parts to pose a fundamental question: What governs human behavior and how do we know? After a brief introductory essay that lays out the human system, three chapters synthesize the Pleistocene from about 3 million to 12,000 years ago. Chapter 2 focuses on biological and cultural evolution, summarizing human origins in five rapid-fire pages, followed by a survey of advances in hominin capabilities. Chapter 3 surveys speech and social evolution; speaking humans spread across the globally 70,000 years ago. In the three fast-moving chapters to follow—a huge bite of time from 65,000 to 1,000 years ago—Manning relies on a combination of imaginatively employed archaeological, linguistic, genetic, and climatological data to trace human migrations from a population of “founders” in arid Northeast Africa. He makes numerous bold statements, especially about linguistic data, that come dangerously close to being gross generalizations. Manning also espouses the putative “kelp highway” as an avenue for first settlement of the Americas, a much-criticized hypothesis.Three chapters cover the development of the increasingly complex human institutions of the Holocene evolution. The discussion ranges widely from the origins of agriculture to the roles of warfare and humanly caused climate change, relying on Ruddiman’s controversial, and by no means widely accepted, theories.1 The origins of cities, empires, and larger-scale social institutions follow, when Gaia and the human system collided, as human societies looked increasingly outward. Between 900 and 1250 c.e., warming in the Northern Hemisphere, the Medieval Climatic Anomaly, resulted in significant changes in human society. At this point, the journey runs through well-traveled historical territory, from the Black Death and pandemics to Chinggis Khan’s campaigns in Mongolia, ocean voyaging, and long-distance maritime trade.Chapter 8 surveys the rise of capitalism and a more “tightly bound” human system, starting in the seventeenth century and ending with nationhood and nationalism. Inevitably, this discussion leads to the twenty-first-century environmental and socioeconomic crises and what the human system does about them. Manning argues that this system encompasses three new networks—international popular culture, both general and specialized knowledge at a global level, and democratic discourse. He poses major questions: Should the human system continue to grow? Is social inequality inevitable in his system, and how should social institutions be regulated? The book ends with six frameworks for analysis.Global histories are always compromises, especially in an era when interdisciplinary research is routine. Given its ambitious goals and its theory of a human system, A History of Humanity is far too short. It can be described as an exhausting, superficial gallop through world history that is provocative, and often imaginative, in its conclusions.

The methodological formation of social spontaneity and cultural evolution has implications for Hayek's theory of the moral market, justice, the state and society. In the preceding chapter it has been shown that the parallel which Hayek draws between his scientific and his moral argument is epistemologically based. Due to this parallel, the ideas of social spontaneity and cultural evolution are developed as two methodological and moral models. It has been argued that the particular dimension which those models advance morally excludes substantive politics because such politics cannot be explained in terms of the praxeological presuppositions of social spontaneity and cultural evolution. At the same time, this dimension requires substantive politics because only by means of it can social spontaneity and cultural evolution be politically preserved in terms of liberalism. The present chapter examines Hayek's political theory in the light of this core argument. The examination begins with the moral exclusion of substantive politics and ends with the moral requirement of such politics. The reason for this is epistemological. In Hayek's theory, the moral requirement of substantive politics can be understood through the moral exclusion of such politics and its theoretical implications.

We describe the questions and discussions raised at the First Workshop on Social Learning and Cultural Evolution held at theArtificial Life Conference 2016 in Cancún, Mexico in July 2016. The purpose of the workshop was to assemble artificial life researchers interested in social learning and cultural evolution into one group so that we could focus on recent work and interesting open questions. Our discussion related to both the mechanisms of social learning and cultural evolution and the consequences and influence of social learning and cultural evolution on living systems. We present the contributions of our workshop presenters and conclude with a discussion of the more important open questions in this area.

Due to the randomly changing environmental conditions in which natural selection is acting, it is hard to see how this process could give evolution the steady direction of a large-scale incessant progress. In the present article I propose a solution to this dilemma by the application of the concept of complexity as a measure of evolutionary progress, a notion that I have developed in a descriptive way in previous works. By means of the concept of complexity one can conceive of the evolutionary process as having a stable direction towards ever-increasing complexity. The explanatory mechanism behind this trend is in the present work suggested to be found in the combined actions of natural selection, competition, feedback, arms race, and sexual selection. These mechanisms are discussed at length, being applicable not only in organic evolution but in human cultural and social evolution as well.

Over the past few decades, evolutionary approaches to understanding human behavior have become more widespread. Here we describe one such approach: cultural evolution. Cultural evolution can be distinguished from other related fields in that it treats culture as a shared body of knowledge that evolves at least partially independently of genes. This creates the opportunity for a variety of interesting dynamics between culture and genetics, referred to as “gene–culture coevolution,” including cultural practices creating selection for particular alleles. As culture is sustained by social transmission of information between individuals, cultural evolutionists are greatly interested in understanding the psychological mechanisms that affect how information flows through groups of individuals, referred to as “social learning strategies,” and it is here that we suggest there is an opportunity for crossovers between social psychology and cultural evolution. Across the rest of the chapter, we review the current state of knowledge concerning social learning strategies, including biases to copy when uncertain, to copy majorities, and to copy successful, prestigious, older, or related individuals. We also discuss maladaptive culture and comparative work with nonhuman animals. Finally, we end the chapter by discussing outstanding questions that could be targeted by both cultural evolutionists and social psychologists.

ABSTRACTRecent developments in the theory of social evolution give support to arguments that the overall pattern of human evolution can effectively be seen through three linked but sequential mechanisms of biological, cultural, and social evolution. This framework is applied in an overview of the intimate group (for residence) and the community (for group defense) within primate species. For Homo sapiens, the intimate group took the form of a household led by a pairbonded couple. The essay, following introductory remarks, narrates the intimate groups and community groups within hominin species that preceded Homo sapiens, as they developed through the natural selection of biological evolution. Then basic models are reviewed for evolution of individual and group behavior in biological evolution and also in the regimes of cultural and social evolution, as expressed in terms of Darwinian variation, reproduction, and selection. The processes of emergence and transformation in the human household are then traced in theory and narrative, for overlapping eras of biological, cultural, and social evolution, and by expansion in social scale including agriculture and industry. Overall, the essay emphasizes long-term transfer of laborers from household to community sectors, expanding the characteristic productivity of each sector. It shows that the human household remains parallel to the intimate social structures of other primates but that it has become greatly distinctive because of its ability to bring numerous offspring to adulthood.

Cultural Evolution: Theory and Models

In the history of biology many books and articles focused mainly on the development of evolutionary theory, which is understood to be the theory of biological evolution formed in 1930-1940 during the so-called “evolutionary synthesis” and called the “synthetic theory of evolution” (STE). In 1930-1940 and later the “founding fathers” of the STE such as E. Mayr, G. G. Simpson, L. Stebbins and other evolutionists made research strictly in their field and published no book or article on human evolution. The only exception was the Russian-American geneticist Th. Dobzhansky who in 1950s published several articles and books on human, and in the book “mankind evolving” published in 1962 offered his own concept of human evolution. A key statement of Th. Dobzhansky’s concept of human evolution was the conclusion that human evolution includes both its biological evolution and its cultural evolution, i.e. social evolution. And both evolutions not only influence one another, but also constantly interact, and both these evolutions are unfinished and continue. As in the case of Ch. Darwin an interest in the problem of human evolution was for Dobzhansky the main reason why he decided to deal with evolutionary biology and became a geneticist and evolutionist.

Hamilton's rule generalized: Foundations of Social Evolution by Steven A. Frank

Various selection pressures have shaped human uniqueness, for instance, music. When and why did musical universality and diversity emerge? Our hypothesis is that "music" initially originated from manipulative calls with limited musical elements. Thereafter, vocalizations became more complex and flexible along with a greater degree of social learning. Finally, constructed musical instruments and the language faculty resulted in diverse and context-specific music. Music precursors correspond to vocal communication among nonhuman primates, songbirds, and cetaceans. To place this scenario in hominin history, a three-phase scheme for music evolution is presented herein. We emphasize (1) the evolution of sociality and life history in australopithecines, (2) the evolution of cognitive and learning abilities in early/middle Homo, and (3) cultural evolution, primarily in Homo sapiens. Human musical capacity and products should be due to the hominin-specific combination of several biosocial features, including bipedalism, stable pair bonding, alloparenting, expanded brain size, and sexual selection.

The article approaches Hayek's ideas on the market and procedural justice through his epistemology and methodology, providing an immanent critique of these ideas. It argues that the concept of the market as a catallaxy and the idea of justice as a system of general rules of conduct reflect a moral dimension that excludes but also requires substantive politics. The latter is a kind of politics that pursues goals which are formed through a normative/evaluative conception of social good. The moral dimension of Hayek's theory excludes substantive politics because such politics can never be explained in terms of the praxeological presuppositions of social spontaneity and cultural evolution. At the same time, that dimension requires substantive politics because only through it can social spontaneity and cultural evolution be preserved as a social good in terms of liberalism.

American AnthropologistVolume 49, Issue 3 p. 524-527 Free Access THE PROBLEM OF SOCIAL AND CULTURAL EVOLUTION: A REPLY TO A. R. RADCLIFFE-BROWN David Bidney, David Bidney The Viking Fund New York CitySearch for more papers by this author David Bidney, David Bidney The Viking Fund New York CitySearch for more papers by this author First published: July‐September 1947 https://doi.org/10.1525/aa.1947.49.3.02a00230Citations: 2AboutPDF ToolsExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat Citing Literature Volume49, Issue3July‐September 1947Pages 524-527 RelatedInformation

Alberto Bisin of New York University reviews “Modeling Social Behavior: Mathematical and Agent-Based Models of Social Dynamics and Cultural Evolution” by Paul E. Smaldino. The Econlit abstract of this book begins: “Explores ways of thinking about and studying complex social systems using mathematical and computational models, focusing on relatively simple dynamic models to aid in the study of social organisms and what they do together.”