Non-genetic transmission of information: Candidate cognitive processes and the evolution of culture

Abstract

The evolution of dual-inheritance systems, specifically the evolution of human culture, are considered as evolutionary events of profound significance. In this paper I adopt the view commonly held amongst biologists in recent years that human cultural change can be fruitfully understood as cultural evolution. Such an approach does not deny the possibility of understanding cultural change from other viewpoints. It does, however, have the advantage of having to be couched in explicitly psychological terms. Using the replicator-interactor theory of Dawkins and Hull I explore what cognitive mechanisms might be identified as having the properties of a replicator, and how reconstructions of human evolution may help in identifying such mechanisms.