Role of Culture in Defining Human Societies

Researchers have long been interested in the role that norms can play in governing agent actions in multi-agent systems. Norms have been shown to facilitate social order [2] and improve cooperation and coordination among agents [9], and an active research community has investigated many theoretical and practical aspects of normative reasoning in multi-agent systems [1]. Much of this work has focused on formalising normative concepts from human society and adapting them for the government of open software systems, and on the simulation of normative processes in human and artificial societies. However, there has been comparatively little work on applying normative MAS mechanisms to understanding the norms in human society.

We know that there are fundamental differences between humans and living apes, and also between living humans and their extinct relatives. It is also probably the case that the most significant and divergent of these differences relate to our social behaviour and its underlying cognition, as much as to fundamental differences in physiology, biochemistry or anatomy. In this paper, we first attempt to demarcate what are the principal differences between human and other societies in terms of social structure, organization and relationships, so that we can identify what derived features require explanation. We then consider the evidence of the archaeological and fossil record, to determine the most probable context in time and taxonomy, of these evolutionary trends. Finally, we attempt to link five major transitional points in hominin evolution to the selective context in which they occurred, and to use the principles of behavioural ecology to understand their ecological basis. Critical changes in human social organization relate to the development of a larger scale of fission and fusion; the development of a greater degree of nested substructures within the human community; and the development of intercommunity networks. The underlying model that we develop is that the evolution of 'human society' is underpinned by ecological factors, but these are influenced as much by technological and behavioural innovations as external environmental change.

F. M. Wuketits and C. Antweiler (eds) Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim, 2004. $ 240 (hardcover), 341 pp. ISBN 3-527-30839-3 One of the merits of the Darwinian theory of evolution is its fascinating potential for explaining different facets of the human world. Unfortunately, this aspect can easily become a theoretical shortcoming, which can elicit questions such as ‘Can we really explain everything by evolution?’ or ‘Do we really need to do so?’ Of course, this is a personal point of view, which helps, nevertheless, to introduce this engaging volume edited by two eminent students of human culture and evolution. To inform about the state of affairs, i.e. the current theories, problems and results of evolutionary thinking in different disciplines, and to show some close connections and interrelations between the disciplines sub specie evolutionis, they asked eight contributions from authors coming from different disciplines. The theory of evolution and its controversies are discussed to explain how the acquisition of cognitive capabilities influenced the evolution of the human complex society, shaping it on ethical and political–economical principles. Michael Tomasello (Chapter 1) superbly analyzes these unique human cognitive skills, exploring some of its most important anthropological implications comparing social learning, social cognition and cultural organization of human beings and their nearest primate relatives. Human beings are biologically adapted for culture like no other primate species, and the author indeed acknowledges that only human cultural traditions accumulate modifications over historical time (ratchet effect). In the following Chapter, Olaf Diettrich discusses cognitive evolution, with reference to epistemological thinking. This is a compelling but fascinating chapter. We particularly admired the claim that a coherent description of organic, cognitive and scientific evolution is attractive but that, nevertheless, a theory of everything does not exist and that there will be not meaningful context-free communication. Harold Haarmann uses the evolutionary framework to illustrate the richness and variability of human languages. It is an exhilarating chapter that, we suppose, Eibl-Eibelsfeldt would have liked very much. The only criticism we have is that more than a few lines should have been devoted to the comparative aspects of the evolution of language, with a more in-depth reference to other species other than humans. In Chapter 4, the sociologist Peter Meyer analyzes the evolution of social systems, claiming that human social behavior is solidly based upon evolutionary foundations: an interesting point of view which reminds the potential problem of the explanatory pervasiveness of evolutionary theory. In Chapter 5, Camilo J. Cela-Conde and the evolutionist Francisco J. Ayala discuss the evolution of morality, reviewing the evolutionary and sociobiological models developed to explain the evolution of altruistic behavior and ethical codes in human societies. Although genetic altruism appeared in the animal kingdom by natural selection, the authors emphasize how difficult it is to explain moral behavior simply in terms of evolution by natural selection, because altruism is far from increasing individual fitness. Group selection and kin selection represent good alternatives. The problem is that group selection, for example, has been dismissed as a non-particularly illuminating theory to explain the evolution of different behavioral traits. We do not think that a chapter on the evolution of morality can be exhaustive when dealing just with biological origins: we need to understand how this account fits with the historical and current major theories of human morality and a contribution by a philosopher here would have been appropriate. As Peter A. Corning explains in Chapter 6, the evolution of political systems paralleled human organization in societies characterized by a growing level of complexity. This is a very interesting chapter, where different models that can be used to define politics are illustrated. To analyze the evolution of the political systems, he reports models of socially organized animals in which politics and government seem convergent with human society, exhibiting a combination of self-organized cooperation (volunteerism) and social controls that are enforced by various coercive measures (policing). The two final Chapters deal with the evolution of economics (John Gowdy) and the evolution of scientific method (Erhard Oeser). The awareness of the links between economics and evolution is not new: Darwin and Wallace themselves developed their ideas also after reading the works of Thomas Malthus, a political economist. Gowdy gives an account of these links mixing learnedly evolutionary theory, economic theory and ethnology. Oeser's contribution on scientific method is attractive to read, especially for behavioral biologists. This is a demanding book with long chapters and with some of the approaches appearing a bit myopic. While knowledge of evolutionary theory is requested in order to enjoy it, biologists could be put off by some wording exercises in reasoning. Nevertheless, we recommend to take this book little by little because lots of information and reasoning is there, making it worthwhile reading.

Researchers have long been interested in the role that norms can play in governing agent actions in multi-agent systems. Much work has been done on formalising normative concepts from human society and adapting them for the government of open software systems, and on the simulation of normative processes in human and artificial societies. However, there has been comparatively little work on applying normative MAS mechanisms to understanding the norms in human society. This work investigates this issue in the context of international politics. Using the GDELT dataset, containing machine-encoded records of international events extracted from news reports, we extracted bilateral sequences of inter-country events and applied a Bayesian norm mining mechanism to identify norms that best explained the observed behaviour. A statistical evaluation showed that the normative model fitted the data significantly better than a probabilistic discrete event model.

Researchers have long been interested in the role that norms can play in governing agent actions in multi-agent systems. Much work has been done on formalising normative concepts from human society and adapting them for the government of open software systems, and on the simulation of normative processes in human and artificial societies. However, there has been comparatively little work on applying normative MAS mechanisms to understanding the norms in human society. This work investigates this issue in the context of international politics. Using the GDELT dataset, containing machine-encoded records of international events extracted from news reports, we extracted bilateral sequences of inter-country events and applied a Bayesian norm mining mechanism to identify norms that best explained the observed behaviour. A statistical evaluation showed that the normative model fitted the data significantly better than a probabilistic discrete event model.

Researchers have long been interested in the role that norms can play in governing agent actions in multi-agent systems. Much work has been done on formalising normative concepts from human society and adapting them for the government of open software systems, and on the simulation of normative processes in human and artificial societies. However, there has been comparatively little work on applying normative MAS mechanisms to understanding the norms in human society. This work investigates this issue in the context of international politics. Using the GDELT dataset, containing machine-encoded records of international events extracted from news reports, we extracted bilateral sequences of inter-country events and applied a Bayesian norm mining mechanism to identify norms that best explained the observed behaviour. A statistical evaluation showed that the normative model fitted the data significantly better than a probabilistic discrete event model.

Punishment offers a powerful mechanism for the maintenance of cooperation in human and animal societies, but the maintenance of costly punishment itself remains problematic. Game theory has shown that corruption, where punishers can defect without being punished themselves, may sustain cooperation. However, in many human societies and some insect ones, high levels of cooperation coexist with low levels of corruption, and such societies show greater wellbeing than societies with high corruption. Here we show that small payments from cooperators to punishers can destabilize corrupt societies and lead to the spread of punishment without corruption (righteousness). Righteousness can prevail even in the face of persistent power inequalities. The resultant righteous societies are highly stable and have higher wellbeing than corrupt ones. This result may help to explain the persistence of costly punishing behavior, and indicates that corruption is a sub-optimal tool for maintaining cooperation in human societies.

The paper argues that evolutionary psychology offers a radical and challenging new perspective on human nature and organizational society. Its roots in a convergence of insights and scientific discoveries from diverse natural and human sciences are described, and how it seeks to avoid common fallacies of earlier biological reasoning about human society. Recurrent themes in human nature and their manifestations are summarized, including sex and personality differences, cognitive and affective biases, social orientations, and preferred modes of social exchange. The paper concludes that we suffer the consequences of poor fit between our inherited natures and many of the constructed environments in organizational society, but that new emerging forms of organization may present us with the opportunities for social relations closer to the ancestral paradigms of our psychology.

Usage of system-integrated method in consideration of biosocial groups (human social society, social biocommunities of animals) is the most promising approach in the study of these associations, both in the "personalized" study of human society (or animal biocommunities) and in the comparative analysis of the latter between them. The aim of the article is to consider the possibility of applying system-holistic analysis in the study of biosocial systems, which are represented by both human society and social formations characteristic of animal communities. To achieve our goal, we set the following tasks: 1) identification of main methodological characteristics of biosystems; 2) to describe structural organization of biosystems. Summarizing the aforesaid material, the following should be noted: Firstly, real biocommunities have the main attribute of the system - a hierarchical structure. In other words, they are structured systems, which allows us to speak of them as integral entities. Secondly, the structure of biological communities is inextricably linked to its function. Considering the biosystem, it is necessary to distinguish between static, dynamic and genetic structure. The first one reflects the structural interaction of the elements, and the second one the scheme of their relations in the active functioning of the system. Genetic structure indicates the degree of relatedness (similarity) of the elements of the system. Based on this, we can offer a number of methodological approaches to the study of biosocial structure, namely: 1. fixing a number of functional levels and a number of individuals-elements in each of them; 2. description of functional interaction between "static levels" in the interaction. Without knowledge of functional unity it is impossible to understand the "expediency" of certain elements of the system. Thus, system-holistic analysis can be used to describe biosocial formations (human society and biosocial groups of animals). Consideration of these associations as system-structural units is an informative method of their study.

The concept of 'society' (Gesellschaft) in classical Marxism denotes not any form of human relations; in Marxism only those relations which are characterized by universality are recognized as 'social'. This peculiarity of classical Marxism has influenced its interpretation of contemporary Western society and of world history, and has also affected its prognosis concerning the future 'human society'. In this article the idea of universality of social relations in classical Marxism is examined in relation to two themes: firstly the thesis of classical Marxism about the 'up-side-down' character of contemporary society and, secondly, the dominance of natural relations in all preceding history. These topics deserve careful attention because they are connected in the most intimate manner with the intellectual originality of classical Marxism and its apparent intellectual promises (includ ing some elements which later became burdensome to Marx). When Marx tells us in the 'Theses on Feuerbach' that he is taking the "standpoint of human society",1 the logical stress falls on 'human'. When he published these for the first time in 1888, Engels put this word in italics so as to draw the reader's attention to its importance. The notion of 'man' has a peculiar meaning in classical Marxism, derived partly from a naturalistic anthropologism and partly from Marx's recognition of the anthropological importance of the modern industrial successes of Western Europe. According to Marx, not every member of the human race deserves the title 'man' in the full sense of this word, just as not every human historical community (Gemeinwesen) can be called 'human society'. Like any other living species, man developed according to Marx not all at once but as the result of a lengthy natural evolution, developing its natural potencies from generation to generation. In the case of man this process is not yet complete. Although no other human group or region is as close to completion as that of industrialized Western Europe, completion is not yet reached even there. If we are what we are this is because we are well along the path from our animal ancestors to our mature descendants, and this fact is reflected in our civilization. However, real perfection will be reached only by overcoming

Drastic reductions in Earth's biodiversity, old growth forests, top soil, clean water and air, and truly wild areas are occurring during a period when discussions of sustainable growth and sustainable production are becoming common. Using such terms as sustainable growth and sustainable production rather than the more accurate sustainable use of the planet leaves the impression that, with a little more skill, society can continue its present practices indefinitely. A number of explanations are possible for this desire to maintain two conflicting beliefs (i.e., severe environmental destruction occurs but society can continue its basic practices indefinitely): 1) the idea that a technological solution can be found for every problem; 2) an addiction to present behavioral norms, which is so strong that the consequences of continuing such behavior are irrelevant; and 3) the concept that, while human society can alter natural systems to suit its own needs, natural systems are incapable of altering human society. This last issue is the focus of this discussion: if human society eliminates all species on the planet that are incapable of tolerating human society's present practices, the only species remaining will be those that human society is unable to control successfully or eliminate; these species are called pests. Another hypothesis could be stated: a world of pests that human society cannot control effectively will inevitably reshape human society through disease and famine, technological breakdown, and interference with domesticated and wild species upon which the integrity of human societal structure depends.

Though Nutting is read as a process of natural ravishment, but as an allegory, it is Wordsworth's contemplation of nature and human society.With vivid description of the narrator's feeling through whole process of nutting, Wordsworth reveals the relationship between Nature and human society.With the mutilated scene at end, he suggests it should develop a new harmonious relationship between Nature and human society.

Drastic reductions in Earth's biodiversity, old growth forests, top soil, clean water and air, and truly wild areas are occurring during a period when discussions of sustainable growth and sustainable production are becoming common. Using such terms as sustainable growth and sustainable production rather than the more accurate sustainable use of the planet leaves the impression that, with a little more skill, society can continue its present practices indefinitely. A number of explanations are possible for this desire to maintain two conflicting beliefs (i.e., severe environmental destruction occurs but society can continue its basic practices indefinitely): 1) the idea that a technological solution can be found for every problem; 2) an addiction to present behavioral norms, which is so strong that the consequences of continuing such behavior are irrelevant; and 3) the concept that, while human society can alter natural systems to suit its own needs, natural systems are incapable of altering human society. This last issue is the focus of this discussion: if human society eliminates all species on the planet that are incapable of tolerating human society's present practices, the only species remaining will be those that human society is unable to control successfully or eliminate; these species are called pests. Another hypothesis could be stated: a world of pests that human society cannot control effectively will inevitably reshape human society through disease and famine, technological breakdown, and interference with domesticated and wild species upon which the integrity of human societal structure depends.

Generalized Second Law of Thermodynamics and its Applications in Social Science

Reviewed by: Animals and Human Society in Asia: Historical, Cultural and Ethical Perspectives ed. by Rotem Kowner et al. Brian Lander Animals and Human Society in Asia: Historical, Cultural and Ethical Perspectives. Rotem Kowner, Guy Bar-Oz, Michal Biran, Meir Shahar, and Gideon Shelach-Lavi, eds. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave MacMillan, 2019. xxxvii, 433 pp., 14 b&w illustrations, 27 colour illustrations. Hardcover US $120, ISBN 978-3-030-24362-3; Softcover US $85, 978-3-030-24365-4; eBook US $89, ISBN 978-3-030-24363-0; 14 individual chapters available for download at US $30 each. Animals have always played central roles in human societies, but most aspects of their histories remain poorly explored. There is a substantial body of English-language scholarship on the history of animals in Western Europe, but the same cannot be said for the rest of Eurasia, so this book is a valuable addition to the literature. Because "animals" is a broad category, "Asia" is a big place, and the book includes work by scholars of archaeology, history, and religion, the book's contents are quite varied. In terms of geography, it is mostly focused on East Asia, the Eastern Mediterranean, and the Mongol Empire, the only political entity that ever stretched between the two regions. The work extends even further in time than it does in space, with topics ranging from Stone Age hand axes to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. The geographical and temporal spread is so great that few people will read all the chapters, but it seems that the press intended the volume primarily as an ebook from which readers can download specific chapters. This review therefore focuses more on individual chapters than on the volume as a whole. The animals under discussion are mostly large ones of clear importance in human societies. There are three chapters on horses, two on elephants and others on donkeys, cattle, and tuna. Apart from the chapter on the symbolic role of lion and tigers in Buddhism, all of the animals serve humans as beasts of burden or as food. It is currently popular in animal studies to analyse other types of human-animal relations, but this volume breaks little ground in terms of the animals chosen as research topics. It has no pets or pests, nor does it discuss the many other types of animals that live in and around human societies (compare this to the chapters on cats and bees in Sterckx et al. 2018, and to the hundred-odd titles of Reaktion Books' Animals series, which includes peacocks, pigeons, frogs, mice, spiders, and cockroaches.) However, this in no way diminishes the value of this work. All of its chapters present new and engaging interpretations of the histories of animals and make clear that there is plenty of work to be done even on the histories of horses. The introductory chapter provides a succinct but thoughtful overview of the volume's main themes: domestication, animals as food, animals in war, and animals in culture and religion. Although I consider Asia a perfectly appropriate focus for a book, I was nonetheless surprised that the authors seem to uncritically accept the idea that Asia is a continent, since the division of the Eurasian continent into Europe and Asia is a Eurocentric fantasy. But that is a minor point. Let me now discuss the chapters. In the fascinating second chapter, Ran Barkai discusses the role of proboscideans [End Page 444] (elephants and their relatives), especially young ones, in the diets of Palaeolithic peoples across Eurasia. This chapter emphasizes new evidence from China but makes clear that most of what archaeologists know about Eurasia's Palaeolithic peoples comes from the western end of the continent. The chapter demonstrates that people hunted these animals over a very large area for a long time. However, the breadth of coverage leaves the author little space to include anything more about each site than the state of its proboscideans remains. This left me wondering what else these people ate and what role these particular animals played in their diets. In the third chapter, Stephen Rosen examines the changing relationships between humans and ungulates in the...