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PubMed2005

Why are modern families small? Toward an evolutionary and cultural explanation for the demographic transition.

As societies modernize, they go through what has become known as "the demographic transition;" couples begin to limit the size of their families. Models to explain this change assume that reproductive behavior is either under individual control or under social control. The evidence that social influence plays a role in the control of reproduction is strong, but the models cannot adequately explain why the development of small family norms always accompanies modernization. We suggest that the widening of social networks, which has been found to occur with modernization, is sufficient to explain the change in reproductive norms if it is assumed that (a) advice and comment on reproduction that passes among kin is more likely to encourage the creation of families than that which passes among nonkin and (b) this advice and comment influence the social norms induced from the communications. This would, through a process of cultural evolution, lead to the development of norms that make it increasingly difficult to have large families.

Biological Evolution↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Epigenesis and the evolution of social systems.

The remaining problems of biology, which include the nature of the molecular regulation of development, the relation between micro- and macroevolution, the mind/body association, and the linkage between genetic and cultural evolution, all appear to be most readily soluble by attention to the epigenesis of individual organisms. Societies offer special advantages in the analysis of epigenesis. The constituent parts, consisting of the whole member organisms, can be observed more directly than cells and organelles. In the case of social insects, the components can be separated and reassembled as "pseudomutant" colonies, which can then be compared with the normal forms of the very same colonies studied on alternate days. Using this technique, for example, I have analyzed the optimization of some aspects of the division of labor in leaf-cutting ants and identified net energetic yield as the apparent aspect of foraging that has been maximized in the division of labor. A comparable approach can be applied in the study of human genetic and cultural evolution. The choices made by individuals during socialization, which in many categories of cognition and behavior display innate bias, can be translated with appropriate techniques into statistical descriptions of cultural diversity. Natural selection acting on behavior within particular cultures alters the frequencies of the genes underlying the developmental processes of cognition and behavior. The result is postulated to be a "co-evolutionary circuit" that links genetic and cultural evolution in an inseverable manner.

Animals↗
PubMed1997

Earliest phases in the evolution of sickness and healing.

Sickness and healing constitute the root concepts that center medical anthropological inquiry and give the field its identity. Here, they are held to manifest a biological adaptation designed by evolution that requires culture for its final realization. Sickness and healing thus provide anthropology with a biocultural form that has changed in content and expression during cultural evolution. The early phases of this evolution, those bearing the most apparent influences of the environment of evolutionary adaptedness, are reviewed and analyzed in the article. Some of the implications of this for medical anthropology are discussed.

Adaptation, Biological↗
PubMed2006

Learning, climate and the evolution of cultural capacity.

Patterns of environmental variation influence the utility, and thus evolution, of different learning strategies. I use stochastic, individual-based evolutionary models to assess the relative advantages of 15 different learning strategies (genetic determination, individual learning, vertical social learning, horizontal/oblique social learning, and contingent combinations of these) when competing in variable environments described by 1/f noise. When environmental variation has little effect on fitness, then genetic determinism persists. When environmental variation is large and equal over all time-scales ("white noise") then individual learning is adaptive. Social learning is advantageous in "red noise" environments when variation over long time-scales is large. Climatic variability increases with time-scale, so that short-lived organisms should be able to rely largely on genetic determination. Thermal climates usually are insufficiently red for social learning to be advantageous for species whose fitness is very determined by temperature. In contrast, population trajectories of many species, especially large mammals and aquatic carnivores, are sufficiently red to promote social learning in their predators. The ocean environment is generally redder than that on land. Thus, while individual learning should be adaptive for many longer-lived organisms, social learning will often be found in those dependent on the populations of other species, especially if they are marine. This provides a potential explanation for the evolution of a prevalence of social learning, and culture, in humans and cetaceans.

Adaptation, Physiological↗
PubMed1995

Reflections of evolution and culture in children's cognition. Implications for mathematical development and instruction.

An evolution-based framework for understanding biological and cultural influences on children's cognitive and academic development is presented. The utility of this framework is illustrated within the mathematical domain and serves as a foundation for examining current approaches to educational reform in the United States. Within this framework, there are two general classes of cognitive ability, biologically primary and biologically secondary. Biologically primary cognitive abilities appear to have evolved largely by means of natural or sexual selection. Biologically secondary cognitive abilities reflect the co-optation of primary abilities for purposes other than the original evolution-based function and appear to develop only in specific cultural contexts. A distinction between these classes of ability has important implications for understanding children's cognitive development and achievement.

Aptitude↗
PubMed1998

Evolution of transmission bias in cultural inheritance.

Evolution of transmission bias in cultural inheritance is investigated using simple models of cultural selection. Conventional models of cultural transmission describe cultural changes by incorporating transmission bias and non-vertical pathways into the ordinary population genetic framework. The methodology has been successful in understanding cultural changes in terms of natural selection, but it is difficult to see from the theoretical framework how biased transmission in favor of maladaptive traits might have evolved. To show that ordinary cultural processes lead at times to the evolution of a preference that favors a deleterious cultural variant, this study presents an alternative model of cultural transmission, where cultural elements are transmitted in a manner more like infections in epidemiological transmission. An ordinary equilibrium analysis indicates that, under certain conditions, runaway dynamics emerges and the coevolution of a maladaptive cultural variant and an associated preference in favor of the maladaptive variant is observed. If the preference of an individual does not change during its ontogeny (e.g., if it is transmitted genetically), however, then cultural selection alone does not produce such runaway dynamics, and only those preferences that favor adaptive variants should eventually evolve. Since cultural processes may at times result in a reduction in the fitness of individuals, simplistic adaptive interpretations of culture are unconvincing without detailed specification of the cultural processes involved. Moreover, cultural runaway of this kind may help to explain the existence of traits that are apparently maladaptive at the individual level but may be advantageous for the group. Inferences are also made regarding the observed differences between human and non-human social information transfer.

Adaptation, Physiological↗
PubMed2001

Music, cognition, culture, and evolution.

We seem able to define the biological foundations for our musicality within a clear and unitary framework, yet music itself does not appear so clearly definable. Music is different things and does different things in different cultures; the bundles of elements and functions that are music for any given culture may overlap minimally with those of another culture, even for those cultures where "music" constitutes a discrete and identifiable category of human activity in its own right. The dynamics of culture, of music as cultural praxis, are neither necessarily reducible, nor easily relatable, to the dynamics of our biologies. Yet music appears to be a universal human competence. Recent evolutionary theory, however, affords a means for exploring things biological and cultural within a framework in which they are at least commensurable. The adoption of this perspective shifts the focus of the search for the foundations of music away from the mature and particular expression of music within a specific culture or situation and on to the human capacity for musicality. This paper will survey recent research that examines that capacity and its evolutionary origins in the light of a definition of music that embraces music's multifariousness. It will be suggested that music, like speech, is a product of both our biologies and our social interactions; that music is a necessary and integral dimension of human development; and that music may have played a central role in the evolution of the modern human mind.

Biological Evolution↗
PubMed1993

The mathematical modelling of human culture and its implications for psychology and the human sciences.

Recent years have seen the growth of a new and exciting field of theoretical research concerned with the mathematical modelling of human culture, and of its interaction with genetics. Drawing on analogies between genetic and cultural processes, mathematically sophisticated biologists have used population genetics models as the basis for the development of analogous models of cultural transmission, cultural evolution and gene-culture co-evolution. These models are designed to describe and analyse the diffusion of cultural traits through populations, under the influence of various cultural and evolutionary forces. They have already been applied to address many problems of interest to psychologists. Here I present an introduction to these models, explaining the mathematics in simple terms, and giving examples of the work of leading theorists. I go on to discuss the findings of most relevance to psychology, critically analysing the most important conclusions. Finally, I suggest some areas of psychology in which these models might usefully be applied. I argue that these models constitute a major theoretical innovation, and that there is considerable potential for their application in psychology.

Behavior↗
PubMed1987

Polyanionic agents as inhibitors of phagosome-lysosome fusion in cultured macrophages: evolution of an alternative interpretation.

Various natural and synthetic substances classified as polyanionics have been implicated in antagonizing phagosome-lysosome fusion in cultured macrophages. The phenomenon has been judged by comparing the transfer of selected markers from secondary lysosomes to phagosomes in control and in "polyanion" cells. Our earlier studies showed that use of one of the markers, the membrane-permeating acridine orange, was plagued with artifacts that were especially misleading in the presence of polyanionic agents. We now question the validity of data obtained by the alternative technique, electron microscopy. Our present evidence shows that nonionic hydrocolloids of sufficiently high molecular weight prevent the transfer of various colloidal electron-opaque markers from lysosomes to phagosomes in the same manner as does the powerful polyanionic "fusion inhibitor" dextran sulfate. Both kinds of hydrocolloids, however, allow delivery of lysosomal, low-molecular-weight highly charged non-permeant fluorescent markers to phagosomes, probably by a fusion process. We propose that neither type of hydrocolloid inhibits fusion; instead, when sufficiently concentrated, they trap particulate electron-opaque markers in a gelatinous matrix, which may move only slowly out of lysosomes. The polyanionics trap the electron-opaque markers physically and acridine orange ionically. Hence, the semblance of "fusion inhibition."

Animals↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Cultural change and its relevance for human genetics.

The first part of this paper summarizes conclusions drawn from theoretical analysis of cultural change, as appeared in various papers (published and unpublished) by the author in collaboration with Marc Feldman. Among conclusions emphasized are the tendency to homogeneity of cultural traits with most mechanisms of cultural transmissions, the great variation in rates of change and conditions determining them, and the major factors responsible for change. The possibility of genetic variation in learning ability adds considerable complications and determines joint biological and cultural evolution. In the second part of the paper, one very specific example of biological and cultural coevolution is outlined. Archaeological information shows that agriculture spread slowly from a Near East area of origin of domestication of plants and animals. The spread towards Europe is particularly well mapped. There are good reasons why the spread of agriculture may have been accompanied by a spread of farmers from the area of origin. It turns out that synthetic gene maps of Europe showing such a spread of farmers would be an excellent explanation for the geographic distribution of genes in Europe.

Agriculture↗
PubMed1987

Toward a theory for the evolution of cultural communication: coevolution of signal transmission and reception.

A haploid sexual two-locus model of gene-culture coevolution is examined, in which a dichotomous phenotype subject to natural selection is transmitted vertically with probabilities dependent on the chosen parent's genotype and phenotype and the offspring's genotype. Stability conditions for the genetically monomorphic corner equilibria are obtained. In a specialization of this general model, one locus controls the transmission and the other controls the reception of adaptive information. The corner and edge equilibria of this doubly coevolutionary model are fully analyzed, and conditions for transmission and reception to coevolve are derived in terms of the efficiency of vertical transmission, the selective advantage gained from possessing the information, the costs of transmission and reception, and the recombination fraction between the two loci. Possible applications of the model are to the evolution of semantic alarm calls in vervet monkeys and the phonetic aspects of human language. In a third model with diploid genetics, we consider the initial increase of cultural transmission from a mutation-selection balance in which the adaptive phenotype is the consequence of a dominant gene at one locus. A second gene controls the transmission of the phenotype in such a way that a new mutant at this second locus permits learning of the adaptive phenotype from a parent who has it. This new mutant cannot increase when rare.

Animal Communication↗
PubMed2003

The nature of human altruism.

Some of the most fundamental questions concerning our evolutionary origins, our social relations, and the organization of society are centred around issues of altruism and selfishness. Experimental evidence indicates that human altruism is a powerful force and is unique in the animal world. However, there is much individual heterogeneity and the interaction between altruists and selfish individuals is vital to human cooperation. Depending on the environment, a minority of altruists can force a majority of selfish individuals to cooperate or, conversely, a few egoists can induce a large number of altruists to defect. Current gene-based evolutionary theories cannot explain important patterns of human altruism, pointing towards the importance of both theories of cultural evolution as well as gene-culture co-evolution.

Altruism↗
PubMed2006

The evolution of cognition. 1990.

With cultural evolution, new processes of thought appear. Abstraction is universal, but rationalization first appeared in ancient Greece, theorization in Renaissance Italy, and model building in twentieth-century Europe. These processes employ the methods of metaphor, metalingual definition, algorithm, and control, respectively. The intellectual and practical achievements of populations guided by the several processes and exploiting the different mechanisms differ so greatly as to warrant separation into cultural ranks. The fourth rank is not completely formed, while regions of the world and parts of every population continue to operate by the processes of earlier ranks.

Cognition↗
PubMed1983

Evolutionary and social aspects of disease.

There are important interactions between disease and organic evolution, between disease and cultural evolution, and between all three. Social behaviour influences disease and is influenced by it. Disease and disease mortality are woven into the complex of behavioural and physiological reactions to the stresses of overpopulation, which act to reduce population size. These principles are illustrated with reference to a number of diseases, including vitamin D imbalance, phenylketonuria, lactose intolerance, malaria, sickle cell anaemia, favism, plague, yellow fever, syphilis, ergot poisoning, kuru, and the sweating sickness.

Agriculture↗
PubMed1988

Spontaneous in vitro neoplastic evolution of cultured Chinese hamster cells. Nucleolus organizing region activity.

Silver staining to demonstrate active nucleolus organizing regions (NORs) was performed at four different stages of the spontaneous tumorigenic progression in vitro of Chinese hamster WCHE/5 cells. The number of active NORs increased for fully transformed, highly tumorigenic, late passage cells. The increase of NOR material was due to additional NOR-bearing chromosomes or chromosome arms, i.e., trisomy 5, trisomy 8, and the marker chromosome i(3q). Intermediate stages of the neoplastic evolution showed changing patterns of NOR activity, but not an overall increase. We postulate that the increase of active rDNA enhances cell growth and provides undefined selective advantage, and that this supports our previous conclusion that selectable karyotype changes provide competitive advantages rather than being essential for neoplastic evolution in vitro.

Animals↗
PubMed2005

Ancient hunters and their modern representatives: William Sollas's (1849-1936) Anthropology from disappointed bridge to trunkless tree and the instrumentalisation of racial conflict.

During the first decades of the 20th century, many anthropologists who had previously adhered to a linear view of human evolution, from an ape via Pithecanthropus erectus (today Homo erectus) and Neanderthal to modern humans, began to change their outlook. A shift towards a branching model of human evolution began to take hold. Among the scientific factors motivating this trend was the insight that mammalian evolution in general was best represented by a branching tree, rather than by a straight line, and that several new fossil hominids were discovered that differed significantly in their morphology but seemed to date from about the same period. The ideological and practical implications of imperialism and WWI have also been identified as formative of the new evolutionary scenarios in which racial conflict played a crucial role. The paper will illustrate this general shift in anthropological theory for one particular scientist, William Sollas (1849-1936). Sollas achieved a synthesis of human morphological and cultural evolution in what I will refer to as an imperialist model. In this theoretical framework, migration, conflict, and replacement became the main mechanisms for progress spurred by 'nature's tyrant,' natural selection.

Animals↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Adaptive significance of the Indian caste system: an ecological perspective.

Indian society is an agglomeration of several thousand endogamous groups or castes each with a restricted geographical range and a hereditarily determined mode of subsistence. These reproductively isolated castes may be compared to biological species, and the society thought of as a biological community with each caste having its specific ecological niche. In this paper we examine the ecological-niche relationships of castes which are directly dependent on natural resources. Evidence is presented to show that castes living together in the same region had so organized their pattern of resource use as to avoid excessive intercaste competition for limiting resources. Furthermore, territorial division of the total range of the caste regulated intra-caste competition. Hence, a particular plant or animal resource in a given locality was used almost exclusively by a given lineage within a caste generation after generation. This favoured the cultural evolution of traditions ensuring sustainable use of natural resources. This must have contributed significantly to the stability of Indian caste society over several thousand years. The collapse of the base of natural resources and increasing monetarization of the economy has, however, destroyed the earlier complementarity between the different castes and led to increasing conflicts between them in recent years.

Adaptation, Biological↗