1st Edition

The Evolution of Culture Volume IV

Edited By Stefan Linquist Copyright 2010
538 Pages
by Routledge

538 Pages
by Routledge

Recent years have seen a transformation in thinking about the nature of culture. Rather than viewing culture in opposition to biology, a growing number of researchers now regard culture as subject to evolutionary processes. Recent developments in this field have shifted some of the traditional academic fault lines. Alliances are forming between researchers trained in anthropology, evolutionary... Read more
Contents: Introduction; Part I Theoretical Background: Is a cultural ethology possible?, F.T. Cloak Jr; Cultural evolution, Luigi L. Cavalli-Sforza; Advances in evolutionary culture theory, William H. Durham; Does culture evolve?, Joseph Fracchia and R.C. Lewontin. Part II The Phylogenetic Approach to Culture: The comparative method in anthropology, Ruth Mace and Mark Pagel; Putting anthropology back together again: the ethnogenetic critique of cladistic theory, John H. Moore; The pleasures and perils of Darwinizing culture (with phylogenies), Russell D. Gray, Simon J. Greenhill and Robert M. Ross. Part III Memetics: Memes and the exploitation of imagination, Daniel C. Dennett; Evolution and memes: the human brain as a selective imitation device, Susan Blackmore; The meme metaphor, Mark Jeffreys; The trouble with memes: inference versus imitation in cultural creation, Scott Atran; Memes revisited, Kim Sterelny. Part IV Dual Inheritance Theory and Niche Construction: The evolution of ethnic markers, Robert Boyd and Peter J. Richerson; On modeling cognition and culture: why cultural evolution does not require replication of representations, Joseph Henrich and Robert Boyd; The evolution and evolvability of culture, Kim Sterelny; Niche construction, biological evolution and cultural change, Kevin N. Laland, John Odling-Smee and Marcus W. Feldman. Part V Psychological Mechanisms: Rational preselection from hamadryas to homo sapiens: the place of decisions in adaptive process, Christopher Boehm; The evolution of prestige: freely conferred deference as a mechanism for enhancing the benefits of cultural transmission, Joseph Henrich and Francisco J. Gil-White; The cognitive foundations of cultural stability and diversity, Dan Sperber and Lawrence A. Hirschfeld; The evolution of culture: from primate social learning to human culture, Laureano Castro and Miguel A. Toro. Part VI Culture in Non-Human Animals: Culture in animals: the case of a non-human primate culture of low aggression and high affiliation, Robert M. Sapolsky; The animal cultures debate, Kevin N.Laland and Vincent M. Janik; How do apes ape?, Andrew Whiten, Victoria Horner, Carla A. Litchfield and Sarah Marshall-Pescini; Cultural transmission: a view from chimpanzees and human infants, Michael Tomasello; Name Index.

Biography

Stefan Linquist, University of Guelph, Canada