5 - genes and culture

Question 1

behavioural innovation

Answer 1

allows for expansion, likely impossible with genetic adaptation alone
“It was culture… that allowed humans the adaptive flexibility to colonise the world” - Lala and Brown (2011), Sense and Nonsense

Question 2

is culture unique to humans?

Answer 2

no, if we use the definition of socially transmitted innovations.
Cumulative culture evident in chimpanzees (find study)

Question 3

what is cultural evolution?

Answer 3

the study of cultural change using (modified) evolutionary theory and methods.
Alex Mesoudi - changes in socially transmitted beliefs knowledge, technology, languages, social institutions and so on

Question 4

Darwins ‘curious parallel’

Answer 4

“the formation of different languages and of distinct species… are curiously parallel”
(the descent of man)

Question 5

Natural selection of cultural traits

Answer 5

also may occur by processes of variation - competition - inheritance
e.g. Brand et al - cultural evolution of emotional expression in 50 years of song lyrics
e.g. Tehrani - folk tales and languages

Question 6

criticism of cultural evolution parallels with biological

Answer 6

Stephen Jay Gould - ‘biological evolution is a bad analogue for cultural change’ doing ‘more harm than good’

The cultural evolution society also says it “differs in key ways from - genetic evolution”

Question 7

Gene-culture co-evolution

Answer 7

models the transmission of genes and cultural traits between generations, exploring how they interact

Question 8

examples of gene-culture co-evolution

Answer 8

• lactase persistence
• sickle cell disease
  (know these examples in detail)

Question 9

contraints on cultural diversity

Answer 9

what explains ‘universal’ or common traits in diverse societies
Donald brown - proposed universals
example: music universal to all human societies, universal in social contexts and features e.g. scales

Question 10

explanation for universals

Answer 10

may be due to shared biological characteristics, which may be the result of genetic adaptations
e.g. music may have evolved due to a role in social bonding, or alternatively a byproduct of selection for other traits. social learning biases may also constrain cultural forms

Question 11

controversy over universals

Answer 11

• claims of universality may be misinterpreted as genetic determinism
• lists of universals can be subjective without cross cultural research
• defining cultural traits in a universal way difficult
• specific claims of universals debatable