Kevin Laland - The Evolution of Culture

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Күн бұрын

Webcast sponsored by the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre and hosted by Green College. Both demographically and ecologically, humans are a remarkably successful species. This success is generally attributed to our capacity for culture. But how did our species' extraordinary culturalcapabilities evolve from its roots in animal social learning and tradition? In this seminar, Laland will provide a provisional answer. After characterizing contemporary research into animal social learning, he will focus in on a case study of stickleback learning that illustrates the strategic nature of animal copying. Laland will go on to describe the findings of an international competition (the "social learning strategies tournament") that he organized to investigate the best way to learn. Laland will suggest that the tournament sheds light on why copying is widespread in nature, and why humans happen to be so good at it. Finally, he will end by describing some other theoretical and experimental projects suggesting feedback mechanisms that may have been instrumental to the evolution of Culture.

Пікірлер: 3

@DansVideoVault 13 жыл бұрын

Fascinating lecture on a complex topic - surpirsed it's had so few views to date, as it deserves many more.

@allkindsofbig1040 5 жыл бұрын

In Nov 2019 it will be 160 years since Darwin's 'Origin of Species' and for all the good stuff in this video, you can see how evolutionary theory (EvoTheor) continues to struggle with culture. EvoTheo used to refer to 'fidelity' as important in understanding culture but culture is a deeply relative process, especially compared to the slow gradual degrees of evolution. Natural selection is the "illusion" of design, while culture is a product of conscious human design, from which Darwin metaphorised an analgous process in nature. To then re-analogise from nature to explain culture is an ongoing inversion of history. Culture is a process of ever quickening revolution upon revolution and we cannot discover, understand the mechanics, law and even measurement of culture if we dogmatically assume culture is an evolutionary process. Remember, evolution is not just another term for change, it is the accepted theory of constancy and change in biological nature. That same theory has always struggled with "the special species" (which the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis states) and will continue to. It is not 'physics envy' for social science to discover the underlying mechanics, laws and measurement of culture and while it might take time for the social sciences to discover that theory, they'll certainly get there before evolutionary theory. Ponder on the term 'artificial' which means human-made, and not natural at the same time. There was nothing artificial in nature before humans emerged from the evolutionary process, and yet in the world of culture almost everything is artificial. 160 years this November.....that's a long time not to have an accepted theory of culture since Darwin.