When Does Cultural Selection Explain Cultural Novelty?

Kenneth Reisman
Department of Philosophy, Stanford University

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     Last modified: April 21, 2005
     Presentation date: 07/14/2005 9:15 AM in ROZH 105
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Abstract
This paper contributes to the double session ``The Evolution of Cultural Novelty".

In both biological and cultural evolution, various evolutionary processes can influence the production of novel variants. The proximate cause for the production of a variant in a population is always the mechanism of variation. More distal causal influences may include selection and drift. Yet, while many processes can contribute to the production of a variant, these processes may differ in their importance for explaining why the variant turned out as it did. In some cases, the features of a novel variant will mainly be explained by the characteristics of the mechanism of variation. In others, they may be explained by the history of selection or drift in the population.

In this talk, I describe a criterion for evaluating the amount of ``work’’ that an evolutionary process does in explaining the features of novel variants. I show how the criterion sheds light on explanatory trade-offs between processes of variation and processes of selection. These trade-offs occur in both biological and cultural evolution, though they turn out different in each case. In biological evolution, the trade-offs often favor natural selection; the history of natural selection in a population often does significant work in explaining the features of the novel variants that are produced. In cultural evolution, the trade-offs often favor the mechanism of variation; the history of cultural selection in a population tends to do little work in explaining the features of the novel variants that are produced. I conclude that cultural selection processes are common, but cases where cultural selection does significant explanatory work are rare.

Multiple Paper Session:
Other papers in this session:
Cultural Variation and Epistemic Access
Constraints on Cultural Adaptation
Reproducers and the evolutionary development of culture
Core Configurations that Can Think, Learn and Create
Generative Entrenchment and the scaffolding of individual development and social institutions