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Culture evolves following a process that is akin to biological evolution, although with some significant differences. At the same time culture has often a collective good value for human groups. This paper studies culture in an evolutionary…

Experimental evolution has yielded surprising insights into human history and evolution by shedding light on the roles of chance and contingency in history and evolution, and on the deep evolutionary roots of cooperation, conflict and kin…

This paper outlines the implications of neural-level accounts of insight, and models of the conceptual interactions that underlie creativity, for a theory of cultural evolution. Since elements of human culture exhibit cumulative, adaptive,…

Culture evolves, not just in the trivial sense that cultures change over time, but also in the strong sense that such change is governed by Darwinian principles. Both biological and cultural evolution are essentially cumulative selection…

Categorization is a fundamental function of minds, with wide ranging implications for the rest of the cognitive system. In humans, categories are shared and communicated between minds, thus requiring explanations at the population level. In…

It has been proposed that, since the origin of life and the ensuing evolution of biological species, a second evolutionary process has appeared on our planet. It is the evolution of culture-e.g., ideas, beliefs, and artifacts. Does culture…

This chapter begins by outlining a promising, new theoretical framework for the process by which human culture evolves inspired by the views of complexity theorists on the problem of how life began. Elements of culture, like species, evolve…

This chapter synthesizes evidence from cognitive science, evolutionary theory, anthropology, psychological studies, and computational models for a complex systems inspired theory of creativity, and its role in cultural evolution. Creativity…

Because human cognition is creative and socially situated, knowledge accumulates, diffuses, and gets applied in new contexts, generating cultural analogs of phenomena observed in population genetics such as adaptation and drift. It is…

There is surely some truth to the notion that culture evolves, but the Darwinian view of culture is trivial. Gabora does two things in this paper. First, she levels a reasoned and devastating attack on the adequacy of a Darwinian theory of…

Although Darwinian models are rampant in the social sciences, social scientists do not face the problem that motivated Darwin's theory of natural selection: the problem of explaining how lineages evolve despite that any traits they acquire…

Many species engage in acts that could be called creative. However, human creativity is unique in that it has transformed our planet. Given that the anatomy of the human brain is not so different from that of the great apes, what enables us…

Formal modelling provides a toolkit for understanding cultural dynamics, from individual decisions to recurring patterns of change. This chapter explains what models are and why they matter. Using a precise, shared language, they aid…

This article explains how natural selection works and how it has been inappropriately applied to the description of cultural change. It proposes an alternative evolutionary explanation for cultural evolution that describes it in terms of…

It is important to be clear as to whether a theory such as evolutionary archaeology pertains to biological evolution, in which acquired change is obliterated at the end of each generation, or cultural change, in which acquired change is…

There are both benefits and drawbacks to cultural diversity. It can lead to friction and exacerbate differences. However, as with biological diversity, cultural diversity is valuable in times of upheaval; if a previously effective solution…

Humans interact with each other on a daily basis by developing and maintaining various social norms and it is critical to form a deeper understanding of how such norms develop, how they change, and how fast they change. In this work, we…

The ability of humans to create and disseminate culture is often credited as the single most important factor of our success as a species. In this Perspective, we explore the notion of machine culture, culture mediated or generated by…

The study of opinions, their formation and change, is one of the defining topics addressed by social psychology, but in recent years other disciplines, like computer science and complexity, have tried to deal with this issue. Despite the…

Decades of scientific inquiry have sought to understand how evolution fosters cooperation, a concept seemingly at odds with the belief that evolution should produce rational, self-interested individuals. Most previous work has focused on…