Towards a Pricean foundation for cultural evolutionary theory

  1. Lorenzo Baravalle
  2. Víctor J. Luque Martín
Revue:
Theoria: an international journal for theory, history and foundations of science

ISSN: 0495-4548

Année de publication: 2022

Volumen: 37

Número: 2

Pages: 209-231

Type: Article

DIALNET GOOGLE SCHOLAR lock_openDialnet editor

D'autres publications dans: Theoria: an international journal for theory, history and foundations of science

Résumé

The Price equation is currently considered one of the fundamental equations —or even the fundamen-tal equation— of evolution. In this article, we explore the role of this equation within cultural evolutionary theory. More specifically, we use it to account for the explanatory power and the theoretical structure of a certain generalised version of dual-inheritance theory. First, we argue that, in spite of not having a definite empirical content, the Price equation of-fers a suitable formalisation of the processes of cultural evolution, and provides a powerful heuristic device for discov-ering the actual causes of cultural change and accumulation. Second, we argue that, as a consequence of this, a certain version of the Price equation is the fundamental law of cultural evolutionary theory. In order to support this claim, we sketch the ideal structure of dual-inheritance theory and we stress the unificatory role that the Price equation plays in it.

Références bibliographiques

  • Acerbi, A. & Mesoudi, A. (2015). If we are all cultural Darwinians what’s the fuss about? Clarifying recent disagreements in the field of cultural evolution. Biology & Philosophy, 30, 481-503.
  • Aguilar, E. & Akçay, E. (2018). Gene-culture co-inheritance of a behavioral trait. The American Naturalist, 23, 311-320.
  • Alizon, S. (2009). The Price equation framework to study disease within-host evolution. Journal of Evolutionary Biology, 22, 1123-1132.
  • Balzer, W., Moulines, C. U., & Sneed, J. D. (1987). An architectonic for science. The structuralist program. Dordrecht: Reidel.
  • Baravalle, L. (2021). Cultural evolutionary theory as a theory of forces. Synthese, 198, 2801-2820. Birch, J. (2017). The philosophy of social evolution. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  • Boyd, R. & Richerson, P. J. (1985). Culture and the evolutionary process. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Brandon, R. (1982). A structural description of evolutionary theory. In P. D. Asquith & R. N. Giere (Eds.), PSA 1980 (Vol. II, pp. 427-439). East Lansing, Michigan: Philosophy of Science Association.
  • Cavalli-Sforza, L. L. & Feldman, M. (1981). Cultural transmission and evolution. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
  • Charbonneau, M. (2020). Understanding cultural fidelity.  British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 71, 1209-33. 
  • Charbonneau, M. & Bourrat, P. (2021). Fidelity and the grain problem in cultural evolution.  Synthese. doi:10.1007/s11229-021-03047-1.
  • Claidière, N., Scott-Phillips, T. C., & Sperber, D. (2014). How darwinian is cultural evolution? Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, 369.
  • Coulson, T. & Tuljapurkar, S., (2008). The dynamics of a quantitative trait in an age-structured population living in a variable environment. The American Naturalist, 172(5), 599-612.
  • Díez, J. & Lorenzano, P. (2013). Who got what wrong? Fodor and Piattelli on Darwin: Guiding principles and explanatory models in natural selection. Erkenntnis, 78, 1143-1175.
  • El Mouden, C., André, J.-B., Morin, O., & Nettle, D. (2014). Cultural transmission and the evolution of human behaviour: A general approach based on the Price equation. Journal of Evolutionary Biology, 27, 231-241.
  • Engen, S. & Saether, B. E. (2014). Evolution in fluctuating environments: Decomposing selection into additive components of the Robertson-Price equation. Evolution, 68, 854-865.
  • Frank, S. A. (1986). Dispersal polymorphism in subdivided populations. Journal of Theoretical Biology, 122, 303-309.
  • Frank, S.A. (1998). Foundations of social evolution. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Frank, S. A. (2012). Natural selection. IV. The Price equation. Journal of Evolutionary Biology, 25, 1002- 1019.
  • Frank, S. A. (2016). The inductive theory of natural selection: Summary and synthesis. arXiv:1412.1285. Retrieved from: https://arxiv.org/abs/1412.1285
  • Frank, S. A. (2017). Universal expressions of population change by the Price equation: Natural selection, information, and maximum entropy production. Ecology and Evolution, 7, 3381-3396.
  • Gardner, A. (2011). Kin selection under blending inheritance. Journal of Theoretical Biology, 284, 125-9.
  • Godfrey-Smith, P. (2009). Darwinian populations and natural selection. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  • Gong, T., Shuai, L., Tamariz, M., & Jäger, G. (2012). Studying language change using Price equation and Pólya-urn dynamics. PLos ONE, 7, e33171. Retrieved from: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0033171
  • Govaert, L., Pantel, J.H., & De Meester, L. (2016). Eco-evolutionary partitioning metrics: assessing the importance of ecological and evolutionary contributions to population and community change. Ecology letters, 19(8), 839-853.
  • Helanterä, H. & Uller, T. (2010). The Price equation and extended Pólya-urn dynamics inheritance. Philosophy and Theory in Biology, 2, e101.
  • Henrich, J. (2001). Cultural transmission and the diffusion of innovations: Adoption dynamics indicate that biased cultural transmission is the predominate force in behavioural change. American Anthropologist, 103, 992-1013.
  • Henrich, J. (2004). Demography and cultural evolution: How adaptive cultural processes can produce maladaptive losses: The Tasmanian case. American Antiquity, 68, 197-214.
  • Henrich, J. & Boyd, R. (2002). On modeling cultural evolution: Why replicators are not necessary for cultural evolution. Journal of Cognition and Culture, 2, 87-112.
  • Kendal, R. L., Boogert, N. J., Rendell, L., Laland K. N., Webster, M., & Jones P. L. (2018). Social learning strategies: Bridge-building between fields. Trends in Cognitive Science, 22, P651-665.
  • Kerr, B. & Godfrey-Smith, P. (2009) Generalization of the Price equation for evolutionary change. Evolution, 63, 531-536.
  • Kitcher, P. (1989). Explanatory unification and the causal structure of the world. In P. Kitcher, & W. C. Salmon (Eds.), Scientific explanation (pp. 410-505). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
  • Kuhn, T. S. (1970). Second thoughts on paradigms. In F. Suppe (Ed.) The structure of scientific theories (pp. 459-482). Urbana: University of Illinois Press.
  • Lewens, T. (2015). Cultural evolution. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  • Lewontin, R. (1974). The genetic basis of evolutionary change. New York: Columbia University Press.
  • Lumsden, C. J. & Wilson, E. O. (2005[1981]) Genes, mind, and culture. London: World Scientific.
  • Luque, V. J. (2017). One equation to rule them all: A philosophical analysis of the Price equation. Biology and Philosophy, 32, 97-125.
  • Luque, V. J. & Baravalle, L. (2021). The mirror of physics: On how the Price equation can unify evolutionary biology. Synthese, 199, 12439–12462.
  • MacCallum, R. M., Mauch M., Burt A., & Leroi A. M. (2012) Evolution of music by public choice. PNAS, 109, 12081-12086.
  • Mesoudi, A. (2011). Cultural evolution: How Darwinian theory can explain human culture and synthesize the social sciences. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
  • Moulines, C. U. (1984). Existential quantifiers and guiding principles in physical theories. In J. J. E. Gracia, E. Rabossi, E. Villanueva & M. Dascal (Eds.) Philosophical analysis in Latin America (pp. 173-198). Dordrecht: Reidel.
  • Nowak, M. A., & Highfield, R. (2011). SuperCooperators: Altruism, evolution, and why we need each other to succeed. New York: Free Press.
  • Odling-Smee, F. J., Laland K. N., & Feldman M. W. (2003). Niche construction: The neglected process in evolution. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
  • Okasha, S. (2006). Evolution and the levels of selection. New York: Oxford University Press.
  • Okasha, S. (2007). Cultural inheritance and Fisher’s “Fundamental Theorem” of natural selection. Biological Theory, 2, 290-299.
  • Otsuka, J. (2016). Causal foundations of evolutionary genetics. The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 67, 247-269.
  • Ozgul, A., Tuljapurkar, S., Benton, T.G., Pemberton, J.M., Clutton-Brock, T.H., & Coulson, T. (2009). The dynamics of phenotypic change and the shrinking sheep of St. Kilda. Science, 325(5939), 464-467.
  • Price, G. R. (1970). Selection and covariance. Nature, 227, 520-521.
  • Price, G. R. (1972). Extension of covariance selection mathematics. Annals of Human Genetics, 35, 485-490.
  • Price, G. R. (1995). The nature of selection. Journal of Theoretical Biology, 175(3), 389-396.
  • Queller, D. (2017). Fundamental theorems of evolution. American Naturalist, 189, 345-353.
  • Rankin, B. D., Fox, J. W., Barrón-Ortiz, C. R., Chew, A. E., Holroyd, P. A., Ludtke, J. A., Yang, X., & Theodor, J. M. (2015). The extended Price equation quantifies species selection on mammalian body size across the Palaeocene/Eocene thermal maximum. Proceedings of the Royal Society B, 282, 20151097.
  • Rice, S. H. (2004). Evolutionary theory: Mathematical and conceptual foundations. Sunderland, MA: Sinauer Associates.
  • Rice, S.H. (2008). A stochastic version of the Price equation reveals the interplay of deterministic and stochastic processes in evolution. BMC evolutionary biology, 8(1), 1-16.
  • Rice, S.H. (2020). Universal rules for the interaction of selection and transmission in evolution. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, 375(1797), 20190353.
  • Sober, E. (1984). The nature of selection. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Sober, E. (1988). Reconstructing the past: Parsimony, evolution, and inference. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
  • van Veelen, M. (2005). On the use of the Price equation. Journal of Theoretical Biology, 237, 412-426.
  • Walsh, B. & Lynch, M. (2018) Evolution and selection of quantitative traits. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
La source de données: Dialnet