Abstract
Darwinian theories concerned with human behaviour come in many forms. They can describe both the biological evolution of human cognition and the evolution of cultural traits in human communities. We briefly review these two types of Darwinian theories, including socio-biology, evolutionary psychology, memetics and dual inheritance theory, and show how insights from both types can be combined in a single framework: cultural epidemiology. We argue, however, that this is profitable only if selectionists models of cultural evolution are replaced by an attractor model.
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Notes
- 1.
See Clavien’s chapter, Chap. 34, this volume.
- 2.
- 3.
See Huneman’s chapter, Chap. 4, this volume, on that topic.
- 4.
That is to say that behaviour has an impact on reproduction. The fact that some organisms manage a greater reproductive efficiency allows biological evolution to take place. What is eventually selected is the genetic basis that makes a difference at the behavioral level.
- 5.
See Downes, Chap. 31, this volume.
- 6.
See Christine Clavien’s chapter: Chap. 34, this volume.
- 7.
For a more detailed analysis, see the chapters on evolutionary psychology in this volume.
- 8.
For further details please refer to the chapters on selection and heritability in this volume.
- 9.
This is the case in the standard models of population genetics used in dual inheritance theory. Subtler accounts of biological evolution are not relevant here because they have not been exploited by metaphorical Darwinisms.
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Heintz, C., Claidière, N. (2015). Current Darwinism in Social Science. In: Heams, T., Huneman, P., Lecointre, G., Silberstein, M. (eds) Handbook of Evolutionary Thinking in the Sciences. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-9014-7_37
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