ASEBL Journal – Volume 10 Issue 1, January 2014
model). Mesoudi spends a good amount of time working over the macro/micro divide.
In terms of macroevolution, Mesoudi looks at archaeology and anthropology, and
nicely explains phylogenetics in terms of cultural trees, past (e.g., paleoindian
projectile points) and present. But this raises (as Mesoudi says) Galton’s problem: in
terms of descent with modification in culture, what came first? Darwin’s early critics
(e.g., Fleeming Jenkin and even Lord Kelvin) complained of a similar problem: how
did natural selection start? Mesoudi goes on to offer an answer (provided in part by
the phylogenetic tree). Societies, while culturally distinct, nevertheless share traits, all
of which go back to some common ancestor. So while cultural transmission, some
argue, is a messy horizontal blending and does not therefore lend itself to a
phylogeny, analyses have nevertheless been done (and Mesoudi cites examples).
Mesoudi also tackles language and history in terms of macroevolution (in that
language and its elements are akin to evolutionary change). As Mesoudi (among
others) notes, there are thousands and thousands of languages, which implies different
cultural groups, which assumes (as per Richerson and Boyd) cultural group selection.
Lab experiments and tests demonstrating cultural transmission are adequately
explained, as well as field experiments (much of this covered in two chapters). It is
worth noting that Mesoudi cites with authority Judith Rich Harris (as does, elsewhere,
Jonathan Haidt) – and why not since their models promote horizontal (group) and not
vertical (parental) learning and transmission of information; meantime Jerome Kagan
questions Harris’ research, and why not, since his emphasis is on discrete amygdala
activity and individual temperament. But Mesoudi’s argument is well taken: learning
and cultural evolution may come down to a question of scale, where the parents are
but a small part of the larger and more informed group (which is well-stocked with
prestige models of skilled workers and expert teachers). In terms of economics,
Mesoudi provides interesting examples of cultural evolution (such as irrational
behavior in the demise of Polaroid, which developed a digital camera but insisted
consumers wanted paper, and how at the turn of the twentieth century there were
nearly three hundred tire manufacturers, whittled down by competition to a mere
handful by the 1980s). So the model of variation, competition, and inheritance applies.
Mesoudi ends by looking at non-human culture (and the differences from human
beings). Rats, guppies, rhesus monkeys, female quails, songbirds, octopuses, and
honeybees, to name a few species, engage in social (i.e., non-genetic, adaptive)
learning. Human beings, however, move from social learning to cultural traditions in
and among groups, and so (as Mesoudi points out), human culture is Darwinian since
it is cumulative (nearly exact transmission yet descent with modification). The book
concludes with an overview that sketches a synthesis of the social sciences using
evolutionary methods, i.e., “a potential science of cultural evolution” graphed
alongside biological evolution.
Mesoudi’s book is highly-recommended for students of the humanities since it
convincingly proves the biological evolution behind culture. No doubt biologists and
social scientists will find much to consider in the book as well, and one could see how
well this text would suit a course on the subjects of culture and evolution.
- Gregory F. Tague
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