Evolution and culture : a Fyssen Foundation symposium / edited by Stephen C. Levinson and Pierre Jaisson.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Jaisson, Pierre, editor.

Levinson, Stephen C., editor.

Fyssen Foundation.

Series:

Fyssen Foundation symposium

Fyssen Foundation series

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Brain--Evolution--Congresses.

Brain.

Cognitive neuroscience--Congresses.

Cognitive neuroscience.

Culture--Congresses.

Culture.

Human evolution--Congresses.

Human evolution.

Social evolution--Congresses.

Social evolution.

Brain--Evolution.

Genre:

Conference papers and proceedings.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xvii, 296 pages) : illustrations.

Other Title:

MIT Press CogNet.

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Massachusetts : The MIT Press, [2006]

System Details:

text file

Summary:

Biological and cultural processes have evolved together in a symbiotic spiral; they are now indissolubly linked, with human survival unlikely without such culturally produced aids as clothing, cooked food, and tools. The twelve original essays collected in this volume take an evolutionary perspective on human culture, examining the emergence of culture in evolution and the underlying role of brain and cognition. The essay authors, all internationally prominent researchers in their fields, draw on the cognitive sciences-including linguistics, developmental psychology, and cognition-to develop conceptual and methodological tools for understanding the interaction of culture and genome. They go beyond the "how"-the questions of behavioral mechanisms-to address the "why"-the evolutionary origin of our psychological functioning. What was the "X-factor," the magic ingredient of culture-the element that took humans out of the general run of mammals and other highly social organisms?

Several essays identify specific behavioral and functional factors that could account for human culture, including the capacity for "mind reading" that underlies social and cultural learning and the nature of morality and inhibitions, while others emphasize multiple partially independent factors-planning, technology, learning, and language. The X-factor, these essays suggest, is a set of cognitive adaptations for culture.

Contents:

Preface: It was not there in the Big Bang, but... / Pierre Jaisson xi

1 Introduction: The Evolution of Culture in a Microcosm / Stephen C. Levinson 1

I Emergence of Culture in Evolution 43

2 Quantum Leaps in Evolution / Claude Combes 45

3 The Emergence of Culture in the Context of Hominin Evolutionary Patterns / Robert A. Foley 53

4 Interactions of Culture and Natural Selection among Pleistocene Hunters / Christopher Boehm 79

5 Solving the Puzzle of Human Cooperation / Robert Boyd, Peter J. Richerson 105

6 From Typo to Thinko: When Evolution Graduated to Semantic Norms / Daniel Dennett 133

7 Conceptual Tools for a Naturalistic Approach to Cultural Evolution / Dan Sperber 147

II Brain, Cognition, and Evolution 167

8 Brains, Cognition, and the Evolution of Culture / R. I. M. Dunbar 169

9 The Evolution of Culture from a Neurobiological Perspective / Wolf Singer 181

10 Uniquely Human Cognition Is a Product of Human Culture / Michael Tomasello 203

11 Moral Ingredients: How We Evolved the Capacity to Do the Right Thing / Marc D. Hauser 219

12 The Cultural and Evolutionary History of the Real Numbers / C. R. Gallistel, Rochel Gelman, Sara Cordes 247

13 Why Animals Do Not Have Culture / David Premack, Marc D. Hauser 275.

Notes:

"A Bradford book."

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record.

Other Format:

Print version: Evolution and culture.

ISBN:

9780262316224

0262316226

Access Restriction:

Restricted for use by site license.