Niche construction, biological evolution, and cultural change

Abstract

We propose a conceptual model that maps the causal pathways relating biological evolution to cultural change. It builds on conventional evolutionary theory by placing emphasis on the capacity of organisms to modify sources of natural selection in their environment (niche construction) and by broadening the evolutionary dynamic to incorporate ontogenetic and cultural processes. In this model, phenotypes have a much more active role in evolution than generally conceived. This sheds light on hominid evolution, on the evolution of culture, and on altruism and cooperation. Culture amplifies the capacity of human beings to modify sources of natural selection in their environments to the point where that capacity raises some new questions about the processes of human adaptation.

Acquisition of an externalized eye by Japanese monkeys

“…Human cognitive evolution was probably not driven purely "genes up" but also "culture down," involving continual circular interaction between individuals, with modiWed neural connectivity, and environments, modiWed through tool use, over generations (cf., "niche construction", Laland et al 2000). Although monkeys may lack certain neural adaptations that give humans an unparalleled facility for cultural transmission, they share many advanced sensorimotor and cognitive functions with us that, as the present study has attempted to show, can be induced into novel, higher order functional relationships through a properly structured training environment.…”

Towards a unified science of cultural evolution

“…Conversely, biological evolution is also to a degree directed in the sense that potential mutations, particularly the minority that will be subject to selection, are heavily constrained by a species' history of selection (see Hull et al 2001;. This is not to suggest that there are no differences here -on the contrary, "smart variants," biologically evolved biases in cognition and other cultural traits, may guide behaviour in a non-random direction (Laland et al 2000). There is evidence of both directed and undirected variation in human culture, and the relative importance of each is currently unknown.…”

“…Niche construction. Aunger, Fuentes, Kincaid, Knudsen & Hodgson, and Wimsatt, explicitly or implicitly, place emphasis on a role in the cultural evolutionary framework for niche construction, in which organisms actively modify sources of natural and/or cultural selection in their environments (Laland et al 2000;Odling Smee et al 2003). We welcome this suggestion, which concords fully with our views, and below we discuss the specific application of niche construction to the issue of external storage of cultural information (sect.…”

“…However, Dennett & McKay and Pagel both make the valuable point that there is a continuum of "intentionality," from blind, unconscious, undirected selection to goal-directed, conscious, directed selection, and the full range of this continuum is likely present in both biological and cultural evolution. Elsewhere (Laland et al 2000; we have referred to the acquisition of "smart" variants, cultural traits that have been tried and tested by other individuals. Once again, we believe it is important to stress that the existence of such variants does not invalidate the concept of cultural evolution or the use of evolutionary models and methods (although it may affect the characteristics of such models).…”

“…Niche construction offers another way of integrating both human and nonhuman agency with a biological and cultural evolutionary framework (Laland et al 2000). Fuentes states that "most psychological and anthropological research relies on perceptions, semantic exchanges, and culturally contingent decision processes."…”