Testing evolutionary hypotheses about human biological adaptation using cross-cultural comparison

Mace, Ruth; Jordan, Fiona M.; Holden, Clare

doi:10.1016/s1095-6433(03)00019-9

Cited by 67 publications

(23 citation statements)

References 26 publications

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“…Third, cultures often inherit traits such as language, customs, oral traditions, and social norms from their ancestors (19). These relationships between cultures mean that cultures cannot be treated as statistically independent-a problem famously first pointed out by Francis Galton (40,41). The studies mentioned above do not adequately account for Galton's Problem, so the correlation observed between the presence of MHGs and social complexity might merely arise because of the historical relationships between cultures (42).…”

Section: Big(ish) Data and Need For Computational Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Cultural macroevolution matters

Gray

Watts

2017

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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Evolutionary thinking can be applied to both cultural microevolution and macroevolution. However, much of the current literature focuses on cultural microevolution. In this article, we argue that the growing availability of large cross-cultural datasets facilitates the use of computational methods derived from evolutionary biology to answer broad-scale questions about the major transitions in human social organization. Biological methods can be extended to human cultural evolution. We illustrate this argument with examples drawn from our recent work on the roles of Big Gods and ritual human sacrifice in the evolution of large, stratified societies. These analyses show that, although the presence of Big Gods is correlated with the evolution of political complexity, in Austronesian cultures at least, they do not play a causal role in ratcheting up political complexity. In contrast, ritual human sacrifice does play a causal role in promoting and sustaining the evolution of stratified societies by maintaining and legitimizing the power of elites. We briefly discuss some common objections to the application of phylogenetic modeling to cultural evolution and argue that the use of these methods does not require a commitment to either gene-like cultural inheritance or to the view that cultures are like vertebrate species. We conclude that the careful application of these methods can substantially enhance the prospects of an evolutionary science of human history. cultural evolution | macroevolution | phylogenetics | religion | Big Gods D arwin's On the Origin of the Species ends with the poetic phrase, "From so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved" (1). The central challenge for evolutionary biology is to explain this diversity of endless forms. Evolutionary biologists tackle this task by studying both microevolution (changes in gene frequency within a population) and macroevolution (changes between species over much longer time periods). The aim is to have a mechanistic understanding of the evolution of biological diversity that integrates microlevel processes and macrolevel patterns. This work examines ways in which evolutionary thinking and methods can be extended into the realm of culture, extending the scope of biology to include questions that have traditionally been restricted to the humanities and social sciences. Human cultures also display a vast variety of most beautiful and most wonderful forms. We speak ∼7,000 different languages, engage in hundreds of different religious practices, build many different types of houses, exploit different resources for subsistence, use numerous different kinship systems, and abide by a striking array of marital, sexual, and child-rearing norms (2). The cultural processes that produce such striking cultural diversity must be explained. The field of cultural evolution is currently beginning to blossom (Fig. 1). There is a new cultural evolution society, a proposed journal, and an inaugural conference (3). However,...

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Section: Big(ish) Data and Need For Computational Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…These methods solve Galton's Problem by explicitly estimating ancestral state changes on phylogenetic trees (19,41). Thus, there is no overcounting or undercounting of evolutionary events.…”

Section: Big(ish) Data and Need For Computational Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cultural macroevolution matters

Gray

Watts

2017

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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“…We acknowledge that many evolutionary behavioral scientists have avoided the issues relating to cross-cultural correlations that we raise here by explicitly considering that the correlation between traits can be a result of their shared cultural history. Analogous to accounting for shared variance due to phylogenetic history in biology (e.g., Nee et al 1996), researchers examining the coevolution between cultural traits have used phylogenetic methods to account for shared cultural history (Mace et al 2003;Mace and Pagel 1994). This use of cultural phylogenies has allowed researchers to model shared variance between cultures based on these cultures' histories (inferred from a language phylogeny, for example).…”

Section: Non-independence Of Observationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

What Can Cross-Cultural Correlations Teach Us about Human Nature?

Pollet

Tybur

Frankenhuis

et al. 2014

Hum Nat

143

111

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Many recent evolutionary psychology and human behavioral ecology studies have tested hypotheses by examining correlations between variables measured at a group level (e.g., state, country, continent). In such analyses, variables collected for each aggregation are often taken to be representative of the individuals present within them, and relationships between such variables are presumed to reflect individual-level processes. There are multiple reasons to exercise caution when doing so, including: (1) the ecological fallacy, whereby relationships observed at the aggregate level do not accurately represent individual-level processes; (2) non-independence of data points, which violates assumptions of the inferential techniques used in null hypothesis testing; and (3) cross-cultural non-equivalence of measurement (differences in construct validity between groups). We provide examples of how each of these gives rise to problems in the context of testing evolutionary hypotheses about human behavior, and we offer some suggestions for future research.Keywords Ecological fallacy . Cross-cultural research . Research methods . Simpson's paradox . Non-independence . Measurement equivalence Many hypothesis-testing techniques used by evolutionary behavioral scientists involve examining degrees of covariation between two or more variables and making inferences based on such relationships (e.g., analysis of variance, Pearson correlation). This approach may be applied to a number of different research designs that examine variation at different, hierarchically organized levels (e.g., individuals versus groups;

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“…These differences are unlikely to affect the statistical outcomes, as changes, if any, in social factors are produced very gradually. Hence, most of the cross-cultural studies use data from the nearest sampling year when data for the desired year are not available (Ember and Ember, 2001;Mace et al 2003;Barber, 2004).…”

Section: Control Variablesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Do differences in Toxoplasma prevalence influence global variation in secondary sex ratio? Preliminary ecological regression study

2016

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Sex of the fetus is genetically determined such that an equal number of sons and daughters are born in large populations. However, the ratio of female to male births across human populations varies significantly. Many factors have been implicated in this. The theory that natural selection should favour female offspring under suboptimal environmental conditions implies that pathogens may affect secondary sex ratio (ratio of male to female births). Using regression models containing 13 potential confounding factors, we have found that variation of the secondary sex ratio can be predicted by seroprevalence of Toxoplasma across 94 populations distributed across African, American, Asian and European continents. Toxoplasma seroprevalence was the third strongest predictor of secondary sex ratio, β = −0·097, P < 0·01, after son preference, β = 0·261, P < 0·05, and fertility, β = −0·145, P < 0·001. Our preliminary results suggest that Toxoplasma gondii infection could be one of the most important environmental factors influencing the global variation of offspring sex ratio in humans. The effect of latent toxoplasmosis on public health could be much more serious than it is usually supposed to be.

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Testing evolutionary hypotheses about human biological adaptation using cross-cultural comparison

Cited by 67 publications

References 26 publications

Cultural macroevolution matters

Cultural macroevolution matters

What Can Cross-Cultural Correlations Teach Us about Human Nature?

Do differences in Toxoplasma prevalence influence global variation in secondary sex ratio? Preliminary ecological regression study

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