Peter J Richerson
Datos Biográficos
| ID | 107487 |
|---|---|
| NOMBRE | Peter J Richerson |
| NOMBRES | Peter J |
| APELLIDO | Richerson |
| FIRMA | RICHERSON P J |
| AFILIACIONES | University of California, Davis |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-7233-358X |
| VERIFICADO | Sí |
| TOTAL DE OBRAS | 61 |
| TOTAL DE CITAS | 750 |
| TOTAL COMO AUTOR | 59 |
| TOTAL COMO EDITOR | 2 |
| PRIMER AÑO DE PUBLICACIÓN | 1977 |
| AÑO MÁS RECIENTE DE PUBLICACIÓN | 2025 |
| ÍNDICE H | 14 |
Commentary on Baumard and André's the ecological approach to culture
Cultural evolution in the laboratory
Culture consists of practices – behaviour patterns – shared by members of a group. Some attempts to demonstrate evolution of cultural practices in the laboratory have shown evolution of material products, such as paper aeroplanes. Some attempts have shown evolution of actual group behaviour. The present experiments demonstrated evolution of group coordination across generations in punishing defection in a public-goods game. Cost of punishing defe…
The Field of Evolutionary Neuroscience
Large‐scale cooperation in small‐scale foraging societies
We present evidence that people in small‐scale mobile hunter‐gatherer societies cooperated in large numbers to produce collective goods. Foragers engaged in large‐scale communal hunts and constructed shared capital facilities; they made shared investments in improving the local environment; and they participated in warfare, formed enduring alliances, and established trading networks. Large‐scale collective action often played a crucial role in su…
What Sort of Mind/Brain Is Compatible with Cultural Adaptation
Cultural evolution is substantially driven by agentic forces and rather less by the random variation and natural selection that dominate the evolution of genes. Reinforcement based decisions (attractors) keep cultural evolution tolerably on track of genetic fitness. Reinforcement can come from a variety of proximate mechanisms ranging from rather general-purpose appetites and emotions to highly specific cognitive features. Cognitive features must…
Authority matters
Human decision-making is controlled by various factors including material cost–benefit considerations, values and beliefs, social influences, cognitive factors and errors. Among social influences, those by external authorities (e.g. educational, cultural, religious, political, administrative, etc.) are particularly important owing to their potential reach and power. To better understand the effects of ‘soft’ power of authorities we develop a unif…
Celebrating the 150th anniversary of the Descent of Man
Dual Inheritance Theory
Dual inheritance theory is a set of ideas, first proposed in the 1960s, based on the observation that once humans evolved the capacity for complex culture, the environments in which human genes evolved were partly the product of their culture. If both genes and culture evolve, human evolution should be seen as the result of the interaction of cultural and genetic evolution. Current research by proponents of the theory looks at how cultural inform…
Cultural Inheritance and Evolutionary Ecology
This chapter argues that cultural adaptation can yield qualitatively different outcomes than those predicted from conventional fitness optimizing theory, even if one assumes that the capacity for culture has been shaped solely by natural selection acting on genetic variation. It presents the circumstances under which culture is superior to genetic transmission and individual learning as a means of adaptation. The chapter argues that there are pro…
Collective action and the evolution of social norm internalization
Significance People often ignore material costs they incur when following existing social norms. Some individuals and groups are often willing to pay extremely high costs to enact, defend, or promulgate specific values and norms that they consider important. Such behaviors, often decreasing biological fitness, represent an evolutionary puzzle. We study theoretically the evolutionary origins of human capacity to internalize and follow social norms…
Cultural Evolution and Gene–Culture Coevolution
Recent Critiques of Dual Inheritance Theory
The dual inheritance or gene–culture coevolution theory of human evolution was developed in the 1970s and 80s. Early work built mathematical theories derived from then-current work in human development, sociolinguistics, and the diffusion of innovations. More recently it has included a considerable amount of new empirical work. The theory has always had critics in evolutionary biology and the social and behavioral sciences. Morin's book critiques…
A Dynamic Analysis of American Socio-Political History. A Review of Ages of Discord
A Review of Ages of Discord: A Structural Demographic Analysis of American History by Peter Turchin (Beresta Books, 2016)
Applying cultural evolution to sustainability challenges
Busting Myths about Evolutionary Anthropology
Multilevel processes and cultural adaptation
Cultural adaptation has become central in the context of accelerated global change with authors increasingly acknowledging the importance of understanding multilevel processes that operate as adaptation takes place. We explore the importance of multilevel processes in explaining cultural adaptation by describing how processes leading to cultural (mis)adaptation are linked through a complex nested hierarchy, where the lower levels combine into new…
Current perspectives and the future of domestication studies
It is difficult to overstate the cultural and biological impacts that the domestication of plants and animals has had on our species. Fundamental questions regarding where, when, and how many times domestication took place have been of primary interest within a wide range of academic disciplines. Within the last two decades, the advent of new archaeological and genetic techniques has revolutionized our understanding of the pattern and process of …
Rethinking Paleoanthropology
Human By Nature
Representing a wide range of disciplines -- biology, sociology, anthropology, economics, human ethology, psychology, primatology, history, and philosophy of science -- the contributors to this book recently spent a complete academic year at the Center for Interdisciplinary Research (ZiF) discussing a plethora of new insights in reference to human cultural evolution. These scholars acted as a living experiment of "interdisciplinarity in vivo." The…
Human Cooperation is a Complex Problem with Many Possible Solutions
Recent debates on the SEF and in Steven Pinker’s Edge essay The false allure of group selection, and commentaries thereupon, seem to underplay one of the most important points about human societies, the interaction of, and often synergy between two major structural principles for organizing cooperation in human societies
Cultural evolution
Over the past few decades, a growing body of research has emerged from a variety of disciplines to highlight the importance of cultural evolution in understanding human behavior. Wider application of these insights, however, has been hampered by traditional disciplinary boundaries. To remedy this, in this volume leading researchers from theoretical biology, developmental and cognitive psychology, linguistics, anthropology, sociology, religious st…
The puzzle of monogamous marriage
The anthropological record indicates that approximately 85 per cent of human societies have permitted men to have more than one wife (polygynous marriage), and both empirical and evolutionary considerations suggest that large absolute differences in wealth should favour more polygynous marriages. Yet, monogamous marriage has spread across Europe, and more recently across the globe, even as absolute wealth differences have expanded. Here, we devel…
Tribal Social Instincts and the Cultural Evolution of Institutions to Solve Collective Action Problems
Human social life is uniquely complex and diverse. Much of that complexity and diversity arises from culturally transmitted ideas, values and skills that underpin the operation of social norms and institutions that structure our social life. Considerable theoretical and empirical work has been devoted to the role of cultural evolutionary processes in the evolution of social norms and institutions. The most persistent controversy has been over the…
Towards unification of the socio‐ecological sciences
The major environmental problems of the twenty‐first century, including climate change, water scarcity, pollution and resource exhaustion, represent a new category of crisis and highlight the desperate need for an integrated science of socio‐ecological phenomena. To help establish the foundations of such a science, we explore three traditions of mathematical theory: the Lotka–Volterra interactions of ecological theory, niche construction models o…
The evolution of conformist social learning can cause population collapse in realistically variable environments
Was Agriculture Impossible during the Pleistocene but Mandatory during the Holocene? A Climate Change Hypothesis
Several independent trajectories of subsistence intensification, often leading to agriculture, began during the Holocene. No plant-rich intensifications are known from the Pleistocene, even from the late Pleistocene when human populations were otherwise quite sophisticated. Recent data from ice and ocean-core climate proxies show that last glacial climates were extremely hostile to agriculture-dry, low in atmospheric CO2, and extremely variable o…
Shared Norms and the Evolution of Ethnic Markers
Can Group-Functional Behaviors Evolve by Cultural Group Selection
The Evolution of Ethnic Markers
Culture and the Evolutionary Process
Darwinian Selection, Symbolic Variation, and the Evolution of Culture [and Comments and Reply]
Most contemporary models of cultural change are derived from pre-Darwinian, especially Spencerian, sources and are conditioned by such unstated assumptions as typological thinking and a belief in directed, adaptive variation. This paper defends a Darwinian selectionist approach to cultural evolution. Darwinian selectionism requires undirected, heritable variation. Selection acts upon variants that are not preferentially oriented to or generated w…
Ecology and Human Ecology
Ecology has been used frequently by social scientists as a source of theoretical models, and biological ecologists have often applied their theory to human populations. Several problems have attended these cross-disciplinary enterprises, including inappropriate uses of teleological models and a failure by both biologists and social scientists to understand the theoretical implications of culture and technology for ecological models. Attention to …
Complex societies
Constraints on the Development of Agriculture
The development of agriculture was limited by external constraints, mainly climate, before the Holocene and mainly by social institutions after that. Population size and growth was important but ultimately did not determine where and why agriculture evolved
Five Misunderstandings About Cultural Evolution
Emergency Decisions, Cultural-Selection Mechanics, and Group Selection [and Comments and Reply]
Why Do People Become Modern? A Darwinian Explanation
A procession of cultural changes, often referred to as "modernization," is initiated as a society undergoes economic development. But cultural change continues to be rapid in societies that industrialized several generations ago. Much of the change in both developed and developing societies is a progressive abandonment of the norms, values, and beliefs that encourage behavior consistent with the pursuit of genetic fitness. The kin influence hypot…
Tribal Social Instincts and the Cultural Evolution of Institutions to Solve Collective Action Problems
Human social life is uniquely complex and diverse. Much of that complexity and diversity arises from culturally transmitted ideas, values and skills that underpin the operation of social norms and institutions that structure our social life. Considerable theoretical and empirical work has been devoted to the role of cultural evolutionary processes in the evolution of social norms and institutions. The most persistent controversy has been over the…
Applying cultural evolution to sustainability challenges
Built for Speed, not for Comfort. Darwinian Theory and Human Culture
Problems With Humans The Early NotebooksDarwin's early M and N notebooks on Man, Mind and Materialism make clear the important place that the human species played in the formation of his ideas on evolution (Barrett, 1974).In 1838 Darwin wrote "Origin of man now proved.Metaphysics must flourish.He who understand baboon would do more toward metaphysics than Locke[.]"These words were written in the heat of Darwin's most creative period, a few weeks …
Authority matters
Human decision-making is controlled by various factors including material cost–benefit considerations, values and beliefs, social influences, cognitive factors and errors. Among social influences, those by external authorities (e.g. educational, cultural, religious, political, administrative, etc.) are particularly important owing to their potential reach and power. To better understand the effects of ‘soft’ power of authorities we develop a unif…
Multilevel processes and cultural adaptation
Cultural adaptation has become central in the context of accelerated global change with authors increasingly acknowledging the importance of understanding multilevel processes that operate as adaptation takes place. We explore the importance of multilevel processes in explaining cultural adaptation by describing how processes leading to cultural (mis)adaptation are linked through a complex nested hierarchy, where the lower levels combine into new…
Towards unification of the socio‐ecological sciences
The major environmental problems of the twenty‐first century, including climate change, water scarcity, pollution and resource exhaustion, represent a new category of crisis and highlight the desperate need for an integrated science of socio‐ecological phenomena. To help establish the foundations of such a science, we explore three traditions of mathematical theory: the Lotka–Volterra interactions of ecological theory, niche construction models o…
Ecology and Human Ecology
Ecology has been used frequently by social scientists as a source of theoretical models, and biological ecologists have often applied their theory to human populations. Several problems have attended these cross-disciplinary enterprises, including inappropriate uses of teleological models and a failure by both biologists and social scientists to understand the theoretical implications of culture and technology for ecological models. Attention to …
Cultural transmission and the evolution of cooperative behavior
Anthropological Applications of Optimal Foraging Theory
Recent applications of models of optimal foraging behavior to human foraging economies are summarized and evaluated. These models predict patterns of prey choice, habitat use, time allocation, settlement pattern, and foraging group size that will maximize some objective currency (such as the net rate of energy capture while foraging) under the constraints of resource characteristics and forager capabilities pertaining to a particular situation. I…
Darwinian Selection, Symbolic Variation, and the Evolution of Culture [and Comments and Reply]
Most contemporary models of cultural change are derived from pre-Darwinian, especially Spencerian, sources and are conditioned by such unstated assumptions as typological thinking and a belief in directed, adaptive variation. This paper defends a Darwinian selectionist approach to cultural evolution. Darwinian selectionism requires undirected, heritable variation. Selection acts upon variants that are not preferentially oriented to or generated w…
Biological Anthropology
The Evolution of Ethnic Markers
Culture and the Evolutionary Process
The evolution of indirect reciprocity
Punishment allows the evolution of cooperation (or anything else) in sizable groups
Humans as a Component of the Lake Titicaca Ecosystem
Biodiversity, family income and ecological niche
This study focuses on the diversity of animal food consumed at Búzios Island (São Paulo State, Brazil). Data on diet of 12 randomly chosen families were collected in monthly samples of meals over a period of one year. Simpson indices were calculated for animal foods (as a measure of niche breadth) and for fish catches. We found that, in some months, the animal foods in the diets of families conform to predictions from the ecological theory of nic…
Why does culture increase human adaptability
Can Group-Functional Behaviors Evolve by Cultural Group Selection
Emergency Decisions, Cultural-Selection Mechanics, and Group Selection [and Comments and Reply]
Built for Speed, not for Comfort. Darwinian Theory and Human Culture
Problems With Humans The Early NotebooksDarwin's early M and N notebooks on Man, Mind and Materialism make clear the important place that the human species played in the formation of his ideas on evolution (Barrett, 1974).In 1838 Darwin wrote "Origin of man now proved.Metaphysics must flourish.He who understand baboon would do more toward metaphysics than Locke[.]"These words were written in the heat of Darwin's most creative period, a few weeks …
Culture and Human “Nature”
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Human by Nature
Complex societies
Built for Speed
Was Agriculture Impossible during the Pleistocene but Mandatory during the Holocene? A Climate Change Hypothesis
Several independent trajectories of subsistence intensification, often leading to agriculture, began during the Holocene. No plant-rich intensifications are known from the Pleistocene, even from the late Pleistocene when human populations were otherwise quite sophisticated. Recent data from ice and ocean-core climate proxies show that last glacial climates were extremely hostile to agriculture-dry, low in atmospheric CO2, and extremely variable o…
Shared Norms and the Evolution of Ethnic Markers
Cultural evolution in laboratory microsocieties including traditions of rule giving and rule following
Not By Genes Alone
Humans are a striking anomaly in the natural world. While we are similar to other mammals in many ways, our behavior sets us apart. Our unparalleled ability to adapt has allowed us to occupy virtually every habitat on earth, and our societies are larger, more complex, and more cooperative than any other mammal's. In Not by Genes Alone, Peter J. Richerson and Robert Boyd argue that only a Darwinian theory of cultural evolution can explain these un…
Applying evolutionary models to the laboratory study of social learning
Why Culture Is Common, but Cultural Evolution Is Rare
Cultural variation is common in nature. In creatures as diverse as rats, pigeons, chimpanzees, and octopuses, behavior is acquired through social learning. As a result, the presence of a particular behavior in a population makes it more likely that individuals in the next generation will acquire the same behavior, which, in turn, results in persistent differences between populations that are not due to genetic or environmental differences
Evolutionary Game Theory and Cooperation (37 obras) · Sociology (34 obras) · Biology (31 obras) · Language and cultural evolution (27 obras) · Psychology (24 obras) · Computer Science (19 obras) · Geography (18 obras) · Social Psychology (16 obras) · Ecology (14 obras) · Economics (14 obras)