Hostname: page-component-f554764f5-nqxm9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-04-21T01:06:19.208Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Historical myths define group boundaries: A mathematical sketch and evidence from Ukraine

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2025

Matthew R. Zefferman  and
Paul E. Smaldino Open the ORCID record for Paul E. Smaldino [Opens in a new window]
Matthew R. Zefferman
Affiliation:
Department of Defense Analysis, Naval Postgraduate School, Monterrey, CA, USA [email protected] https://zefferman.com Institute of Human Origins, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA
Paul E. Smaldino*
Affiliation:
Department of Cognitive and Information Sciences, University of California, Merced, CA, USA [email protected] https://smaldino.com Santa Fe Institute, Santa Fe, NM, USA
*
*Corresponding author.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The authors' proposal for the evolutionary origins of historical myths does not hold up to scrutiny, as illustrated by a simple mathematical model. Group-level explanations, such as defining the conditions for in-group membership, are dismissed by the authors but are far more plausible, as illustrated by the ongoing war in Ukraine.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 47 , 2024 , e196
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2025. Published by Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Atlantic Council. (2023). Our experts decode the Putin speech that launched Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Atlantic Council Blog. https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/new-atlanticist/markup/putin-speech-ukraine-war/ Last accessed 13 May 2024.Google Scholar
Bell, A. V., Richerson, P. J., & McElreath, R. (2009). Culture rather than genes provides greater scope for the evolution of large-scale human prosociality. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 106(42), 17671–17674.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Handley, C., & Mathew, S. (2020). Human large-scale cooperation as a product of competition between cultural groups. Nature Communications, 11(1), 1–9.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Henrich, J. (2004). Cultural group selection, coevolutionary processes and large-scale cooperation. Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, 53(1), 3–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Henrich, J., & Muthukrishna, M. (2021). The origins and psychology of human cooperation. Annual Review of Psychology, 72(2021), 207–240.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Richerson, P., Baldini, R., Bell, A. V., Demps, K., Frost, K., Hillis, V., … Waring, T. M. (2016). Cultural group selection plays an essential role in explaining human cooperation: A sketch of the evidence. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 39, e30.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Sergeytsev, T. (2022). What should Russia do with Ukraine? [Translation of a propaganda article by a Russian publication]. Medium. Translated by Mariia Kravchenko. https://medium.com/@kravchenko mm/what-shouldrussia-do-with-ukraine-translation-of-a-propaganda-article-by-a-russian-journalist-a3e92e3cb64 Last accessed: 13 May 2024.Google Scholar
Smaldino, P. E. (2014). The cultural evolution of emergent group-level traits. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 37, 243–295.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Snyder, T. (2022). Russia's genocide handbook. Substack. https://snyder.substack.com/p/russias-genocide-handbook Last accessed: 13 May 2024.Google Scholar
Stanley, J. (2022). The genocidal identity. Project Syndecate. https://www.project-syndicate.org/onpoint/russiagenocide-in-ukraine-forms-new-national-identity-by-jason-stanley-2022-04 Last Accessed: 12 May 2024.Google Scholar
Zefferman, M. R., & Mathew, S. (2015). An evolutionary theory of large-scale human warfare: Group-structured cultural selection. Evolutionary Anthropology, 24(2), 50–61.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed