Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-jkksz Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T19:35:48.189Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Mills made of grist, and other interesting ideas in need of clarification

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 September 2019

Paul E. Smaldino
Affiliation:
Department of Cognitive and Information Sciences, University of California, Merced, CA 95340. [email protected]@ucmerced.eduhttp://smaldino.com
Michael J. Spivey
Affiliation:
Department of Cognitive and Information Sciences, University of California, Merced, CA 95340. [email protected]@ucmerced.eduhttp://smaldino.com

Abstract

Heyes’ book is an important contribution that rightly integrates cognitive development and cultural evolution. However, understanding the cultural evolution of cognitive gadgets requires a deeper appreciation of complexity, feedback, and self-organization than her book exhibits.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2019 

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.)

References

Bicchieri, C. (2006) The grammar of society. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Boyd, R. & Richerson, P. J. (2002) Group beneficial norms can spread rapidly in a structured population. Journal of Theoretical Biology 215:287–96.Google Scholar
Caporael, L. (2003) Repeated assembly. In: Evolutionary psychology: Alternative approaches, ed. Scher, S. J. & Rauscher, F., pp. 7189. Kluwer Academic.Google Scholar
Caporael, L. R., Griesemer, J. R. & Wimsatt, W. C. (2013) Developing scaffolds in evolution, culture, and cognition. MIT Press.Google Scholar
Centola, D. (2018) How behavior spreads: The science of complex contagions. Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Clark, A. (2008) Supersizing the mind: Embodiment, action, and cognitive extension. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Elman, J. L., Bates, E. A., Johnson, M. H., Karmiloff-Smith, A., Parisi, D. & Plunkett, K. (1996) Rethinking innateness: A connectionist perspective on development. MIT Press.Google Scholar
Henrich, J. (2004a) Cultural group selection, coevolutionary processes and large-scale cooperation. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization 53(1):335.Google Scholar
Henrich, J., Heine, S. J., & Norenzayan, A. (2010) The weirdest people in the world? Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 33(2–3), 61135. Available at: http://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X0999152X.Google Scholar
Heyes, C. (2018) Cognitive gadgets: The cultural evolution of thinking. Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Karmiloff-Smith, A. (1994) Précis of beyond modularity: A developmental perspective on cognitive science. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 17(4):693707.Google Scholar
Kauffman, S. A. (1993) The origins of order: Self-organization and selection in evolution. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Kendal, J. R. (2011) Cultural niche construction and human learning environments: Investigating sociocultural perspectives. Biological Theory 6(3):241–50.Google Scholar
Kirby, S. (2017) Culture and biology in the origins of linguistic structure. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review 24(1):118–37.Google Scholar
Kirby, S., Cornish, H. & Smith, K. (2008) Cumulative cultural evolution in the laboratory: An experimental approach to the origins of structure in human language. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 105(31):10681–86.Google Scholar
Laland, K. N. & O'Brien, M. J. (2011) Cultural niche construction: An introduction. Biological Theory 6(3):191202.Google Scholar
Moll, H. & Tomasello, M. (2007) Cooperation and human cognition: The Vygotskian intelligence hypothesis. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 362(1480):639–48.Google Scholar
Nisbett, R. E. & Miyamoto, Y. (2005) The influence of culture: Holistic versus analytic perception. Trends in Cognitive Sciences 9(10):467–73.Google Scholar
Nisbett, R. E., Peng, K., Choi, I. & Norenzayan, A. (2001) Culture and systems of thought: Holistic versus analytic cognition. Psychological Review 108(2):291310.Google Scholar
Okasha, S. (2009) Evolution and the levels of selection. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Richerson, P., Baldini, R., Bell, A. V., Demps, K., Frost, K., Hillis, V., Mathew, S., Newton, E. K., Naar, N., Newson, L., Ross, C., Smaldino, P. E., Waring, T. M. & Zefferman, M. (2016) Cultural group selection plays an essential role in explaining human cooperation: A sketch of the evidence. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 39:e30.Google Scholar
Seidenberg, M. (2017) Language at the speed of sight: How we read, why so many can't, and what can be done about it. Basic Books.Google Scholar
Smaldino, P. E. (2014) The cultural evolution of emergent group-level traits. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 37:243295.Google Scholar
Smith, K. & Kirby, S. (2008) Cultural evolution: Implications for understanding the human language faculty and its evolution. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 363(1509):35913603.Google Scholar
Sperber, D. (1996) Explaining culture: A naturalistic approach. Blackwell Publishers.Google Scholar
Spivey, M. & Richardson, D. (2009) Language processing embodied and embedded. In: The Cambridge handbook of situated cognition, ed. Robbins, P. and Aydede, M., pp. 382400. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Thompson, D. W. (1942) On growth and form. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Tomasello, M. & Gonzalez-Cabrera, I. (2017) The role of ontogeny in the evolution of human cooperation. Human Nature 28(3):274288.Google Scholar
Tomasello, M., Melis, A. P., Tennie, C., Wyman, E. & Herrmann, E. (2012) Two key steps in the evolution of human cooperation: The interdependence hypothesis. Current Anthropology 53(6):673–92.Google Scholar
Wilson, D. S. (2002) Darwin's cathedral: Evolution, religion, and the nature of society. University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Wimsatt, W. C. (1974) Complexity and organization. In: PSA 1972, ed. Schaffner, K. & Cohen, R. S., pp. 6786. Philosophy of Science Association.Google Scholar
Zefferman, M. R. & Mathew, S. (2015) An evolutionary theory of large-scale human warfare: Group-structured cultural selection. Evolutionary Anthropology 24(2):5061.Google Scholar