Cover not available
Part of
Controversies and Interdisciplinarity: Beyond disciplinary fragmentation for a new knowledge model
Edited by Jens Allwood, Olga Pombo, Clara Renna and Giovanni Scarafile
[Controversies 16] 2020
► pp. 133–154

Chapter 7
Human evolution

A role for culture?

| University of Brasília
This paper presents a range of approaches going from the complete rejection of any role culture could have played in human evolution, to the other extreme in the range in which the very dichotomy between nature and culture is rejected. We will also go through middle-range standpoints, such as that of gene-culture coevolution theorists, that attach to culture a central role in human evolution. The clash between these approaches is still going on in the contemporary scene, with implications for the way boundaries are set inside disciplines such as Anthropology, as well as for conceiving how it is related to Psychology and Biology, among other disciplines. We will show that some debates in the Philosophy of Biology, concerning an extension of the neo-Darwinian theory of evolution, have contributed to clarify the issues, and have been followed by some anthropologists who are also concerned by the way human development and evolution are separately addressed in orthodox approaches.
Keywords: nature/nurture dichotomy, polemical exchanges, interdisciplinarity, human evolution, critical point theory, gene-culture coevolution, dual inheritance theory, biosocial evolution, developmental systems theory
Article outline
  • Dichotomization
    • 1.Culture as superorganic
      • Concepts of culture
  • De-dichotomization
    • 2.Gene-culture coevolution
    • 3.Biosocial evolution
      • Philosophers of Biology are implicated in the debate
      • Final remarks
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 15 October 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/cvs.16.07abr
References (53)
References
Abrantes, P. (2013). Human evolution and transitions in individuality. Contrastes. [Suplemento: Filosofía actual de la biología. Antonio Dieguez y Vicente Claramonte (Eds.)], xviii, 203–220.Google Scholar
(2014). Natureza e Cultura. Ciência & Ambiente, 48, 7–21.Google Scholar
Bernal, C.; Abrantes, P. (2018). Imágenes en la explicación del comportamiento prosocial humano y su evolución. Revista Colombiana de Filosofía de la Ciencia, 18 (37), 227–260. [URL]Google Scholar
Bloch, M. (2012). Anthropology and the cognitive challenge. Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bowler, P. (1983). The eclipse of Darwinism. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Boyd, R.; Richerson, P. (1985). Culture and the evolutionary process. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Buckley, T. (1996). The little history of pitiful events In: Stocking (Ed.), Volksgeist as Method and Ethic: Essays on Boasian Ethnography and the German Anthropological Tradition [History of Anthropology, v. 8] (pp. 257–296). Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press.Google Scholar
Dascal, M. (2008). Dichotomies and types of debate. In van Eemeren, F. H., & Garssen, B. (Eds.), Controversy and Confrontation: Relating Controversy Analysis with Argumentation Theory (pp. 27–49). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(1998). Types of polemics and types of polemical moves. In Cmejrkova, S., & Hoffmannova, J., & Mullerova, O., & Svetla, J. (Eds.), Dialogue Analysis VI [Proceedings of the 6th Conference, Prague 1996], 1 (pp. 15–33). Tubingen: Max Niemeyer.
Degler, C. (1991). In search of human nature: the decline and revival of Darwinism in American Social Thought. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Dunbar, R. (1996). How not to do biology. Cultural Dynamics, 8(3), 363–369. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Durham, W. (1991). Coevolution: genes, culture and human diversity. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Foley, R. (2005). Unknown Boundaries: exploring human evolutionary studies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Fuentes, A. (2007). Biological anthropology: concepts and connections. New York: McGraw-Hill.Google Scholar
(2013). Blurring the biological and social in human becomings. In Ingold, I., & Palsson, G. (Eds.), Biosocial becomings (pp. 42–58). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2016). The Extended Evolutionary Synthesis, Ethnography, and the Human Niche: Toward an Integrated Anthropology. Current Anthropology, 57(13), S13–S26. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Geertz, C. (1964). The transition to humanity. In Tax, S. (Ed.), Horizons of Anthropology (pp. 37–48). Chicago: Aldine.Google Scholar
(1973). The interpretation of cultures. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Godfrey-Smith, P. (2001). On the status and explanatory structure of developmental systems theory. In Oyama, S., & Griffiths, P., & Gray, R. D. (Eds.), Cycles of contingency: developmental systems and evolution (pp. 283–297). Cambridge (MA): The MIT Press.Google Scholar
Gould, S. J., & Lewontin, R. (1979). The spandrels of San Marco and the Panglossian paradigm: A critique of the adaptationist programme. Proceedings of the Royal Society: Biological Sciences, 205, 581–598.Google Scholar
Griffiths, P., & Gray, R. (1988). Developmental systems and evolutionary explanation. In Hull, D., & Ruse, M. (Eds.) The Philosophy of Biology (pp. 117–145). Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
(2005). Discussion: Three ways to misunderstand developmental systems theory. Biology and Philosophy, 20, 417–425. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ingold, T. (1986). Evolution and Social Life. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
(1994). Introduction to humanity. In Ingold, T. (Ed.), Companion Encyclopedia of Anthropology (pp. 3–13). Londres: Routledge.Google Scholar
(1996). Why four why’s? A response to my critics. Cultural Dynamics, 8(3), 377–86. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2000a). ‘People Like Us’: the concept of the anatomically modern human. In Ingold, T. The perception of the environment. Essays on livelihood, dwelling and skill (pp. 373–91). London and New York: Routledge. [Published originally in Cultural Dynamics, (1995)].Google Scholar
(2000b). From complementarity to obviation: on dissolving the boundaries between social and biological anthropology, archaeology and psychology. In Oyama, S., & Griffiths, P., & Gray, R. (Eds.), Cycles of contingency: developmental systems and evolution (pp. 255–279). Cambridge (MA): MIT Press. [Published originally in Zeitschrift für Ethnologie, 1998].Google Scholar
(2001). From the transmission of representation to the education of attention. In: Whitehouse, H. (Ed.), The debated mind: evolutionary psychology versus etnography (pp. 113–153). Oxford: Berg.Google Scholar
(2004). Beyond biology and culture. The meaning of evolution in a relational world. Social Anthropology, 12(2), 209–221. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2007). The trouble with ‘evolutionary biology’. Anthropology today, 23(2),13–17. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2008). When biology goes underground. Genomics, Society and Policy, 4(1), 23–37. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2013). Prospect. In Ingold, T., & Palsson, G. (Eds.) Biosocial becomings (pp. 1–21). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2014). A life in books. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 20(1), 157–159. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2016). Interview with Tim Ingold. In Fuentes, A., & Visala, A. Conversations on human nature (pp. 105–116). Walnut Creek (CA): Left Coast Press.Google Scholar
Jablonka, E., & Lamb, M. J. (2006). Evolution in four dimensions. Cambridge (MA): The MIT Press.Google Scholar
Keesing, R. (1974). Theories of culture. Annu. Rev. Anthropol. 3, 73–97. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kroeber, A. (1917). The superorganic. American Anthropology, 19(2), 163–213. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kroeber, A., & Kluckhohn, C. (1952). Culture: a critical review of concepts and definitions. Cambridge (MA), Peabody Museum.Google Scholar
Krohs, U. (2006). Philosophies of particular biological research programs. Biological Theory, 1(2), 182–187. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Laland, K., & Brown, G. (2002). Sense and nonsense: evolutionary perspectives on human behaviour. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Laland, K., & Odling-Smee, F. J., & Feldman, M. (2000). Niche construction, biological evolution and cultural change. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 23, 131–175. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Laland, K., & Odling-Smee, F. J., & Myles, S. (2010). How culture shaped the human genome: bringing genetics and the human sciences together. Nature reviews-Genetics, 11, 137–148. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Mameli, M. (2004). Nongenetic selection and nongenetic inheritance. Brit. J. Phil. Sci., 55, 35–71. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Odling-Smee, F. J., & Laland, K., & Feldman, M. (2003). Niche construction: the neglected process in evolution. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Oyama, S. (1996). On the concept of the anatomically modern human: a discussion on Tim Ingold’s ‘People like us’ (1995): Human History, History or history? Cultural Dynamics, 8, 353–361. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2000). The Ontogeny of Information: Developmental Systems and Evolution. Durham: Duke University Press. [Published originally in 1985]. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2003). On having a hammer. In Weber, B., & Depew, D. (Eds.), Evolution and learning: the Baldwin effect reconsidered (pp. 169–191). Cambridge (MA): The MIT Press.Google Scholar
Pigliucci, M., & Müller, G. (Eds.). (2010). Evolution: the extended synthesis. Cambridge (MA): The MIT Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Richerson, P.; Boyd, R. (2002). Culture is Part of Human Biology: Why the Superorganic Concept Serves the Human Sciences Badly. In Goodman, M., & Moffat, A. Probing human origins (pp. 59–85). Cambridge (MA): The American Academy of Arts and Sciences. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Richerson, P., & Boyd, R. (2005). Not by genes alone: how culture transformed human evolution. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Segerstråle, U. (2001). Defenders of the truth: the sociobiology debate. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Sterelny, D., & Griffiths, P. (1999). Sex and Death. An introduction to philosophy of biology. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Stocking Jr., G. W. (1991). Victorian anthropology. New York: The Free Press.Google Scholar