@ctennie.bsky.social
Uni Tübingen's HUMAN ORIGINS Cluster | Humans, hominins, and apes | Evolution of human cultural evolution -> How did we get from an ape-like social learning baseline to human cultural-learning and -cognition? https://sites.google.com/view/claudiotennie
"projectile method"
I expect an inflow of aquatic ape hypothesis posts coming soon to bsky ;-)
(The finding in seals looks interesting)
By the sounds of it, some wanna solve the "correspondence problem" by many 1st-person perspective video: bsky.app/profile/hype...
Seeing how, in reality, "simple" actions are hard, imagine how much harder is to "simply" copy them. Such copying is a special thing, and doesn't come easy (and involves many other things, too).
Our new Tübingen research cluster 'HUMAN ORIGINS' is now on bsky: @humanorigins.bsky.social
Thanks, Ac. Yes agreed to Trento (shame on me for not having managed to visit yet) and also on need for pluralistic accounts.
I just don't get why B&A must bedevil *any* copying so much.
("*nor* its frequent" - sorry for all the typos, it was late)
It can still be true that many things that dual inheritance frameworks (and similar) claim (or imply) are copied are not copied as wholes. This does not automatically negate the need for copying on sub-levels. And it does neither negate the reality of copying not its frequent necessity.
All in all, its a well-written reply, but I still fear that the authors empty the baby with the bathwater.
Yet, I find all this informative. B&A seem genuine in their reply, and kudos to them - they clearly worked hard on this, and it shows.
Maybe the main issue is as follows...
Ok, really getting sleepy here, so I need to wrap this up, skipping section 3.4 (on Jared Diamond and @joehenrich.bsky.social etc.)..
"As a result, new forms grow out of old ones,
producing gradual divergence and tree-like patterns even in the absence of faithful transmission. " How? How would I build in this way on past language, absent copying the words from that language? How?
"In language, ....every innovation must remain compatible with existing conventions to be intelligible or functional." True(ish).
B&A now argue that words are not copied, but derive from constraints. I really really think this is misguided (note that I asked Sperber once if he thinks at least that words are copied. He said yes...)
Next, path-dependency and cultural diversity. "Crucially, the continuity of linguistic conventions is not the result of
a collective intention to preserve or transmit a language system." Seems like a strawman. Again, there need not be a need to intend to copy to copy.
Maybe B&A refer to my sub-comment on the perished suicide cult leaders? If so, they do not explain these cases with inclusive fitness here.
"Some commentators (Egeland, 2025; Gallyamova & Grigoryev, 2025; Sterelny, 2025; Tennie, 2025) question whether evolutionary theory—and in particular the inclusive fitness framework—can truly account for altruism and cooperation." I do not recall phrasing it like that (though am too tired to look)
B&A go on to discuss different views on normatitity and altruism ((and I am sadly running out of steam, its nearly midnight))
"humans construct institutions,
schools, and rituals that stabilize cooperation or teach norms" Agreed. Re: rituals - as Carel van Schaik and I argued, rituals typically require copying: doi.org/10.1098/rstb... . I would add now that they require copying on some level, maybe not all.
B&A also explain that teaching is more than just pushed replication. It has bells and whistles of various sorts. True, but it has long been known that teaching comes in various forms (e.g. www.cell.com/trends/ecolo...
It seems this section is another example of the granularity-mismatch....
"Similarly, human communication, like animal communication, is fundamentally about changing the behaviors of others rather than replicating mental content" This may be, but no full-blown language can exist absent replication of words or word-equvalents (special gestures etc.)
B&A now show that such goals are frequently absent in animal communication. Not sure why this is relevant (also because know-how copying is rare in animals, even in the communication domain, where it is "least rare", so to say)
B&A raise the question whether teachers have the goal to induce copies in learners (I paraphrased this). They do not explain why this needs to be assumed. Mothers speaking to their children may not need the goal to transmit language, to achieve just this.
B&A: "Cultural transmission is best seen as a case of ecological modifications" This is a headline. Let's see whats under it.
We now turn to the commentators who question the empirical power of B&A's approach.
B&A now engage with a revival of the Spandrel debate...and reiterate the usefulness of the concept of inclusive fitness.
I haste to add: I would not say that human culture as a whole is best described as mind viruses. But some may exist.
B&A then describe several examples of what might be perceived as mind-viruses, but are (acc. to them) better explained as exploitation by humans.
B&A fail to respond to the part of my comment (2025) that states that suicide cults with self-killing leaders are not neatly explained by this approach
Yet, note that that, earlier, B&A claimed that only genes truly have interests...so, if humans can have interests, too (which I agree with), then there are already *several* levels of interests at play. Why are B&A against adding cultural ones, in principle?
