Read Books Online and Download eBooks, EPub, PDF, Mobi, Kindle, Text Full Free.
A Theory Of Cultural Genetics
Download A Theory Of Cultural Genetics full books in PDF, epub, and Kindle. Read online A Theory Of Cultural Genetics ebook anywhere anytime directly on your device. Fast Download speed and no annoying ads. We cannot guarantee that every ebooks is available!
Book Synopsis Historico-genetic Theory of Culture by : Günter Dux
Download or read book Historico-genetic Theory of Culture written by Günter Dux and published by transcript Verlag. This book was released on 2014-03-31 with total page 415 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The book focuses on the modern understanding of human life-forms as constructs that followed an evolutionary history. The author thus finds science confronted with two questions: firstly, how the transgression of the virtual threshold between natural and cultural history was possible, secondly, how the socio-cultural constructs were able to develop in the course of history the way they did. The discussion concentrates on the problem of determining a processual logic in the development of societal structures as well as in the development of cognition. The focus of attention is the historico-genetic reconstruction of cognition. The book was originally published in German as »Historisch-genetische Theorie der Kultur« (Weilerswist 2000: Velbrück).
Book Synopsis Not By Genes Alone by : Peter J. Richerson
Download or read book Not By Genes Alone written by Peter J. Richerson and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2008-06-20 with total page 343 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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 using an incredible variety of tools and subsistence techniques. Our societies are larger, more complex, and more cooperative than any other mammal's. In this stunning exploration of human adaptation, Peter J. Richerson and Robert Boyd argue that only a Darwinian theory of cultural evolution can explain these unique characteristics. Not by Genes Alone offers a radical interpretation of human evolution, arguing that our ecological dominance and our singular social systems stem from a psychology uniquely adapted to create complex culture. Richerson and Boyd illustrate here that culture is neither superorganic nor the handmaiden of the genes. Rather, it is essential to human adaptation, as much a part of human biology as bipedal locomotion. Drawing on work in the fields of anthropology, political science, sociology, and economics—and building their case with such fascinating examples as kayaks, corporations, clever knots, and yams that require twelve men to carry them—Richerson and Boyd convincingly demonstrate that culture and biology are inextricably linked, and they show us how to think about their interaction in a way that yields a richer understanding of human nature. In abandoning the nature-versus-nurture debate as fundamentally misconceived, Not by Genes Alone is a truly original and groundbreaking theory of the role of culture in evolution and a book to be reckoned with for generations to come. “I continue to be surprised by the number of educated people (many of them biologists) who think that offering explanations for human behavior in terms of culture somehow disproves the suggestion that human behavior can be explained in Darwinian evolutionary terms. Fortunately, we now have a book to which they may be directed for enlightenment . . . . It is a book full of good sense and the kinds of intellectual rigor and clarity of writing that we have come to expect from the Boyd/Richerson stable.”—Robin Dunbar, Nature “Not by Genes Alone is a valuable and very readable synthesis of a still embryonic but very important subject straddling the sciences and humanities.”—E. O. Wilson, Harvard University
Download or read book Mixed Messages written by Robert A. Paul and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2015-04-24 with total page 364 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nearly everyone would agree that humans and their societies evolved by natural selection, that humans are biologically a single species but societies vary greatly, and neither genetic inheritance nor cultural inheritance alone can fully explain humans and their social systems. While there is a literature that addresses dual inheritance theory or the coevolution of culture and genetics, almost all of it is written from a perspective that accepts the neo-Darwinian evolutionary framework but does not give proper weight to social and cultural theory as it has been developed by cultural anthropologists. At the same time, cultural anthropologists have ignored the question of dual inheritance altogether, leaving the theorizing of how it works almost exclusively in the hands of those with a strong biological viewpoint. In this book anthropologist and psychoanalyst Robert Paul attempts to reconcile evolutionary and cultural approaches in anthropology through a comparative ethnographic exploration of how humans receive behavioral instructions from two separate channelsthe genetic code carried in the DNA and the symbolic systems that constitute culture. He develops a dual inheritance model that aims to do justice to both the genetic and cultural channels of inheritance. Paul elaborates his model of the relationship between genes and cultural symbols and then shows how it can make sense of both the similarities and variations found in human social life as captured in the now very extensive ethnographic record. He argues that cultural systems evolve to manage intra-group competition that would ensue from the genetic program pursuing its interests. The book uses thick descriptions and heavy interpretations from the ethnographic record to demonstrate how different societies tackle this challenge. The book fills a niche, connecting the dual-inheritance literature and symbolic cultural anthropology, using insights from the former to detect patterns in the latter. This is a rare and well-researched project, and should receive a broad readership among biological and cultural anthropologists, and students of human nature more broadly."
Book Synopsis Cultural Evolution by : Alex Mesoudi
Download or read book Cultural Evolution written by Alex Mesoudi and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2011-07-30 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Charles Darwin changed the course of scientific thinking by showing how evolution accounts for the stunning diversity and biological complexity of life on earth. Recently, there has also been increased interest in the social sciences in how Darwinian theory can explain human culture. Covering a wide range of topics, including fads, public policy, the spread of religion, and herd behavior in markets, Alex Mesoudi shows that human culture is itself an evolutionary process that exhibits the key Darwinian mechanisms of variation, competition, and inheritance. This cross-disciplinary volume focuses on the ways cultural phenomena can be studied scientifically—from theoretical modeling to lab experiments, archaeological fieldwork to ethnographic studies—and shows how apparently disparate methods can complement one another to the mutual benefit of the various social science disciplines. Along the way, the book reveals how new insights arise from looking at culture from an evolutionary angle. Cultural Evolution provides a thought-provoking argument that Darwinian evolutionary theory can both unify different branches of inquiry and enhance understanding of human behavior.
Book Synopsis In the Light of Evolution by : National Academy of Sciences
Download or read book In the Light of Evolution written by National Academy of Sciences and published by Sackler Colloquium. This book was released on 2007 with total page 388 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Arthur M. Sackler Colloquia of the National Academy of Sciences address scientific topics of broad and current interest, cutting across the boundaries of traditional disciplines. Each year, four or five such colloquia are scheduled, typically two days in length and international in scope. Colloquia are organized by a member of the Academy, often with the assistance of an organizing committee, and feature presentations by leading scientists in the field and discussions with a hundred or more researchers with an interest in the topic. Colloquia presentations are recorded and posted on the National Academy of Sciences Sackler colloquia website and published on CD-ROM. These Colloquia are made possible by a generous gift from Mrs. Jill Sackler, in memory of her husband, Arthur M. Sackler.
Book Synopsis Culture and the Evolutionary Process by : Robert Boyd
Download or read book Culture and the Evolutionary Process written by Robert Boyd and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 1988-06-15 with total page 339 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How do biological, psychological, sociological, and cultural factors combine to change societies over the long run? Boyd and Richerson explore how genetic and cultural factors interact, under the influence of evolutionary forces, to produce the diversity we see in human cultures. Using methods developed by population biologists, they propose a theory of cultural evolution that is an original and fair-minded alternative to the sociobiology debate.
Book Synopsis Genes, Mind, and Culture by : Charles J Lumsden
Download or read book Genes, Mind, and Culture written by Charles J Lumsden and published by World Scientific. This book was released on 2005-08-11 with total page 496 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Long considered one of the most provocative and demanding major works on human sociobiology, Genes, Mind, and Culture introduces the concept of gene-culture coevolution. It has been out of print for several years, and in this volume Lumsden and Wilson provide a much needed facsimile edition of their original work, together with a major review of progress in the discipline during the ensuing quarter century. They argue compellingly that human nature is neither arbitrary nor predetermined, and identify mechanisms that energize the upward translation from genes to culture. The authors also assess the properties of genetic evolution of mind within emergent cultural patterns. Lumsden and Wilson explore the rich and sophisticated data of developmental psychology and cognitive science in a fashion that, for the first time, aligns these disciplines with human sociobiology. The authors also draw on population genetics, cultural anthropology, and mathematical physics to set human sociobiology on a predictive base, and so trace the main steps that lead from the genes through human consciousness to culture. Contents:The Next Synthesis: 25 Years of Genes, Mind, and CultureThe Primary Epigenetic RulesThe Secondary Epigenetic RulesGene-Culture TranslationThe Gene-Culture Adaptive LandscapeThe Coevolutionary CircuitThe Biogeography of the MindGene-Culture Coevolution and Social Theory Readership: For the biological and social scientists, as well as applied mathematicians, philosophers, and historians of science, the book will indeed interest and be accessible to researchers, academics and lecturers. Keywords:Genes;Genome;Mind;Culture;Sociobiology;Meme;Consilience;Holism;Consciousness;Development;Epigenesis;Epigenetic;Emergence;Social Physics;Evolution;Darwin;Nonlinear Dynamics;Complexity;ChaosKey Features:Presents a richly multidisciplinary subject matter that appeal to academic readers in the biological, social, and mathematical sciences, as well as in philosophy and the history of scienceEach chapter is organized in a way that non-mathematical readers can assess the key arguments and results while reserving the mathematical sections for future studyExtensive use of diagrams and graphics supplement each chapter's text and mathematical developmentsA Glossary section makes the book's technical vocabulary instantly accessible at any point in the text
Book Synopsis Introduction to the General Theory of Cultural Genetics by : F. Deniz Şar
Download or read book Introduction to the General Theory of Cultural Genetics written by F. Deniz Şar and published by . This book was released on 2003 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Deniz Sar's General Theory of Cultural Genetics defines Culture as a strictly mathematical and algorithmic expression, that yields one of the most formidable competitive weapons of the world in the history of mankind. The General Theory of Cultural Genetics postulated by Mr. Deniz Sar as early as 1999 in United States, mathematically describes what cultures are made of, their constitution, how they behave and how they can be used as an intelligent competitive weapon of unsurpassed effectiveness and power. All corporate entities, institutions and nations are nothing but Complex Cultural Systems, that meticulously obey the laws and principles of the General Theory of Cultural Genetics introduced in this book, which is nothing less than the first and the only General Theory on Cultural Genetics in the world. The book presents a fascinating combination of advanced knowledge from various fields such as calculus, physics, thermodynamics, cybernetics, systems-engineering, biology, genetics, psychology, psychoanalysis, business, economics, anthropology and military sciences, blended with a decades-long, unique and highest level business experience in various different countries, cultures and industries, yielding the first and the only General Theory on this science of sciences, on Cultural Genetics. It presents a first in the history of mankind.
Book Synopsis Cultural Evolution by : Peter J. Richerson
Download or read book Cultural Evolution written by Peter J. Richerson and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2024-04-30 with total page 499 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Leading scholars report on current research that demonstrates the central role of cultural evolution in explaining human behavior. 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 studies, history, and economics come together to explore the central role of cultural evolution in different aspects of human endeavor. The contributors take as their guiding principle the idea that cultural evolution can provide an important integrating function across the various disciplines of the human sciences, as organic evolution does for biology. The benefits of adopting a cultural evolutionary perspective are demonstrated by contributions on social systems, technology, language, and religion. Topics covered include enforcement of norms in human groups, the neuroscience of technology, language diversity, and prosociality and religion. The contributors evaluate current research on cultural evolution and consider its broader theoretical and practical implications, synthesizing past and ongoing work and sketching a roadmap for future cross-disciplinary efforts. Contributors Quentin D. Atkinson, Andrea Baronchelli, Robert Boyd, Briggs Buchanan, Joseph Bulbulia, Morten H. Christiansen, Emma Cohen, William Croft, Michael Cysouw, Dan Dediu, Nicholas Evans, Emma Flynn, Pieter François, Simon Garrod, Armin W. Geertz, Herbert Gintis, Russell D. Gray, Simon J. Greenhill, Daniel B. M. Haun, Joseph Henrich, Daniel J. Hruschka, Marco A. Janssen, Fiona M. Jordan, Anne Kandler, James A. Kitts, Kevin N. Laland, Laurent Lehmann, Stephen C. Levinson, Elena Lieven, Sarah Mathew, Robert N. McCauley, Alex Mesoudi, Ara Norenzayan, Harriet Over, Jürgen Renn, Victoria Reyes-García, Peter J. Richerson, Stephen Shennan, Edward G. Slingerland, Dietrich Stout, Claudio Tennie, Peter Turchin, Carel van Schaik, Matthijs Van Veelen, Harvey Whitehouse, Thomas Widlok, Polly Wiessner, David Sloan Wilson
Download or read book Culture Evolves written by Andrew Whiten and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2012 with total page 472 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Culture shapes vast swathes of our lives and has allowed the human species to dominate the planet in an evolutionarily unique way. This book is unique in focusing on the evolutionary continuities in culture, providing an interdisciplinary exploration of culture, written by leading authorities from the biological and cognitive sciences.
Book Synopsis The Nature of Cultures by : Heiner Mühlmann
Download or read book The Nature of Cultures written by Heiner Mühlmann and published by Springer. This book was released on 1996-05-24 with total page 156 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How do stress behaviour, cooperation and the cultural evaluation of rules create cultural characteristics such as the two-thousand year old system of decorum and the principle of the sublime? Muhlmann describes how maximal-stress-cooperation (MSC) linked to the dynamics of warfare generates the cultural phenomenon of rule-adjustment-decorum, rule-adjustment being a discovery made while experimenting on Artificial Life. Using molecular and culture genetic as well as genetical algorithm methods, he proposes an evolutionary theory for Western culture.
Book Synopsis Anthropological Genetics by : Michael H. Crawford
Download or read book Anthropological Genetics written by Michael H. Crawford and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2007 with total page 492 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Volume detailing the effects of the molecular revolution on anthropological genetics and how it redefined the field.
Book Synopsis A Theory of Cultural Genetics by : Bernard Willard Aginsky
Download or read book A Theory of Cultural Genetics written by Bernard Willard Aginsky and published by . This book was released on 1955 with total page 329 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Book Synopsis The Selfish Gene by : Richard Dawkins
Download or read book The Selfish Gene written by Richard Dawkins and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 1989 with total page 372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Science need not be dull and bogged down by jargon, as Richard Dawkins proves in this entertaining look at evolution. The themes he takes up are the concepts of altruistic and selfish behaviour; the genetical definition of selfish interest; the evolution of aggressive behaviour; kinshiptheory; sex ratio theory; reciprocal altruism; deceit; and the natural selection of sex differences. 'Should be read, can be read by almost anyone. It describes with great skill a new face of the theory of evolution.' W.D. Hamilton, Science
Download or read book Coevolution written by William H. Durham and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 1991 with total page 658 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Charles Darwin's "On the Origins of Species" had two principal goals: to show that species had not been separately created and to show that natural selection had been the main force behind their proliferation and descent from common ancestors. In "Coevolution," the author proposes a powerful new theory of cultural evolution--that is, of the descent with modification of the shared conceptual systems we call "cultures"--that is parallel in many ways to Darwin's theory of organic evolution. The author suggests that a process of cultural selection, or preservation by preference, driven chiefly by choice or imposition depending on the circumstances, has been the main but not exclusive force of cultural change. He shows that this process gives rise to five major patterns or "modes" in which cultural change is at odds with genetic change. Each of the five modes is discussed in some detail and its existence confirmed through one or more case studies chosen for their heuristic value, the robustness of their data, and their broader implications. But "Coevolution" predicts not simply the existence of the five modes of gene-culture relations; it also predicts their relative importance in the ongoing dynamics of cultural change in particular cases. The case studies themselves are lucid and innovative reexaminations of an array of oft-pondered anthropological topics--plural marriage, sickle-cell anemia, basic color terms, adult lactose absorption, incest taboos, headhunting, and cannibalism. In a general case, the author's goal is to demonstrate that an evolutionary analysis of both genes and culture has much to contribute to our understanding of human diversity, particularly behavioral diversity, and thus to the resolution of age-old questions about nature and nurture, genes and culture.
Book Synopsis Wired for Culture: Origins of the Human Social Mind by : Mark Pagel
Download or read book Wired for Culture: Origins of the Human Social Mind written by Mark Pagel and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2012-02-07 with total page 431 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A fascinating, far-reaching study of how our species' innate capacity for culture altered the course of our social and evolutionary history. A unique trait of the human species is that our personalities, lifestyles, and worldviews are shaped by an accident of birth—namely, the culture into which we are born. It is our cultures and not our genes that determine which foods we eat, which languages we speak, which people we love and marry, and which people we kill in war. But how did our species develop a mind that is hardwired for culture—and why? Evolutionary biologist Mark Pagel tracks this intriguing question through the last 80,000 years of human evolution, revealing how an innate propensity to contribute and conform to the culture of our birth not only enabled human survival and progress in the past but also continues to influence our behavior today. Shedding light on our species’ defining attributes—from art, morality, and altruism to self-interest, deception, and prejudice—Wired for Culture offers surprising new insights into what it means to be human.
Book Synopsis The Evolution of Culture by : Stefan Linquist
Download or read book The Evolution of Culture written by Stefan Linquist and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-03-02 with total page 659 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Recent years have seen a transformation in thinking about the nature of culture. Rather than viewing culture in opposition to biology, a growing number of researchers now regard culture as subject to evolutionary processes. Recent developments in this field have shifted some of the traditional academic fault lines. Alliances are forming between researchers trained in anthropology, evolutionary biology, psychology and philosophy. Meanwhile, several distinct schools of thought have appeared which differ in their vision of what an evolutionary approach to culture should look like. This volume contains some of the most influential publications on these subjects from the past few decades. A theoretical background chapter and critical introduction identify the core issues at stake in the new study of cultural evolution. These chapters are followed by sections on each of the four dominant approaches: the phylogenetic approach, memetics, dual inheritance theory and niche construction. Following these are two chapters on closely related topics: the psychological mechanisms of culture and the existence of culture in non-human animals. Overall, this volume provides an up to date overview of some of the most exciting trends in contemporary evolutionary thought.
