Evolution, philosophy and cultural diversity.

Pyramids, pop charts, and cars continue to challenge evolutionary theorists. Although nearly all evolutionists agree that these cultural phenomena are not adaptations in the the way that termite hills, bird songs, or antlers are, they still insist that the ultimate explanation need not be inconsistent with adaptationism at large, and that it might even be closely related to it (Dawkins 2004). The fact is that a Darwinian approach to human culture is notoriously difficult, which explains why so many models have been developed to tackle the problem. Those theoreticians who focus almost exclusively on the analogies between biological and cultural evolution argue that the analogies justify the use of Darwinian methods and concepts (variance, selection, retention) in the study of human culture, although they often admit that cultural replicators and selection processes differ, and substantially at that, from biological replicators and processes. The last decades have witnessed the rise of quite a few evolutionary culture theories (Durham 1990), like memetics (Dawkins 1976, Blackmore 1999), epidemiology of representations (Sperber 1985), cultural transmission theory (Cavalli-Sforza & Feldman 1981), cultural inheritance theory (Borgerhoff Mulder et al. 1997), and dual inheritance theory (Boyd & Richerson 1985). Alternatively, those theoreticians who study first and foremost the relation between biological and cultural evolution tend to emphasize how biologically evolved mental mechanisms determine, or at least affect, cultural processes and cultural evolution (Tooby & Cosmides 1992, Lumsden & Wilson 1981). These same scholars, however, do acknowledge (1) that cultural evolution may cause changes in genotype frequencies, and (2) that we must not underestimate the importance of purely cultural evolution, as studied, for example, by evolutionary culture theories like memetics (Laland et al. 1995, Atran 1998). Aim & Methodology of the Project Clearly, only a theory that can encompass all three elements - cultural evolution, biological evolution, and the interplay between both - can genuinely be called a gene-culture co-evolutionary theory (Feldman & Laland 1996, Smith 2000, Jablonka & Lamb 2005). This project attempts to provide a number of building blocks for such a grand unifying theory of human culture by exploring, and elaborating upon, the following ideas: (1) The topics on which primary (like memetics) and secondary (like evolutionary psychology) Darwinian approaches conflict with each other, offer an ideal test case to evaluate their strengths and weaknesses. Nearly all of these topics are closely realted to cultural diversity. Our research will try to answer the following questions: (i) What kind of uniformity is hidden behind cultural diversity, (ii) what is the best model to conceptualize this uniformity, and (iii) what is the most promising model to link cultural uniformity to cultural diversity. This requires an analysis of (a) the prevailing sociological and philosophical views on cultural diversity, and (b) the philosophical critiques on both primary and secondary Darwinism (in the social and cultural sciences). (2) A substantial part of human culture can be interpreted and studied as courtship rituals and/or costly signals. Unpacking this idea will show that the emergence, maturation, possible eventual decline, and diversification of cultural practices does make sense from a Darwinian perspective. This requires an interdisciplinary review of the literature on costly signaling, and an analysis of the signals and qualities involved in various cultural practices in the same vein as De Block & Dewitte 2007 (in press). (3) Recently, some evolutionary scholars (Wilson 2004, Mallon & Stich 2000) have suggested that social constructionism and evolutionary social sciences do not have to contradict each other. However, a Darwinian theory of culture must aim higher by establishing a genuine integration. It has to show how the core-elements of social constructionism can be given an evolutionary foundation. We want to provide such a Darwinian foundation for (a) mechanisms of dominance and submission in social reality, (b) peoples often illegitimate tendency to essentialize, (c) the importance of narratives for structuring our knowledge and our identity, and (d) the theory-ladenness of observation.

Keywords:Philosophy of mind, Evolutionary psychology, Philosophy of the social sciences