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AbstractThe dual inheritance or gene–culture coevolution theory of human evolution was developed in the 1970s and 80s. Early work built mathematical theories derived from then-current work in human development, sociolinguistics, and the diffusion of innovations. More recently it has included a considerable amount of new empirical work. The theory has always had critics in evolutionary biology and the social and behavioral sciences. Morin's book critiques the theory from an alternate epidemiological or attraction theory of cultural evolution that doubts that imitation and adaptation play significant roles in cultural evolution. Lewens's book is a wide-ranging analysis of critiques of gene–culture coevolution theory that finds most of them in error or at least not fatal to the project. His book includes a chapter on critiques based on considerations of human nature, of which Morin's book is one variant, and which Lewens argues are faulty. That is also my conclusion.

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 interp

Presents 20 articles that form the backbone of Boyd and Richerson's path-breaking work on evolution and culture. This work assumes that culture is crucial for understanding human behaviour; unlike other organisms, socially transmitted beliefs, attitudes, and values heavily influence our behaviour. It also states that culture is part of biology

AbstractHuman decision-making is controlled by various factors including material cost–benefit considerations, values and beliefs, social influences, cognitive factors and errors. Among social influences, those by external authorities (e.g. educational, cultural, religious, political, administrative, etc.) are particularly important owing to their potential reach and power. To better understand the effects of 'soft' power of authorities we develop a unifying theoretical framework integrating material, cognitive and social forces controlling the joint dynamics of individual actions and beliefs. We apply our approach to three different phenomena: evolution of food sharing in small-scale societies, participation in political protests and effects of priming social identity in behavioural experiments. For each of these applications, we show that our approach leads to different (or simpler) explanations of human behaviour than alternatives. We highlight the type of measurements which can be helpful in developing practical applications of our approach. We identify and explicitly characterise the degree of mismatch between individual actions and attitudes. We assert that the effects of external authorities, of changing beliefs and of differences between people must be studied empirically, included in mathematical models, and accounted for when developing different policies aiming to modify or sustain human behaviour.

A procession of cultural changes, often referred to as "modernization," is initiated as a society undergoes economic development. But cultural change continues to be rapid in societies that industrialized several generations ago. Much of the change in both developed and developing societies is a progressive abandonment of the norms, values, and beliefs that encourage behavior consistent with the pursuit of genetic fitness. The kin influence hypothesis suggests that these changes are part of a cultural evolutionary process initiated by the replacement of largely kin‐based communities with social groups consisting largely of non‐kin. Kin have an interest in encouraging one another to behave in ways consistent with the pursuit of reproductive success, and a high level of social exchange between kin will tend to maintain norms that prescribe such behaviors. When social exchange between kin is reduced, these norms begin to relax. Cross‐national comparisons of measures that reflect attitudes and behavior support the hypothesis by showing that cultural differences between countries can be substantially explained by their position on a cultural continuum that begins with social networks widening so that they become less kin‐based.

In their comment "Modeling the evolution of preferences: an answer to Schubert and Cordes" (2013, this journal), Kapeller and Steinerberger claim to have identified some flaws in the formal argument developed in our paper "Role models that make you unhappy: light paternalism, social learning, and welfare" (2013, this journal). Specifically, they maintain that there is no runaway dynamic in consumption and preference values and that our model therefore always leads to a stable society. In their proof, Kapeller and Steinerberger show that their system is bounded by the highest and lowest preference and consumption levels in the population and can never escape them. Their argument does, however, not apply to the system of coupled dynamic equations we employed to model runaway consumption.