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Is cultural change adaptive?
Available online at www.sciencedirect.com
Physics of Life Reviews 10 (2013) 160–161 www.elsevier.com/locate/plrev
Comment
Is cultural change adaptive? Comment on “An evolutionary framework for cultural change: Selectionism versus communal exchange” by Liane Gabora Christopher Brown Department of Economics and Finance, Arkansas State University, P.O. Box 729, State University, AR 72467, USA Received 3 April 2013; accepted 17 April 2013 Available online 18 April 2013 Communicated by L. Perlovsky
Professor Gabora [2] makes two principal arguments: First, that Darwinian or selectionist frameworks are not indicated for the modeling of cultural change; and, second, that non-Darwinian approaches, and more specifically, communal or network-based exchange models, are capable of yielding superior explanatory and predictive success. On the first point, I find Gabora’s argument thoroughly convincing, though the reader should know I am an economist who has expressed skepticism toward attempts to model things like business success or failure, institutional change, or variegated market rules, by the generalization of natural selection (see [1]). I am less convinced on the second point, particularly Gabora’s intrepid claim, in reference to communal exchange, that “[i]f it took time for natural selection to emerge as the mechanism by which life evolves, it seems reasonable that culture, too, would evolve by way of this more primitive mechanism” (p. 19). The search for the “right” evolutionary framework for cultural change is obviously motivated by the belief that culture is something that “evolves.” Gabora finds the warrant for this belief in the agnate properties of cultural and biological change—cumulativeness, open-endedness, growing complexity, and the adaptive quality of retained innovations. But how may cultural change be described as adaptive? An imperfect copy of DNA that achieves wide distribution within a species is adaptive by definition. One might reasonably think of Draco’s code as an adaptive innovation to the problem of blood feuds. Limited liability was an innovation that enabled firms to meet the immense funding requirements of mass production techniques. But in what sense might the proliferating use of video games or tanning salons be classified as adaptive cultural change? The use of analogies drawn from the physical sciences for the explication of social phenomena is always hazardous. For example, the longstanding practice of framing the market process with physics analogies draws attention away from the fact that the results of many market transactions—and importantly, those labor market exchanges so crucial to determining most people’s economic standing—are regulated, indeed virtually predetermined, by manmade working rules which transacting agents are customarily or legally compelled to follow. Rules make order out of conflict. The market transaction is a main point of contact between antagonistic class interests. The working rules of transactions, which are always a product of human intentionality, often establish a running differential advantage for one side or the other. Moreover, those groups that enjoy a differential advantage vis-à-vis other groups have an interest in the widespread inculcation of values and habits of thought that render the prevailing rules as “just” or instrumental to DOI of original article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.plrev.2013.03.006. E-mail address: [email protected]. 1571-0645/$ – see front matter © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.plrev.2013.04.001
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higher social or religious purposes. Vast resources and brainpower are allocated to this effort, and the structure of the cultural environment manifests its effects. An adaptive genotypic trait gives survival advantages to all members of the species that possess it. By contrast, a successful—meaning, broadly rooted—cultural innovation (such as intellectual property rights) may advantage some individuals or groups and disadvantage others. In summary, Gabora’s cool dissection of the nonconformities of cultural change with biological evolution is a real contribution. It should inoculate against the seductive appeal of Darwinian frameworks for the modeling of social phenomena. References [1] Brown C. Transmutability, generalized Darwinism, and the limits to conceptual integration. Cambridge Journal of Economics 2013;37:209–25. [2] Gabora L. An evolutionary framework for cultural exchange: selectionism versus communal exchange. Physics of Life Reviews 2013;10(2):117–45 [in this issue].
Physics of Life Reviews 10 (2013) 160–161 www.elsevier.com/locate/plrev
Comment
Is cultural change adaptive? Comment on “An evolutionary framework for cultural change: Selectionism versus communal exchange” by Liane Gabora Christopher Brown Department of Economics and Finance, Arkansas State University, P.O. Box 729, State University, AR 72467, USA Received 3 April 2013; accepted 17 April 2013 Available online 18 April 2013 Communicated by L. Perlovsky
Professor Gabora [2] makes two principal arguments: First, that Darwinian or selectionist frameworks are not indicated for the modeling of cultural change; and, second, that non-Darwinian approaches, and more specifically, communal or network-based exchange models, are capable of yielding superior explanatory and predictive success. On the first point, I find Gabora’s argument thoroughly convincing, though the reader should know I am an economist who has expressed skepticism toward attempts to model things like business success or failure, institutional change, or variegated market rules, by the generalization of natural selection (see [1]). I am less convinced on the second point, particularly Gabora’s intrepid claim, in reference to communal exchange, that “[i]f it took time for natural selection to emerge as the mechanism by which life evolves, it seems reasonable that culture, too, would evolve by way of this more primitive mechanism” (p. 19). The search for the “right” evolutionary framework for cultural change is obviously motivated by the belief that culture is something that “evolves.” Gabora finds the warrant for this belief in the agnate properties of cultural and biological change—cumulativeness, open-endedness, growing complexity, and the adaptive quality of retained innovations. But how may cultural change be described as adaptive? An imperfect copy of DNA that achieves wide distribution within a species is adaptive by definition. One might reasonably think of Draco’s code as an adaptive innovation to the problem of blood feuds. Limited liability was an innovation that enabled firms to meet the immense funding requirements of mass production techniques. But in what sense might the proliferating use of video games or tanning salons be classified as adaptive cultural change? The use of analogies drawn from the physical sciences for the explication of social phenomena is always hazardous. For example, the longstanding practice of framing the market process with physics analogies draws attention away from the fact that the results of many market transactions—and importantly, those labor market exchanges so crucial to determining most people’s economic standing—are regulated, indeed virtually predetermined, by manmade working rules which transacting agents are customarily or legally compelled to follow. Rules make order out of conflict. The market transaction is a main point of contact between antagonistic class interests. The working rules of transactions, which are always a product of human intentionality, often establish a running differential advantage for one side or the other. Moreover, those groups that enjoy a differential advantage vis-à-vis other groups have an interest in the widespread inculcation of values and habits of thought that render the prevailing rules as “just” or instrumental to DOI of original article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.plrev.2013.03.006. E-mail address: [email protected]. 1571-0645/$ – see front matter © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.plrev.2013.04.001
C. Brown / Physics of Life Reviews 10 (2013) 160–161
161
higher social or religious purposes. Vast resources and brainpower are allocated to this effort, and the structure of the cultural environment manifests its effects. An adaptive genotypic trait gives survival advantages to all members of the species that possess it. By contrast, a successful—meaning, broadly rooted—cultural innovation (such as intellectual property rights) may advantage some individuals or groups and disadvantage others. In summary, Gabora’s cool dissection of the nonconformities of cultural change with biological evolution is a real contribution. It should inoculate against the seductive appeal of Darwinian frameworks for the modeling of social phenomena. References [1] Brown C. Transmutability, generalized Darwinism, and the limits to conceptual integration. Cambridge Journal of Economics 2013;37:209–25. [2] Gabora L. An evolutionary framework for cultural exchange: selectionism versus communal exchange. Physics of Life Reviews 2013;10(2):117–45 [in this issue].