Human nature, cultural diversity and evolutionary theory

Human nature, cultural diversity and evolutionary theory.

Incorporating culture into an expanded theory of evolution will provide the foundation for a universal account of human diversity. Two requirements must be met. The first is to see learning as an extension of the processes of evolution. The second is to understand that there are specific components of human culture, viz. higher order knowledge structures and social constructions, which give ris...

Evolutionary approaches to cultural and linguistic diversity.

Evolutionary approaches to cultural change are increasingly influential, and many scientists believe that a 'grand synthesis' is now in sight. The papers in this Theme Issue, which derives from a symposium held by the AHRC Centre for the Evolution of Cultural Diversity (University College London) in December 2008, focus on how the phylogenetic tree-building and network-based techniques used to ...

Cultural Evolutionary Theory 1 Cultural Evolutionary Theory: A Synthetic Theory for Fragmented Disciplines

Cultural evolutionary theory, like other evolutionary theories, links individual-level and population or society-level phenomena. It provides numerous bridges between social psychology and other disciplines and sub-disciplines. The theory uses mathematical models to understand the population-level consequences of the individual-level processes of individual and social learning. The theory has b...

Nature, Nurture, and Human Diversity

Behavior Genetics: Predicting Individual Differences Genes: Our Codes for Life Lecture/Discussion Topics: The Origin of Blue Eyes (p. 188) The Genetic Revolution (p. 189) Classroom Exercise: Genetic Factors (p. 187) Classroom Exercise/Lecture Break: Biology Is More Than Just Genes (p. 190) NEW Classroom Exercise/Student Project: Genetic Influences (p. 189) Worth Video Anthology: Behavior Geneti...

History and Human Nature: Cross-cultural Universals and Cultural Relativities