The Dynamics of Cultural and Technological Evolution: Domination versus Partnership

Conceptualization of the dynamics and synergistic partnership between the agri-food production chain and public health veterinarians

Regulatory Traits in Cultural Evolution

We call “regulatory traits” those cultural traits that are transmitted through cultural interactions and, at the same time, change individual behaviors directly influencing the outcome of future cultural interactions. The cultural dynamics of some of those traits are studied through simple simulations. In particular, we consider the cultural evolution of traits determining the propensity to cop...

The Internet in developing countries: a medium of economic, cultural and political domination

The last decade has witnessed an unprecedented diffusion of network technologies into developing countries. The technological discourse attending this diffusion has presented the new media as a utopian, egalitarian and empowering tool with the potential of ushering in a new era of development, democracy, and positive cultural change. This paper examines the economic, cultural, and political eff...

A MODEL FOR EVOLUTIONARY DYNAMICS OF WORDS IN A LANGUAGE

Human language, over its evolutionary history, has emerged as one of the fundamental defining characteristic of the modern man. However, this milestone evolutionary process through natural selection has not left any ’linguistic fossils’ that may enable us to trace back the actual course of development of language and its establishment in human societies. Lacking analytical tools to fathom the cr...

Competition and extinction explain the evolution of diversity in American automobiles

One of the most remarkable aspects of our species is that while we show surprisingly little genetic diversity, we demonstrate astonishing amounts of cultural diversity. Perhaps most impressive is the diversity of our technologies, broadly defined as all the physical objects we produce and the skills we use to produce them. Despite considerable focus on the evolution of technology by social scie...