BioConcepts

cultural evolutionkulturelle Evolution (ger.)

• Evolution that is based on the transmission of information other than genetically (i.e. culturally). In humans, such transmission embraces customs, beliefs, and the acquisition and communication of knowledge. Adaptation by cultural change can be far more rapid than by genetic alteration. (Oxford Dict. of Zoology 2009)
  category culture

  1893

  In the relics from these ancient cities we find a development of art unequaled elsewhere on the American continent; and to this region the admirable analysis of Mayan antiquities by Dr. Schellhas inevitably points, as the scene of the definite beginnings of that stock's remarkable cultural evolution.

  Brinton, D.G. (1893). The native calendar of Central America and Mexico. A study in linguistics and symbolism. Proc. Amer. Philos. Soc. 31, 258-314: 274.
  

  1923

  Cultural Evolution

  Chiang Liu (1923). Isolation and contact as Factors in the Cultural Evolution of China, Korea and Japan Prior to 1842.

  1958

  The cultural evolution of mankind is superimposed on its biological evolution; the causes of the former are nonbiological without being contrary to biology

  Dobzhansky, T. (1958). Evolution at work. Science 127, 1091-1098: 1097.

  1975

  Dank der Entwicklung der Wortsprache konnte beim Menschen die kulturelle Evolution die biologische weitgehend ablösen

  Eibl-Eibesfeldt, I. (1975). Krieg und Frieden aus der Sicht der Verhaltensforschung: 34.

  1975

  Der Mensch setzt die biologische Evolution in der kulturellen Evolution fort

  Eibl-Eibesfeldt, I. (1975). Krieg und Frieden aus der Sicht der Verhaltensforschung: 32.

  1978

  Can the cultural evolution of higher ethical values gain a direction and momentum of its own and completely replace genetic evolution? I think not. The genes hold culture on a leash. The leash is very long, but inevitably values will be constrained in accordance with their effects on the human gene pool. The brain is a product of evolution. Human behavior – like the deepest capacities for emotional response which drive and guide it – is the circuitous technique by which human genetic material has been and will be kept intact. Morality has no other demonstrable ultimate function

  Wilson, E.O. (1978). On Human Nature: 167.

  1980

  [B]iological and cultural evolution are not the same process, nor is one an aspect of the other. They are independent mechanisms of change, and they explain change in fundamentally different forms of organized matter – life in one instance and culture in the other

  Mundinger, P.C. (1980). Animal cultures and a general theory of cultural evolution. Ethology and Sociobiology 1, 183-223: 197.

  1985

  cultural transmission leads to the evolution of genetically maladaptive traits […] the forces of genetic and cultural evolution do not always coincide

  Boyd, R. & Richerson, P.J. (1985). Culture and the Evolutionary Process: 99.

  1993

  cumulative cultural evolution or the ratchet effect

  Tomasello, M., Kruger, A.C. & Ratner, H.H. (1993). Cultural learning. Behav. Brain Sci. 16, 495-552.

  2003

  Von kultureller Evolution sollten wir […] erst dann sprechen, wenn Wesen sich noch einmal zu ihrem Traditionsverhalten selbst verhalten können, d.h., wenn sie die Möglichkeit haben, ihr durch Verhaltensmodifikationen erworbenes Verhaltensrepertoire weiterzugeben oder nicht weiterzugeben, ihre Verhaltenstradition fortzuführen oder zu unterbrechen. Genau über diese Reflexivität zweiter Stufe verfügen Tiere nicht

  Schnädelbach, H. (2003). Geschichte als kulturelle Evolution. In: Rohbeck, J. & Nagl-Docekal, H. (eds.). Geschichtsphilosophie und Kulturkritik. Historische und systematische Studien, 329-51: 343.