Culture as an Evolutionary Arena

Journal of Social and Evolutionary Systems, Vol. 19, No. 4, pp. 321-362, 1996

32 Pages Posted: 9 Jan 2010

Date Written: 1996

Abstract

Culture is an evolutionary domain in which paradigms evolve through the replication and variation of memes and psychological traits. In biology genes flow in such a restricted way that there is a relatively transparent relationship between genealogy and taxonomy. In culture memes are borrowed freely between lineages so that a given paradigm may have contributions from many cultures. Further, under certain conditions cultures come into such intimate contact that the process of creolization produces new paradigms within a relatively few generations. Consequently cultural taxonomy is inherently more complex than biological taxonomy. Dynamically, over the long term culture exhibits an S-shaped growth curve which reflects the proliferation of memes within cultures. Perhaps the deepest issue in cultural evolution is the Gestalt switch which happens between the highest level of one cultural rank and the beginning of the next rank.

Keywords: culture, evolution, history, paradigm, meme, taxonomy, creolization

Suggested Citation

Benzon, William L., Culture as an Evolutionary Arena (1996). Journal of Social and Evolutionary Systems, Vol. 19, No. 4, pp. 321-362, 1996, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1532898

Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?

Paper statistics

Downloads
151
Abstract Views
2,773
Rank
349,390
PlumX Metrics