Part of the Emerging Science of Culture seminar series, 2011
Both demographically and ecologically, humans are a remarkably successful species. This success is generally attributed to our capacity for culture. But how did our species’ extraordinary cultural capabilities evolve from its roots in animal social learning and tradition? In this seminar Kevin Laland provided a provisional answer. After characterizing contemporary research into animal social learning, he focused in on a case study of stickleback learning that illustrates the strategic nature of animal copying. He went on to describe the findings of an international competition (the ‘social learning strategies tournament’) that he organized to investigate the best way to learn. He suggests that the tournament sheds light on why copying is widespread in nature, and why humans happen to be so good at it. Finally, he ended by describing some other theoretical and experimental projects suggesting feedback mechanisms that may have been instrumental to the evolution of culture.