{"id":124237,"date":"2024-11-10T13:29:25","date_gmt":"2024-11-10T06:29:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hotvideos24.online\/?p=124237"},"modified":"2024-11-10T13:29:25","modified_gmt":"2024-11-10T06:29:25","slug":"why-human-culture-never-stops-evolving","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hotvideos24.online\/?p=124237","title":{"rendered":"Why Human Culture Never Stops Evolving"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <script async src=\"https:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js?client=ca-pub-3711241968723425\"\r\n     crossorigin=\"anonymous\"><\/script>\r\n<ins class=\"adsbygoogle\"\r\n     style=\"display:block\"\r\n     data-ad-format=\"fluid\"\r\n     data-ad-layout-key=\"-fb+5w+4e-db+86\"\r\n     data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-3711241968723425\"\r\n     data-ad-slot=\"7910942971\"><\/ins>\r\n<script>\r\n     (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\r\n<\/script><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p><strong>Summary: <\/strong>A new study proposes that human culture\u2019s unique power lies not in its ability to accumulate knowledge, as once thought, but in its \u201copen-endedness.\u201d Unlike animal cultures that reach limits in evolution, human culture continuously expands, adapting without bounds.<\/p>\n<p>This \u201copen-ended\u201d nature, which allows us to innovate infinitely, makes human culture distinct from others in the animal kingdom. Examples like chimp tool use or whale song evolution demonstrate that animal cultures can accumulate knowledge but stop evolving at certain points. In contrast, human culture keeps advancing, allowing for increasingly complex cultural, technological, and intellectual developments.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Key Facts:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Human culture is marked by \u201copen-endedness,\u201d enabling continuous evolution.<\/li>\n<li>Animal cultures accumulate knowledge but ultimately reach evolutionary limits.<\/li>\n<li>The study compares human culture to examples of stable, yet finite, animal cultures.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Source: <\/strong>Arizona State University<\/p>\n<p><strong>Why is human culture \u2014 the shared body of knowledge passed down across generations \u2014 so much more powerful than animal cultures?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat\u2019s special about our species?\u201d is a question scientists have wrestled with for centuries, and now a scientist at Arizona State University has a new hypothesis that could change the way we perceive ourselves, and the world around us.\u00a0<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><picture fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-105990\"><source type=\"image\/webp\" srcset=\"https:\/\/neurosciencenews.com\/files\/2024\/11\/human-culture-evolution-neurosicence.jpg.webp 1200w, https:\/\/neurosciencenews.com\/files\/2024\/11\/human-culture-evolution-neurosicence-300x200.jpg.webp 300w, https:\/\/neurosciencenews.com\/files\/2024\/11\/human-culture-evolution-neurosicence-770x513.jpg.webp 770w, https:\/\/neurosciencenews.com\/files\/2024\/11\/human-culture-evolution-neurosicence-1155x770.jpg.webp 1155w, https:\/\/neurosciencenews.com\/files\/2024\/11\/human-culture-evolution-neurosicence-370x247.jpg.webp 370w, https:\/\/neurosciencenews.com\/files\/2024\/11\/human-culture-evolution-neurosicence-293x195.jpg.webp 293w, https:\/\/neurosciencenews.com\/files\/2024\/11\/human-culture-evolution-neurosicence-150x100.jpg.webp 150w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px\"\/><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1200\" height=\"800\" src=\"https:\/\/neurosciencenews.com\/files\/2024\/11\/human-culture-evolution-neurosicence.jpg\" alt=\"This shows statues of heads.\" srcset=\"https:\/\/neurosciencenews.com\/files\/2024\/11\/human-culture-evolution-neurosicence.jpg 1200w, https:\/\/neurosciencenews.com\/files\/2024\/11\/human-culture-evolution-neurosicence-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/neurosciencenews.com\/files\/2024\/11\/human-culture-evolution-neurosicence-770x513.jpg 770w, https:\/\/neurosciencenews.com\/files\/2024\/11\/human-culture-evolution-neurosicence-1155x770.jpg 1155w, https:\/\/neurosciencenews.com\/files\/2024\/11\/human-culture-evolution-neurosicence-370x247.jpg 370w, https:\/\/neurosciencenews.com\/files\/2024\/11\/human-culture-evolution-neurosicence-293x195.jpg 293w, https:\/\/neurosciencenews.com\/files\/2024\/11\/human-culture-evolution-neurosicence-150x100.jpg 150w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px\"\/> <\/picture><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">While both epigenetic inheritance and parental effects are stable and accumulate in non-human species, they eventually stop developing, explains Morgan. Credit: Neuroscience News<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>\u201cTen years ago it was basically accepted that it was the ability of human culture to accumulate and evolve that made us special, but new discoveries about animal behavior are challenging these ideas and forcing us to rethink what makes our cultures, and us as a species, unique\u201d said evolutionary anthropologist\u00a0Thomas Morgan\u00a0in a new research paper published this week in <em>Nature Human Behavior<\/em>.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Morgan is a research scientist with the Institute of Human Origins and associate professor with the School of Human Evolution and Social Change.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Just as humans pass on knowledge to our children, when a new queen leafcutter ant hatches, she collects a little mouthful of her mother\u2019s fungus and takes it with her to start a new colony. This has been happening for so long \u2014 millions of years \u2014 that the fungus within these colonies is genetically different from the wild fungus outside of the colonies.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Similar to how human languages change, new data shows that humpback whale songs evolve, spread between groups and become more complex over time. Like humans, chimpanzees learn to use tools and we now have evidence that they have been doing so for thousands, perhaps millions, of years.<\/p>\n<p>Even locusts use complex evolving systems to adapt to local conditions, relying on epigenetic changes \u2013 how factors like age and environment can change gene activity without altering DNA sequence \u2013 to quickly evolve between calm and green or swarming and yellow-and-black forms based on overpopulation.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>These discoveries, along with others, have shown that not only do animals have culture, but there are also examples of accumulation in their culture, something that for a long time was believed to be uniquely human.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt used to be thought that other species just didn\u2019t have culture,\u201d said Morgan. \u201cAnd now we know that lots of other species do. Then it was thought that only human cultures accumulate or evolve over time.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut now we know animal cultures can do this too. So, if animals do have evolving cultures, then what\u2019s special about human culture that differentiates us from other animals?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Open-endedness<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Morgan and Stanford University Professor Marcus Feldman address this question in their new paper, \u201cHuman culture is uniquely open-ended not uniquely cumulative,\u201d published in\u00a0<em>Nature Human Behaviour.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<p>They present a new hypothesis: that we humans dominate and are so special because of \u201copen-endedness,\u201d \u2013 our ability to communicate and understand an infinite number of possibilities in life.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe way that animals think about what they\u2019re doing constrains the way that their cultures can evolve,\u201d said Morgan. \u201cOne way might be that they can\u2019t imagine elaborate sequences very easily, or they can\u2019t imagine subgoals.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFor example, when I\u2019m making my boys\u2019 breakfast in the morning, it\u2019s a nested, multistep process. First, I need to get the bowls and pots and other equipment.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThen I need to put the ingredients in the pot and start cooking, all in the right amounts and order. Then I need to cook it, stirring and monitoring temperature until it reaches the right consistency, and then I need to serve it up,\u201d he said.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEach of these steps is a subgoal, and these subgoals have steps within them that I need to execute in the right order, so this whole thing is an elaborate procedure.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>When it comes to the limit of this system, human brains just keep going; we are able to build and retain sequences of instructions that are deeply complicated and this allows us to perform a near infinite set of behaviors \u2013 this is open-endedness.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Beyond culture<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>While other scientists have compared human and animal cultures before, Morgan and Feldman\u2019s research is unusual because it also compares animal examples of\u00a0epigenetic inheritance\u00a0and\u00a0parental effects. The leafcutter ants is an example of a parental effect and the locust an example of cumulative epigenetic inheritance.<\/p>\n<p>While both epigenetic inheritance and parental effects are stable and accumulate in non-human species, they eventually stop developing, explains Morgan.<\/p>\n<p> \u201cJust like animal cultures, there are constraints that these systems run-up against and that halt their evolution.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think the key question is what is special about human culture, and we tried to answer that by comparing human cultures with animal cultures, with epigenetics, and with parental effects \u2013 as many evolving systems as we can think of.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd in the end we concluded that the special thing about human culture is its open-endedness. It can accumulate but then it never has to stop, it just keeps going.\u201d<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">About this evolutionary neuroscience research news<\/h2>\n<p class=\"has-background\" style=\"background-color:#ffffe8\"><strong>Author: <\/strong><a href=\"http:\/\/neurosciencenews.com\/cdn-cgi\/l\/email-protection#8ac4e3e9e5e6efa4dae5e7eff8ebe4fef0caebf9ffa4efeeff\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Nicole Pomerantz<\/a><br \/><strong>Source: <\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/asu.edu\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Arizona State University<\/a><br \/><strong>Contact: <\/strong>Nicole Pomerantz \u2013 Arizona State University<br \/><strong>Image: <\/strong>The image is credited to Neuroscience News<\/p>\n<p class=\"has-background\" style=\"background-color:#ffffe8\"><strong>Original Research: <\/strong>Closed access.<br \/>\u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41562-024-02035-y\">Human culture is uniquely open-ende<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41562-024-02035-y\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">d<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41562-024-02035-y\"> rather than uniquely cumulative<\/a>\u201d by Thomas Morgan et al<em>. Nature Human Behavior<\/em><\/p>\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-text-color has-pale-cyan-blue-color has-alpha-channel-opacity has-pale-cyan-blue-background-color has-background\"\/>\n<p><strong>Abstract<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Human culture is uniquely open-ended rather than uniquely cumulative<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Theories of how humans came to be so ecologically dominant increasingly centre on the adaptive abilities of human culture and its capacity for cumulative change and high-fidelity transmission.<\/p>\n<p>Here we revisit this hypothesis by comparing human culture with animal cultures and cases of epigenetic inheritance and parental effects.<\/p>\n<p>We first conclude that cumulative change and high transmission fidelity are not unique to human culture as previously thought, and so they are unlikely to explain its adaptive qualities.<\/p>\n<p>We then evaluate the evidence for seven alternative explanations: the inheritance of acquired characters, the pathways of inheritance, the non-random generation of variation, the scope of heritable variation, effects on organismal fitness, effects on genetic fitness and effects on evolutionary dynamics.<\/p>\n<p>From these, we identify the open-ended scope of human cultural variation as a key, but generally neglected, phenomenon. We end by articulating a hypothesis for the cognitive basis of this open-endedness.<\/p>\n<p> <!-- Form created by Optin Forms plugin by WPKube: create beautiful optin forms with ease! --> <!-- https:\/\/wpkube.com\/ --><!--optinforms-form5-container--> <!-- \/ Optin Forms --> <\/div>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js?client=ca-pub-3711241968723425\"\r\n     crossorigin=\"anonymous\"><\/script>\r\n<ins class=\"adsbygoogle\"\r\n     style=\"display:block\"\r\n     data-ad-format=\"fluid\"\r\n     data-ad-layout-key=\"-fb+5w+4e-db+86\"\r\n     data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-3711241968723425\"\r\n     data-ad-slot=\"7910942971\"><\/ins>\r\n<script>\r\n     (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\r\n<\/script><br \/>\n<br \/><div data-type=\"_mgwidget\" data-widget-id=\"1660802\">\r\n<\/div>\r\n<script>(function(w,q){w[q]=w[q]||[];w[q].push([\"_mgc.load\"])})(window,\"_mgq\");\r\n<\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/neurosciencenews.com\/culture-evolution-neuroscience-28001\/\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Summary: A new study proposes that human culture\u2019s unique power lies not in its ability to accumulate knowledge, as once thought, but in its \u201copen-endedness.\u201d Unlike animal cultures that reach &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/hotvideos24.online\/?p=124237\" class=\"more-link\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8628],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-124237","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-science","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hotvideos24.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124237","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hotvideos24.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hotvideos24.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hotvideos24.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hotvideos24.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=124237"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hotvideos24.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124237\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hotvideos24.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=124237"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hotvideos24.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=124237"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hotvideos24.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=124237"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}