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The University Center for Human Values Series
A Different Kind of Animal: How Culture Transformed Our Species
How our ability to learn from each other has been the essential ingredient to our remarkable success as a species
Human beings have evolved to become the most dominant species on Earth. This astonishing transformation is usually explained in terms of cognitive ability―people are just smarter than all the rest. But Robert Boyd argues that culture―our ability to learn from each other―has been the essential ingredient of our remarkable success. He shows how a unique combination of cultural adaptation and large-scale cooperation has transformed our species and assured our survival―making us the different kind of animal we are today. Based on the Tanner Lectures delivered at Princeton University, A Different Kind of Animal features challenging responses by biologist H. Allen Orr, philosopher Kim Sterelny, economist Paul Seabright, and evolutionary anthropologist Ruth Mace, as well as an introduction by Stephen Macedo.
Human beings have evolved to become the most dominant species on Earth. This astonishing transformation is usually explained in terms of cognitive ability―people are just smarter than all the rest. But Robert Boyd argues that culture―our ability to learn from each other―has been the essential ingredient of our remarkable success. He shows how a unique combination of cultural adaptation and large-scale cooperation has transformed our species and assured our survival―making us the different kind of animal we are today. Based on the Tanner Lectures delivered at Princeton University, A Different Kind of Animal features challenging responses by biologist H. Allen Orr, philosopher Kim Sterelny, economist Paul Seabright, and evolutionary anthropologist Ruth Mace, as well as an introduction by Stephen Macedo.
248 pages, Paperback
Published November 19, 2019
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About the author
Robert Boyd
8 books30 followersLibrarian note:
There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name
Robert Boyd is a professor of the School of Human Evolution and Social Change at Arizona State University.
There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name
Robert Boyd is a professor of the School of Human Evolution and Social Change at Arizona State University.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
April 22, 2019
This book consists in Boyd's Tanner lectures on Human Values (Princeton, april 2016) with comments by biologist Allen Orr, anthropologist Ruth Mace, philosopher Kim Sterelny, and economist Paul Seabright, and a reply. The main themes that Boyd developed over thirty years are summed up with concision and, usually, with great clarity, themes ranging on the whole speciation of the genus Homo from australopotiths (2.5 million years ago) up to the present day hunther-gatherer and pastoralist societies. Why did humans were that successful at invading so diverse ecological milieu (from deserts to the snowy peaks) ? How does cooperating and producing public good may have come about between complete strangers with no interest in furthering their mutual fitness ?
Proposals are made about :
• the greater contribution to cultural evolution that quasi-blind social learning has over a high individual brain fire-power;
• the defining of social learning as a tendency to copy fellow group-members (especially expert ones) even when their intent and the raison d'être of their way of doing is unknown, and when it is hard to track environmental cues in order to ascertain which behaviors is the best;
• the likeness of the natural selection of such social learning (if environment cues are un-trackable, copy, if their are trackable, learn by yourself), demonstrated through mathematical formalization ;
• how group's size and interrelation between group contribute to technological innovations ;
• the learning biases of social learning arising from the cognitive machinery that supports it (the nature of biases is a topic on which Boyd is much less detailed than Cecilia Heyes in Cognitive Gadgets: The Cultural Evolution of Thinking);
• the respective strength and limits of reciprocity and of third-party norm enforcement to foster cooperation in small and large groups ;
• what cultural group selection amounts to and why it is distinct from the selection of altruistic traits.
The critical comments and reply show how stimulating and innovative the program laid by Boyd and Richerson was, and still is, for it not only raises good research questions, but also shows the way to resolve these (pace Sterelny); that is, through a formalized treatment drawn from the method of populational approach to biology.
*Take note : the formal parts of the book, with bayerian equations is not the most lay-reader friendly.
Proposals are made about :
• the greater contribution to cultural evolution that quasi-blind social learning has over a high individual brain fire-power;
• the defining of social learning as a tendency to copy fellow group-members (especially expert ones) even when their intent and the raison d'être of their way of doing is unknown, and when it is hard to track environmental cues in order to ascertain which behaviors is the best;
• the likeness of the natural selection of such social learning (if environment cues are un-trackable, copy, if their are trackable, learn by yourself), demonstrated through mathematical formalization ;
• how group's size and interrelation between group contribute to technological innovations ;
• the learning biases of social learning arising from the cognitive machinery that supports it (the nature of biases is a topic on which Boyd is much less detailed than Cecilia Heyes in Cognitive Gadgets: The Cultural Evolution of Thinking);
• the respective strength and limits of reciprocity and of third-party norm enforcement to foster cooperation in small and large groups ;
• what cultural group selection amounts to and why it is distinct from the selection of altruistic traits.
The critical comments and reply show how stimulating and innovative the program laid by Boyd and Richerson was, and still is, for it not only raises good research questions, but also shows the way to resolve these (pace Sterelny); that is, through a formalized treatment drawn from the method of populational approach to biology.
*Take note : the formal parts of the book, with bayerian equations is not the most lay-reader friendly.
August 15, 2019
My review at Amazon https://www.amazon.com/Different-Kind... :
"his is a pretty easy to access book on Cultural evolution and how Culture transformed our species to a different kind of animal than our biological cousins like the chimpanzee. The writer is Robert Boyd and the book describes the results of a life-long research project of Boyd and other cultural anthropologists like Pete Richerson. The project started in early 80ies and the contribution of Richerson and Boyd to the subject of Human Evolution has been enormous.
As a non-professional evolutionary enthusiast, I learned about Richerson and Boyd first time through the article "Punishment Allows the Evolution of Cooperation (or Anything Else) in Sizable Groups". Technically punishment together with the diversity of norms in human societies are the two factors which make it possible for (cultural) group selection to act on human groups.
The DNA studies of recent days show that humans - dislike our nearest relatives like the Neanderthals or the eusocial insects like ants - have been able to co-operate in large groups of non-relatives for long times. How such co-operation has been possible is shown by the theory of Richerson and Boyd and the story is told in the book.
Cumulative cultural evolution and human adaptation to almost all environments on the earth is besides evolution of co-operation between non-relatives discussed in the book."
"his is a pretty easy to access book on Cultural evolution and how Culture transformed our species to a different kind of animal than our biological cousins like the chimpanzee. The writer is Robert Boyd and the book describes the results of a life-long research project of Boyd and other cultural anthropologists like Pete Richerson. The project started in early 80ies and the contribution of Richerson and Boyd to the subject of Human Evolution has been enormous.
As a non-professional evolutionary enthusiast, I learned about Richerson and Boyd first time through the article "Punishment Allows the Evolution of Cooperation (or Anything Else) in Sizable Groups". Technically punishment together with the diversity of norms in human societies are the two factors which make it possible for (cultural) group selection to act on human groups.
The DNA studies of recent days show that humans - dislike our nearest relatives like the Neanderthals or the eusocial insects like ants - have been able to co-operate in large groups of non-relatives for long times. How such co-operation has been possible is shown by the theory of Richerson and Boyd and the story is told in the book.
Cumulative cultural evolution and human adaptation to almost all environments on the earth is besides evolution of co-operation between non-relatives discussed in the book."
February 25, 2018
A good provocative read. Collective learning/culture as a means of advancing our species. Cleverly includes some counter points by four others in the book. His responses seemed a bit flippant.
July 10, 2020
Robert Boyd has done ground-breaking research on the evolution of Homo sapiens focusing on the role of culture. Being individually smart has traditionally been the explanation for why humans have succeeded in thriving in almost any environment on Earth. Boyd makes the case that this cannot be the whole truth, and maybe not even the main reason. Instead, our sociality combined with our cumulative culture are the key elements. Our adherence to and enforcement of cultural norms creates conditions where selection between cultural groups produces adaption to local environments in true Darwinian fashion.
In this book, Boyd summarizes a research program that has successfully combined anthropology, archaeology, evolutionary theory, game theory and formal mathematical modeling and simulation. The book is surprisingly easy to read. The inclusion of short essays with critical comments from four scientists, together with a reply from Boyd, makes this an excellent introduction into a fascinating field.
In this book, Boyd summarizes a research program that has successfully combined anthropology, archaeology, evolutionary theory, game theory and formal mathematical modeling and simulation. The book is surprisingly easy to read. The inclusion of short essays with critical comments from four scientists, together with a reply from Boyd, makes this an excellent introduction into a fascinating field.
July 23, 2023
Good overview of the arguments underpinning cultural evolution, though tbh I'd read both of Joseph Henrich's books first. (Henrich was Boyd's student!)
August 12, 2023
Un libro para aprender más sobre la evolución cultural y el impacto que tiene en nuestra especie. Complementar muchas de las ideas de la evolución cultural con las de la biología evolutiva y la psicología evolucionista, en lugar de enfrentarlas entre sí, me parece muy útil e importante.
Me salté tres capítulos (4, 5 y 6) porque eran comentarios de otras personas a los ensayos de Boyd y no me interesaban. Solo me interesaba la tesis de Boyd, así que salté directamente a sus respuestas, el último capítulo.
Me salté tres capítulos (4, 5 y 6) porque eran comentarios de otras personas a los ensayos de Boyd y no me interesaban. Solo me interesaba la tesis de Boyd, así que salté directamente a sus respuestas, el último capítulo.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews