Dual Inheritance Models of Cultural Transmission

On March 19th, 2014 Distinguished Professor Peter Godfrey-Smith (Department of Philosophy, City University New York) and Professor Kim Sterelny (Department of Philosophy, ANU) will visit the Department of Cognitive Science and the ARC Centre of Excellence in Cognition and its Disorders (CCD) at Macquarie University. Distinguished Professor Peter Godfrey-Smith (http://petergodfreysmith.com/) and Professor Kim Sterelny (https://researchers.anu.edu.au/researchers/sterelny-k) are two prominent philosophers of biology and cognition. Their expertise spans a wide range of areas, including but not limited to the following: 1) philosophy of mind and cognition; 2) philosophy of biology; 3) philosophy of science and philosophy of language; 4) evolutionary biology and Darwinism; 5) pragmatism; 6) archaeology and palaeoecology; 7) evolutionary psychology.

On Wednesday March 19th, 2014 (from *2:00 PM until 5:00 PM*, *Room 3.610, Level 3, Australian Hearing Hub, 16 University Avenue, Macquarie University, NSW 2109*), we will meet to discuss the contributions of dual-inheritance theories proposed by Peter Godfrey-Smith (2009, 2012, 2013) and Kim Sterelny (2012) to the understanding of cognitive and contextual processing. The meeting will explore the implications of such
models of cultural transmission and analyse their relevance for explaining cultural behaviours and the evolution of human cognition. Questions of interest include, but are not limited to: What is a Darwinian individual? What are the distinct types of explanation associated with Darwinian population thinking? How do cooperation and environmental scaffolding support or expand our cognitive abilities? What is the role of cross-generational information pooling in the development of human cognition? What are the explanatory tools that dual-inheritance models provide to the science of art and artefact categorisation?

If you are interested in attending the workshop or contributing to the workshop discussion (which will take place after the talks, between 4PM and 5PM), please send an email to Mirko Farina ([email protected]) at your earliest convenience and *no later than March 4th, 2014*. Mirko will add you to the mailing list associated with this event. *Attendance is free but* *registration is kindly requested.* We will circulate to the list a few companion papers written by Profs Godfrey-Smith and Sterelny, which will form the basis for the discussions that we plan to have during and after the workshop.



Abstract of the talks (in alphabetical order) available below:



*Title*: 'Centralized and Distributed Selection Processes in Biological and
Cultural Evolution'

*Speaker*: *Peter Godfrey-Smith* (CUNY)
*Date and Time*: Wednesday, 19 March 2014, 2:00PM until 3PM

*Location*: Australian Hearing Hub (AHH), room 3.610, Macquarie Universit*y*


*Abstract *A general distinction can be made between more centralized and
more distributed selection processes. This distinction will be explored
first with the aid of biological cases, drawing on new work we have carried
out with Josh Dahm, Ben Kerr, and other researchers in Kerr's lab. This
distinction will then be applied to cultural evolution, where it connects
to questions about innovation, hierarchy, conformism, and other topics.



*Title*: 'Neolithisation in southwest Asia in a context of niche
construction'

*Speakers*: *Kim Sterelny* (ANU), *Trevor Watkins* (University of Edinburgh)

*Date and time*: Wednesday, 19 March 2014, 3:00PM until 4:00PM

*Location*: Australian Hearing Hub (AHH), room 3.610, Macquarie University



*Abstract*

The term 'neolithisation' as it is generally used in relation to southwest
Asia narrows the focus of research, and works against our efforts to
envision explanations of the process in terms of the long-term evolution of
human societies. Here, we re-frame the neolithisation process, setting it
within the framework of niche construction theory. We argue that the
concept of cultural niche construction fits the purpose, but needs to be
extended to encompass the more complex social worlds of the Holocene in the
form of the cognitive-cultural niche