CFP: Workshop: Scientific Progress via Model Transfer? The Case of Cultural Evolution

"Scientific Progress via Model Transfer? The Case of Cultural Evolution"

Leibniz Universität Hannover
April 9–10, 2026

Submission Details

•  Abstract (max. 400 words)
•  Deadline: December 15, 2025
•  Submit by email to: Edoardo Peruzzi ([email protected]) or Karim Baraghith ([email protected]).

Confirmed Speakers: Mathieu Charbonneau, Alberto Acerbi, Armin Schulz, Hanne Andersen, Catherine Herfeld, Thomas Reydon.

Over the past decades, Cultural Evolution Theory has become a thriving research programme, using formal models from genetics, game theory, Bayesian learning, and network science to explain phenomena such as language change, technology adoption, and social norms.

At the same time, philosophers of science have turned their attention to model transfer, that is, the movement of models and modeling techniques across disciplines. What exactly travels in these transfers, and under what conditions do they generate genuine knowledge rather than mere analogy?

By bringing together scholars from cultural evolutionary research and from philosophy of science, the workshop aims to open a timely and much-needed conversation on the relations between model transfer and scientific progress by taking cultural evolution as a prime case study.


We welcome submissions on topics including (but not limited to):

Topics for discussion in the workshop include (but are not limited to):

• Model transfer and scientific progress

• How can model transfer be understood as a form of scientific progress?

• How does it compare with more classical accounts of progress (e.g., accumulation of knowledge, increasing explanatory power, unification)?

• Case Studies from Cultural Evolution

• In what ways do the success stories of Cultural Evolutionary Theory (e.g., phylogenetic trees, network models of innovation and diffusion, and gene–culture co-evolution of social norms) serve as compelling test cases for evaluating scientific progress through model transfer?

• Conceptual and technical challenges

• What exactly counts as a model or a template in Cultural Evolutionary Theory? 

• How are biological concepts, such as fitness, selection, and drift, adapted and/or generalized, both conceptually and technically, when applied to domains like economics or linguistics?

• Limits and risks of model transfer

• When does imported modelling machinery advance explanation, prediction, and integration?

• When might model transfer obscure domain-specific realities or lead to distortions?

• How can researchers identify and mitigate these risks?