The Complex-Systems Theory of Culture demonstrates that cultural and biological evolution are distinct because they function using very different processes and mechanisms. This provides the ability to address some important issues.

Culture existed before language just as eggs existed before chickens (or any birds). Language is just one of a virtually infinite number of aspects of culture. Language, economics, and technology (just to name a few) display similar “evolutionary” traits because they are all part of a matrix of cultural evolution.

For Len:
A synthesis of cultural and biological theory is pointless at this time because there is no general understanding of the theory of cultural evolution yet. On the other hand, a general theory that explains evolutionary systems already exists. Complexity Theory (also referred to as Chaos Theory) is a general explanation of evolving systems.

For Adam:
Cultures and biological entities are both evolving information systems, which is why they display so many superficial similarities. One way to understand the fundamental difference between biological and cultural evolution is to use the analogy of digital television. Genes are discrete bundles information (similar to digital transmission), but cultural information is transmitted continuously in all directions from multiple sources (similar to analogue transmission). There are no discrete bundles of cultural information, which is why the “meme” concept is a vacant idea.

Cultures are structural, functional, interpretive, and symbolic all at once.

The Complex-Systems Theory of Culture provides the basis for analyzing current issues in culture at:

http://culturalevolutionscience.blogspot.com

I would like to point out though, that no-one’s arguing that biological evolution is exactly like cultural evolution. What we’re saying is that cultures and languages evolve over time. What does that mean?

Well, following Richard Lewontin, any system which has three attributes can be seen as evolving:

1) variation: things in the system vary between themselves
2) mutation: things in the system change over time
3) heritability: things in the system replicate over time and give rise to entities that are like themselves.

Now, evolutionary biologists have developed all sorts of really powerful methods (e.g. computational phylogenetics) to deal with the evolution of species. We can take these methods and apply them to these other evolutionary systems. And, as the above papers suggest, we can get some interesting results and we can test some important hypotheses.

–Simon

You bring up an interesting issue that has, as I understand anthropological theory, been in a deadlock for quite some time. The main opposition coming from those who claim that overstating the relationship between biological and cultural evolution is overly-scientific and borderline (if not completely) ethnocentric.

Now, I’m not in a position to (over)state my own position, which at the moment is pretty flexible. But I am willing to entertain the idea that linguistic content and by extension cultural content can shift and change in ways that are ostensibly similar to the models of biological evolution. A quick example is the spread of memes, cultural traits that spread through culture in ways much similar to the transmission of genes.

I’ve always been biologically inclined in that it is natural for me to view cultures as organisms, but although it seems I’m struct-func by nature, I’m interpretive and symbolic by training. Much of my time mentally is spent trying to find ways to reconcile these two (three) ways of thinking. It seems you’ve occupied yourself with a similar dilemma!

Although, (not to make this too long-winded) Geertz even mentions the ways symbolic systems shift and change over time as if under selection pressures in his book “The Interpretation of Cultures”.

It would almost have to be done species by species, because I doubt that gorilla culture changes at the same rate that Japanese macaque culture does (for instance); there are different environmental pressures. Then you get into Dugatkin and guppy culture; how do you measure the rate and impact of culture on fish, when compared to primates?

With our current level of knowledge, it would exponentially multiply complexity to try and create a unified theory. Maybe some kind of correlation index or something like that could be worked out for interspecies comparisons of cultural development, but an over-arching Unified Theory of Evolution? I think we’ll be waiting on that for a while.