“The first finding that jumped out at us was that it is possible to learn too much ! In the tournament, investing lots of time in learning was not at all effective. In fact, we found a strong negative correlation… — Kevin N Laland Copy Share Image
“If efficient copying is adaptive, such that natural selection should favor greater and greater reliance on social as opposed to asocial learning, then the tournament also establishes that a number of characteristics strongly evocative of human culture will follow automatically. With increasing copying inevitably comes greater behavioral diversity; the retention of cultural knowledge for long periods of time; conformity; and… — Kevin N Laland Copy Share
“Strategies that did well in competition with other strategies were not, however, those that maximized the returns to agents. Rather, we found a strong inverse relationship between the mean fitness of individuals in populations containing only one strategy, and that strategy's performance in the tournament. This finding illustrates the parasitic effect of strategies that rely heavily on OBSERVE. Strategies using… — Kevin N Laland Copy Share
“When changes in one genetic trait are the source of selection for changes in a second, the rate of response in the latter depends in parts on the rate of change in the former, which, as a rule, is not fast. In comparison, if a cultural practice modifies selection acting on human genetic variation, then the greater the proportion of… — Kevin N Laland Copy Share
“The teaching conundrum had been solved. Teaching evolves where the costs are outweighed by the inclusive fitness benefits that result from the tutor's relatives being more likely to acquire the valuable information. Teaching is not favored when the pupil can easily acquire the information on their own or through copying others. Nor is it favored when imparting traits that are… — Kevin N Laland Copy Share
“The first finding that jumped out at us was that it is possible to learn too much ! In the tournament, investing lots of… — Kevin N Laland Copy Share Image
“Also renowned is the beautiful painting ceiling of the cave at Altamira, in Northern Spain. This was the first cave art to be discovered… — Kevin N Laland Copy Share Image
