Shea Nicholas
Faculty of Philosophy and Somerville College, University of Oxford, Philosophy Centre, 10 Merton Street, Oxford OX1 4JJ, UK.
Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci. 2009 Aug 27;364(1528):2429-43. doi: 10.1098/rstb.2009.0061.
What is the evolutionary significance of the various mechanisms of imitation, emulation and social learning found in humans and other animals? This paper presents an advance in the theoretical resources for addressing that question, in the light of which standard approaches from the cultural evolution literature should be refocused. The central question is whether humans have an imitation-based inheritance system--a mechanism that has the evolutionary function of transmitting behavioural phenotypes reliably down the generations. To have the evolutionary power of an inheritance system, an imitation-based mechanism must meet a range of demanding requirements. The paper goes on to review the evidence for and against the hypothesis that there is indeed an imitation-based inheritance system in humans.
人类和其他动物身上发现的模仿、效仿及社会学习等各种机制的进化意义是什么?本文提出了在解决该问题的理论资源方面的一项进展,据此,文化进化文献中的标准方法应重新聚焦。核心问题是人类是否拥有基于模仿的遗传系统——一种具有将行为表型可靠地代代相传的进化功能的机制。要具备遗传系统的进化力量,基于模仿的机制必须满足一系列严格要求。本文接着回顾了支持和反对人类确实存在基于模仿的遗传系统这一假设的证据。