Information Supply and Demand

Gene-Culture Coevolution (GCC) theory is an intriguing new entry in the quest to understand human culture. Nonetheless, it has received relatively little philosophical attention. One notable exception is Kim Sterelny’s (2006) critique which raises three primary objections against the GCC account. Most importantly, he argues that GCC theory, as it stands, is unable to resolve “the paradox of cultural accumulation” (151); that while social learning should generally be prohibitively expensive for the pupils, it nonetheless occurs as the principle means of disseminating novel information through a culture. Sterelny holds that this is best explained by supplementing the GCC models with strong cultural group selection pressures. I argue that this is not needed. To show this I elaborate upon Joseph Henrich and Francisco Gil-White’s (2001) information goods theory, developing it in terms of the market pressures that one would expect to find in an information economy. I indicate how such pressures contribute to an individuallevel explanation of cultural accumulation that answers Sterelny’s concerns. As humans our survival is heavily dependent on what we know, including what we have learned from others. This should be a rather obvious point. It is equally obvious that our knowledge, on the whole, has expanded and improved over time. What is not so obvious is how this has occurred. Does cultural information evolve in a process closely parallel to genetic evolution? Does it evolve in another way? Or, must we look to some other kind of process to explain it? Despite their evident interest, these questions have not received the philosophical attention that might be expected. One notable recent exception is Kim Sterelny’s article, The 1 The author is indebted to Edouard Machery for his insightful comments. To appear in Connected Minds: Cognition & Interaction in the Social World, Benoit Hardy-Vallée (ed.). Cambridge Scholars Publishing Justin M. Sytsma Department of History and Philosophy of Science University of Pittsburgh 1017 Cathedral of Learning Pittsburgh, PA USA 15260 Phone: (412) 624-5896 Email: [email protected]