This discussion paper responds to two recent articles in Biology and Philosophy that raise similar objections to cultural attraction theory, a research trend in cultural evolution putting special emphasis on the fact that human minds create and transform their culture. Both papers are sympathetic to this idea, yet both also regret a lack of consilience with Boyd, Richerson and Henrich’s models of cultural evolution. I explain why cultural attraction theorists propose a different view on three points of concern for our critics. I start by detailing the claim that cultural transmission relies not chiefly on imitation or teaching, but on cognitive mechanisms like argumentation, ostensive communication, or selective trust, whose evolved or habitual function may not be the faithful reproduction of ideas or behaviours. Second, I explain why the distinction between context biases and content biases might not always be the best way to capture the interactions between culture and cognition. Lastly, I show that cultural attraction models cannot be reduced to a model of guided variation, which posits a clear separation between individual and social learning processes. With cultural attraction, the same cognitive mechanisms underlie both innovation and the preservation of traditions.

中文翻译：

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对文化进化挑剔的原因

这篇讨论论文回应了最近在生物学和哲学上发表的两篇对文化吸引力理论提出类似反对意见的文章，文化吸引力理论是一种文化进化的研究趋势，特别强调人类思想创造和改造他们的文化这一事实。两篇论文都赞同这一观点，但也都对缺乏与博伊德、里奇森和亨里希的文化进化模型保持一致感到遗憾。我解释了为什么文化吸引力理论家对我们的批评者关注的三个问题提出了不同的观点。我首先详细说明文化传播不主要依赖于模仿或教学，而是依赖于诸如论证、明示交流或选择性信任等认知机制，其进化或习惯功能可能不是思想或行为的忠实再现。第二，我解释了为什么上下文偏见和内容偏见之间的区别可能并不总是捕捉文化和认知之间相互作用的最佳方式。最后，我表明文化吸引力模型不能简化为引导变异模型，它明确区分了个人和社会学习过程。对于文化吸引力，相同的认知机制是创新和传统保护的基础。