Researchers in cultural evolutionary theory (CET) have recently proposed the foundation of a new field of research in cultural evolution named ‘epistemic evolution’. Drawing on evolutionary epistemology’s early studies, this programme aims to study science as an evolutionary cultural process. The paper discusses the way CET’s study of science can contribute to the philosophical debate and, vice versa, how the philosophy of science can benefit from the adoption of a cultural evolutionary perspective. Here, I argue that CET’s main contribution to an evolutionary model of scientific growth comes from the application of ‘population thinking’ to science. Populationism offers a ‘variation based’ understanding of scientists’ epistemic and socio-epistemic criteria that is able to better accommodate the variegated preferences that intervene in scientific epistemic decisions. A discussion of the so called theory choice context is offered as an example of the way a populationist approach can shed new light on the operation of scientists’ epistemic choices.

中文翻译：

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认知进化中的人口思维：连接文化进化和科学哲学

文化进化理论 (CET) 的研究人员最近提出了一个名为“认知进化”的文化进化新研究领域的基础。本课程借鉴进化认识论的早期研究，旨在将科学作为一种进化文化过程进行研究。本文讨论了 CET 对科学的研究如何为哲学辩论做出贡献，反之亦然，科学哲学如何从采用文化进化观点中受益。在这里，我认为 CET 对科学增长的进化模型的主要贡献来自“人口思维”在科学中的应用。人口主义提供了对科学家认知和社会认知标准的“基于变异”的理解，能够更好地适应干预科学认知决策的多样化偏好。提供了对所谓的理论选择背景的讨论，作为人口主义方法可以为科学家的认知选择的运作提供新思路的一个例子。