Abstract:

The group of scientific ideas that claim that the presence of an item or a trait in a system can be explained by the effects it has on the performance or the maintenance of the containing system, generally known as functionalism, is prone to circular argumentation, backward causation, and other logical fallacies. While in evolutionary biology these risks are approached with care, the research of cultural evolution is mostly unaware of these fallacies. I will pinpoint three possible fallacies that lie hidden in the research of cultural evolution: 1. conflation or failure to distinguish between two different concepts of function. Function as the effect of a trait on its selective history vs. function as the causal role that the trait occupies in the system. The problem is that evidence of the latter does not in by itself imply the earlier. 2. The relationship between culture and humans (both individuals and groups) seen through the analogy of 'society as a (super)organism' is suggestive; evaluating the adequacy of this analogy requires evidence beyond the analysis of function 3. Adaptionist approaches to culture by strict focus on the search for functions are often insensitive to the possibility of survivorship bias.

Speaker's social media:

@BahnaVladimir