Looking for Middle Ground in Cultural Attraction Theory
Accepted version
Peer-reviewed
Repository URI
Repository DOI
Change log
Authors
Buskell, Andrew https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6939-2848
Abstract
In their article, Thom Scott-Phillips, Stefaan Blancke, and Christophe Heintz do a commendable job summarising the position and misunderstandings of “cultural attraction theory” (CAT). However, they do not address a longstanding problem for the CAT framework; that while it has an encompassing theory and some well-worked out case studies, it lacks tools for generating models or empirical hypotheses of intermediate generality. I suggest that what the authors diagnose as misunderstandings are instead superficial interpretive errors, resulting from researchers who have attempted to extract generalizable hypotheses from CAT and bring them into contact with the analytical and inferential models of contemporary cultural evolutionary research.
Description
Keywords
cultural attraction theory, cultural evolution, modularity, Anthropology, Physical, Cultural Evolution, Humans, Models, Theoretical
Journal Title
Evolutionary Anthropology
Conference Name
Journal ISSN
1097-6736
1520-6505
1520-6505
Volume Title
Publisher
Wiley-Blackwell
Publisher DOI
Sponsorship
John Templeton Foundation (via University of St Andrews) (13337)
John Templeton Foundation