Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-lj6df Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-10T23:15:52.814Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Adaptation to moving targets: Culture/gene coevolution, not either/or

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 October 2008

H. Clark Barrett ,
Willem E. Frankenhuis  and
Andreas Wilke
H. Clark Barrett
Affiliation:
Center for Behavior, Evolution, and Culture, Department of Anthropology, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, 90095-1553barrett@anthro.ucla.eduhttp://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/anthro/faculty/barrett/wilke@ucla.eduhttp://wilke.bol.ucla.edu/Home.html FPR-UCLA Center for Culture, Brain, and Development, Los Angeles, CA 90095. willem@frankenhuis.orghttp://www.willem.frankenhuis.org/
Willem E. Frankenhuis
Affiliation:
Center for Behavior, Evolution, and Culture, Department of Anthropology, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, 90095-1553barrett@anthro.ucla.eduhttp://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/anthro/faculty/barrett/wilke@ucla.eduhttp://wilke.bol.ucla.edu/Home.html
Andreas Wilke
Affiliation:
Center for Behavior, Evolution, and Culture, Department of Anthropology, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, 90095-1553barrett@anthro.ucla.eduhttp://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/anthro/faculty/barrett/wilke@ucla.eduhttp://wilke.bol.ucla.edu/Home.html
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

We agree that much of language evolution is likely to be adaptation of languages to properties of the brain. However, the attempt to rule out the existence of language-specific adaptations a priori is misguided. In particular, the claim that adaptation to “moving targets” cannot occur is false. Instead, the details of gene-culture coevolution in language are an empirical matter.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 31 , Issue 5 , October 2008 , pp. 511 - 512
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2008

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Boyd, R. & Richerson, P. J. (1985) Culture and the evolutionary process. University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Richerson, P. J. & Boyd, R. (2005) Not by genes alone: How culture transformed human evolution. Chicago University Press.Google Scholar
Van Valen, L. (1973) A new evolutionary law. Evolutionary Theory 1:1–30.Google Scholar