The authors propose to view cultural evolution as the outcome of social tinkering, much like biological tinkering. It appears obvious and realistic that social tinkering and gradual cumulative changes and innovations are involved in the sociocultural evolution and emergence of increasingly complex forms. This understanding stems partly from our position as observers of this process: most of what we observe around us are microprocesses at a local time scale and difficult to relate directly to the macro sociocultural changes at a historical scale. Only a posteriori are we able to see the initially unpredicted influence of relatively small changes to sociocultural dynamics, such as the influence of the mobile phone on human relationships of all kinds.
But small and gradual changes are not the only ones in play. A number of proposals in evolutionary biology challenge the dominant gradual perspective and may be transcribed to the sociocultural domain. The most prominent alternative to gradualism is the “punctuated equilibria” view (Eldredge & Gould, Reference Eldredge, Gould and Schopf1972; Pennell, Harmon, & Uyeda, Reference Pennell, Harmon and Uyeda2014), whereby large and abrupt changes, confined in space and time, emerge between long periods of stasis. Similarly, in human society there are many factors and processes contributing to step changes, subsequently enabling and triggering large cultural changes.
Coercion is one: modern governments and former empires have often imposed laws and rules, mostly to respond to political or real-life necessities, together with sanctions for non-compliance. Examples range from the early Twelve Tables of the Roman Empire (intended to unify traditions and minimise conflicts (Forsythe, Reference Forsythe2005)) to modern driving on the right (or left) side and sorting garbage. These rules change human behaviour and instil certain attitudes to everyday behaviour and certain features in the cultural baggage of a population.
General leadership, especially charismatic leadership, may trigger large cultural changes at a faster pace, for example, the adoption of a religion, even if the reason for doing so is not necessarily related to faith (Christianity for Constantine the Great in Rome (Drake, Reference Drake and Lenski2012) or Catholicism for Clovis I in France (Moorhead, Reference Moorhead1985)). Leaders are initially legitimised and posthumously praised for their intuition about changes that give both an immediate “proximate” advantage to the individuals and an “ultimate” advantage to the whole group.
Other psychological factors also participate, for example, contagion and mass reaction to the beauty of clothes and ornaments. Fashion and fashion models often function this way and may be viewed as an instance of “neutral evolution” whereby new features emerge without positive change in fitness and sometimes with negative change, such as fashionable but unpractical and uncomfortable clothes and shoes.
General institutional interventions, not always coercive, also exist, like the selection of a single national language in a state, mainly to organise education and mobilise the population. This happened around 100–150 years ago in Italy, France, Spain and so forth. (Bonnet, Reference Bonnet2021) In such cases, within one generation the population using other languages or dialects shrinks and sometimes vanishes.
All these examples show that the sociocultural evolution and emergence of complexity is not only due to small and gradually cumulating changes but also often to top-down or other large changes that spread fast in a population. This kind of process is consistent with the four criteria given by the authors for cumulative cultural evolution and development of cultural complexity: local cultural change, involving mainly directed innovations; creation of rules (e.g., norms) for coordination of individual behaviours; and emergence of spontaneous order and diversity through interaction. For example, in the adoption of a king-suggested religion, these criteria appear as follows: individuals adopt the proposed religion, the innovation is the suggested religion, coordination is supported by the establishment of religious holidays favouring the proposed religion, and finally, worship sites are built and spread spontaneously in the territory. The basic difference with gradual evolution is that these developments are very fast. The global village (McLuhan & Powers, Reference McLuhan and Powers1992) of our present world offers many opportunities for faster and larger-scale cultural evolution. Examples of such big changes that spread very fast and establish themselves culturally in certain groups are the often discussed “Great Resignation” after the Covid-1 pandemic (Faulds & Raju, Reference Faulds and Raju2023) and the Gen Z mutation of work ethics compared to prior generations (Seifert et al., Reference Seifert, Van Ness, Eddy, Buff and D’Abate2023). In general, fast changes in the modern world show in the generation gap and comply with the criteria proposed by the authors.
Other evolutionary concepts that challenge the gradualist paradigm may also apply to cultural evolution. Catastrophe approaches study systems that disappear abruptly. Many cases of cultural collapse are known that do not fit the gradual perspective, such as the Mayan and others (Tainter, Reference Tainter1988) or even the rapid extinction of the Neanderthals (Jewell, Reference Jewell, Shackelford and Weekes-Shackelford2021), both of them mysteries that cannot be attributed solely to climatic or environmental roots. Speciation is also another family of processes that are evolutionarily not gradual but fast. Because cultural evolution is faster than biological, cultural speciation has been observed many times, for example, in the appearance of creole cultures in the Caribbean after the arrival of the Europeans (McCusker, Reference McCusker, Forsdick and Murphy2003).
All these processes are supported by the higher cognitive abilities of the human species compared to other species: we are able to reason about a necessary change and control its adoption, although not always successfully or with unpredictable effects. Additional mechanisms that are unique to humans, also support fast cultural evolution: extensive mind reading allows to predict and thus channel human behaviour, such as emergence of compliance to rules, and mind travel may be responsible for the widespread adoption of norms yielding an immediate advantage compared to the past. As a result, and unlike biological evolution, cultural evolution does not function by natural selection only (survival of the “fittest” or simply “fit”). Instead, selection in the sociocultural domain happens by generalised adoption of a feature by the population, whether adoption is spontaneous or forced. In many cases, as the examples above show, the changes are consistent with the four criteria given by the authors, while not being small and gradual but fast and large.
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The authors propose to view cultural evolution as the outcome of social tinkering, much like biological tinkering. It appears obvious and realistic that social tinkering and gradual cumulative changes and innovations are involved in the sociocultural evolution and emergence of increasingly complex forms. This understanding stems partly from our position as observers of this process: most of what we observe around us are microprocesses at a local time scale and difficult to relate directly to the macro sociocultural changes at a historical scale. Only a posteriori are we able to see the initially unpredicted influence of relatively small changes to sociocultural dynamics, such as the influence of the mobile phone on human relationships of all kinds.
But small and gradual changes are not the only ones in play. A number of proposals in evolutionary biology challenge the dominant gradual perspective and may be transcribed to the sociocultural domain. The most prominent alternative to gradualism is the “punctuated equilibria” view (Eldredge & Gould, Reference Eldredge, Gould and Schopf1972; Pennell, Harmon, & Uyeda, Reference Pennell, Harmon and Uyeda2014), whereby large and abrupt changes, confined in space and time, emerge between long periods of stasis. Similarly, in human society there are many factors and processes contributing to step changes, subsequently enabling and triggering large cultural changes.
Coercion is one: modern governments and former empires have often imposed laws and rules, mostly to respond to political or real-life necessities, together with sanctions for non-compliance. Examples range from the early Twelve Tables of the Roman Empire (intended to unify traditions and minimise conflicts (Forsythe, Reference Forsythe2005)) to modern driving on the right (or left) side and sorting garbage. These rules change human behaviour and instil certain attitudes to everyday behaviour and certain features in the cultural baggage of a population.
General leadership, especially charismatic leadership, may trigger large cultural changes at a faster pace, for example, the adoption of a religion, even if the reason for doing so is not necessarily related to faith (Christianity for Constantine the Great in Rome (Drake, Reference Drake and Lenski2012) or Catholicism for Clovis I in France (Moorhead, Reference Moorhead1985)). Leaders are initially legitimised and posthumously praised for their intuition about changes that give both an immediate “proximate” advantage to the individuals and an “ultimate” advantage to the whole group.
Other psychological factors also participate, for example, contagion and mass reaction to the beauty of clothes and ornaments. Fashion and fashion models often function this way and may be viewed as an instance of “neutral evolution” whereby new features emerge without positive change in fitness and sometimes with negative change, such as fashionable but unpractical and uncomfortable clothes and shoes.
General institutional interventions, not always coercive, also exist, like the selection of a single national language in a state, mainly to organise education and mobilise the population. This happened around 100–150 years ago in Italy, France, Spain and so forth. (Bonnet, Reference Bonnet2021) In such cases, within one generation the population using other languages or dialects shrinks and sometimes vanishes.
All these examples show that the sociocultural evolution and emergence of complexity is not only due to small and gradually cumulating changes but also often to top-down or other large changes that spread fast in a population. This kind of process is consistent with the four criteria given by the authors for cumulative cultural evolution and development of cultural complexity: local cultural change, involving mainly directed innovations; creation of rules (e.g., norms) for coordination of individual behaviours; and emergence of spontaneous order and diversity through interaction. For example, in the adoption of a king-suggested religion, these criteria appear as follows: individuals adopt the proposed religion, the innovation is the suggested religion, coordination is supported by the establishment of religious holidays favouring the proposed religion, and finally, worship sites are built and spread spontaneously in the territory. The basic difference with gradual evolution is that these developments are very fast. The global village (McLuhan & Powers, Reference McLuhan and Powers1992) of our present world offers many opportunities for faster and larger-scale cultural evolution. Examples of such big changes that spread very fast and establish themselves culturally in certain groups are the often discussed “Great Resignation” after the Covid-1 pandemic (Faulds & Raju, Reference Faulds and Raju2023) and the Gen Z mutation of work ethics compared to prior generations (Seifert et al., Reference Seifert, Van Ness, Eddy, Buff and D’Abate2023). In general, fast changes in the modern world show in the generation gap and comply with the criteria proposed by the authors.
Other evolutionary concepts that challenge the gradualist paradigm may also apply to cultural evolution. Catastrophe approaches study systems that disappear abruptly. Many cases of cultural collapse are known that do not fit the gradual perspective, such as the Mayan and others (Tainter, Reference Tainter1988) or even the rapid extinction of the Neanderthals (Jewell, Reference Jewell, Shackelford and Weekes-Shackelford2021), both of them mysteries that cannot be attributed solely to climatic or environmental roots. Speciation is also another family of processes that are evolutionarily not gradual but fast. Because cultural evolution is faster than biological, cultural speciation has been observed many times, for example, in the appearance of creole cultures in the Caribbean after the arrival of the Europeans (McCusker, Reference McCusker, Forsdick and Murphy2003).
All these processes are supported by the higher cognitive abilities of the human species compared to other species: we are able to reason about a necessary change and control its adoption, although not always successfully or with unpredictable effects. Additional mechanisms that are unique to humans, also support fast cultural evolution: extensive mind reading allows to predict and thus channel human behaviour, such as emergence of compliance to rules, and mind travel may be responsible for the widespread adoption of norms yielding an immediate advantage compared to the past. As a result, and unlike biological evolution, cultural evolution does not function by natural selection only (survival of the “fittest” or simply “fit”). Instead, selection in the sociocultural domain happens by generalised adoption of a feature by the population, whether adoption is spontaneous or forced. In many cases, as the examples above show, the changes are consistent with the four criteria given by the authors, while not being small and gradual but fast and large.
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This research received no specific grant from any funding agency, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.
Competing interests
The author declares no competing interests.