Is Cultural Fitness Hopelessly Confused?

Abstract

Fitness is a central concept in evolutionary theory. Just as it is central to biological evolution, so, it seems, it should be central to cultural evolutionary theory (CET). But importing the biological fitness concept to CET is no straightforward task—there are many features unique to cultural evolution that make this difficult. This has led some theorists to argue that there are fundamental problems with cultural fitness that render it hopelessly confused. In this essay, we defend the coherency of cultural fitness against those who call it into doubt. 1. Introduction2. Cultural Fitness is Not Superfluous3. The Individuation Problem 3.1. The generations problem3.2. Cultural growth versus cultural reproduction4. The Repeated Learning Problem 4.1. The retention problem4.2. Is fitness transitive?5. Towards a Concept of Cultural Fitness 5.1. Biological and cultural individuals5.2. Mutation and transmission biases6. Conclusions