Culture, Cognition, and Evolution

• Science: Biology: Evolution  (159)
• Science: Biology: Sociobiology  (45)
• Science: Social Sciences: Linguistics: Historical Linguistics: Proto-Language  (10)
• Science: Social Sciences: Psychology: Evolutionary Psychology  (418)

Basic References on the Global Brain / Superorganism - Short annotated bibliography and link list related to theories of the global brain. "Society can be viewed as a multicellular organism, with individuals in the role of the cells. The network of communication channels connecting individuals then plays the role of a nervous system for this superorganism, i.e. a "global brain"."

Brain Channels - Evolving Human Intelligence - Extensive site containing sections on evolution, "memory expansion" and brain research news.

The Coevolution of Language and Theory of Mind - Online symposium organized by the french Institute for Cognitive Sciences and the European Science Foundation.

Cog Web - Research tool for exploring the relevance of the study of human cognition to communication and the arts. Features articles, discourse and bibliography.

Cognitive science & literature & composition - Writings applying cognitive science to the study of literature and composition, includings chapters froma book. Also includes links to other relevant material.

Dan Sperber - Home page of the French cognitive and social scientist, with biography, bibliography, and texts in English and French.

Evolution and Philosophy - Kent Van Cleave examines the human mind and philosophy in light of evolutionary theories, themes, and processes. Metaethical functionalism is introduced.

The Evolution of Ethics: Cybernetic Ethics - "The evolution of ethical systems is described in scientific terms using cybernetics as its logical foundation. A plausible theory of the integration of science and ethics." Online book

The International Paleopsychology Project - A multi-disciplinary group of scientists dedicated to mapping out the evolution of complexity, sociality, perception, and mentation from the first 10-32 second of the Big Bang to the present.

Language, Neoteny, Heterochrony, and Human Evolution - Extensive collection of quotations on the evolution of language. Part of the Web Library of Excerpts: The Multidisciplinary Implications of Heterochronic Theory.

The Pleistocene and the Origins of Human Culture: - Peter J. Richerson and Robert Boyd argue that the specific mechanism by which humans mastered the Pleistocene is our capacity to evolve adaptations to the variation of Plio-Pleistocene environments via cultural traditions.

Precis of origins of the modern mind - The central hypothesis in this paper is that there were three major cognitive transformations by which the modern human mind emerged over several million years: 1) mimetic skill and autocueing, 2) lexical invention, 3) externalization of memory.

Psychology, culture, and evolution - Site has three sections: the first is concerned with the evolution of the human capacity to construct signs; the second deals with Cultural-Historical Psychology; the third concerns theories and arguments about the evolution of brain, consciousness, language, and sociality.

The Thinking Meat Project - Essays and weblog entries on various topics regarding human nature.

Without Miracles: The Evolution, Acquisition, and Use of Language - Chapter from Prof. Gary Cziko's book "Without Miracles: Universal Selection Theory and the Second Darwinian Revolution."