caa a22 4500 605448345 CHVBK 20210128100136.0 cr unu---uuuuu 210128e20150701xx s 000 0 eng 10.1007/s10539-015-9490-2 doi (NATIONALLICENCE)springer-10.1007/s10539-015-9490-2 If we are all cultural Darwinians what's the fuss about? Clarifying recent disagreements in the field of cultural evolution [Elektronische Daten] [Alberto Acerbi, Alex Mesoudi] Cultural evolution studies are characterized by the notion that culture evolves accordingly to broadly Darwinian principles. Yet how far the analogy between cultural and genetic evolution should be pushed is open to debate. Here, we examine a recent disagreement that concerns the extent to which cultural transmission should be considered a preservative mechanism allowing selection among different variants, or a transformative process in which individuals recreate variants each time they are transmitted. The latter is associated with the notion of "cultural attraction”. This issue has generated much misunderstanding and confusion. We first clarify the respective positions, noting that there is in fact no substantive incompatibility between cultural attraction and standard cultural evolution approaches, beyond a difference in focus. Whether cultural transmission should be considered a preservative or reconstructive process is ultimately an empirical question, and we examine how both preservative and reconstructive cultural transmission has been studied in recent experimental research in cultural evolution. Finally, we discuss how the relative importance of preservative and reconstructive processes may depend on the granularity of analysis and the domain being studied. The Author(s), 2015 Cultural attraction nationallicence Cultural attractors nationallicence Cultural evolution nationallicence Cultural transmission nationallicence Acerbi Alberto Department of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Bristol, 43 Woodland Road, BS8 1UU, Bristol, UK aut Mesoudi Alex Department of Anthropology, Durham University, Dawson Building, South Road, DH1 3LE, Durham, UK aut Biology & Philosophy Springer Netherlands 30/4(2015-07-01), 481-503 0169-3867 30:4<481 2015 30 10539 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10539-015-9490-2 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI BK010053 XK010053 XK010000 Metadata rights reserved Springer special CC-BY-NC licence nationallicence 1 research-article jats NATIONALLICENCE NATIONALLICENCE NL-springer NATIONALLICENCE 856 40 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10539-015-9490-2 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI NATIONALLICENCE 700 1- Acerbi Alberto Department of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Bristol, 43 Woodland Road, BS8 1UU, Bristol, UK aut NATIONALLICENCE 700 1- Mesoudi Alex Department of Anthropology, Durham University, Dawson Building, South Road, DH1 3LE, Durham, UK aut NATIONALLICENCE 773 0- Biology & Philosophy Springer Netherlands 30/4(2015-07-01), 481-503 0169-3867 30:4<481 2015 30 10539