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closeDefining Culture as Socially Learned Information is Wrong-Headed
Posted by rgargett on 15 Sep 2012 at 23:34 GMT
PlosOne should take note that some might wonder whether or not this paper's referees were 'asleep at the switch' for allowing the author's definition of 'culture' to justify its publication. Socially learned 'information' amongst humans is not a unique behavioural or cognitive trait. It's present in most mammals, such as dogs, cats, bats, and rats. It's also a characteristic of bees and other social insects.
As such I fear that your readers may wonder at your purpose in publishing this paper--if it was to advance scholarship and knowledge of the human past, your readers will wonder at how low you have set the bar in this case.
Stating the obvious has, I have to point out, never been a significant contribution to any discipline--much less that of our own evolution. Surely PlosOne can do better than this.
RE: Defining Culture as Socially Learned Information is Wrong-Headed
alexmesoudi replied to rgargett on 17 Sep 2012 at 08:47 GMT
Dear Dr Gargett
As the editor responsible for accepting Dr Perreault's paper in PLOS ONE, I'd like to respond to your comment.
I confess I find your comment a little puzzling: nowhere in the paper is it claimed that non-human species do not have culture, defined as socially learned information. The paper cites and draws on the cultural evolution literature (e.g. the work of Boyd and Richerson) which explicitly acknowledges that social learning is widespread in the animal kingdom, as you correctly assert. In fact, unlike many anthropological definitions of culture, Boyd, Richerson et al. take pains to define culture in a way that *does* include non-human species. Whether non-human species have cumulative cultural *evolution* is a different matter that is currently a major topic of ongoing research, but this particular paper does not bear on that issue.
When judged on its own merit, I believe the paper makes a valuable contribution to the field of cultural evolution, demonstrating empirically for the first time that cultural evolution changes faster than genetic evolution. Like all PLOS ONE submissions, this paper was fully peer reviewed by experts in the field, and they shared this view.
Best,
Alex