What Are the Grand challenges for Cultural Evolution?

What Are the Grand Challenges for Cultural

Evolution?

A Research Report for the Society for the Study of Cultural Evolution

Prepared by:

Joe Brewer Ian MacDonald Culture Designer Biology Researcher Evolution Institute Binghamton University

What You Will Find In This Report

An ad hoc steering committee initiated steps to form the Society for the Study of Cultural Evolution (SSCE) in the summer of 2015. As part of the inaugural proceedings, a survey of SSCE members was conducted to identify a suite of "grand challenge" problems of broad scientific and social interest that can drive cutting-edge research and practice within the field of cultural evolutionary studies for future decades.

Over the course of several weeks, a total of 236 SSCE members from around the world completed an online questionnaire in which they could nominate up to ten such challenges, providing a brief description and rationale for each. Additionally, SSCE members were also asked to indicate their level of understanding and mode of training in core domains (cultural studies and evolutionary theory), how they see their current work fitting into the wider world of cultural evolutionary studies, and how they see themselves contributing to the grand challenges facing the society.

The responses to the initial grand challenges survey are summarized below.

Qualitative Assessment — Close-Text Semantic Analysis of Survey Responses As noted above, we received 236 completed surveys. Respondents could nominate more than one grand challenge, so we received a total of 435 Grand Challenge Ideas. The methodology used to analyze the content of these Grand Challenge Ideas is called close-text semantic analysis which is to closely read each text entry and create a coding system of hashtags for thematic content found within them.

The procedure goes like this:

1. Place all Grand Challenge Ideas (GCIs) in a single spreadsheet column. 2. Go through all 435 GCIs and create hashtags for content by filling in the accompanying row

for each entry. 3. Build up a "master list" of these hashtags to create thematic categories for organizing the

responses. 4. Count the number of entries “tagged” by each hashtag as a measure of thematic

composition and emphasis. 5. Construct “network graphs” that reveal how the most prominent themes cluster together in

order to create complex thematic categories that reveal key relationships between the hashtags (and the themes they represent). 1

Special thanks to Ken Cousins of The Vicinus Group for conducting this network graph analysis for us.1

What Are The Grand Challenges For Cultural Evolution? Prepared on November 9, 2015

http://www.vicinusgroup.com/

Before going into the findings from this analysis, it may be helpful to see what a typical Grand Challenge Idea looks like. Here are two representative examples taken from the survey responses. Note how both are richly sophisticated and thoughtfully articulated. The full collection of responses came through this way. We really have a phenomenal community of engaged participants in our founding membership at the SSCE!

Grand Challenge Response — Representative Example 1

Learning how to harness the power of conformist biased transmission to support political policy or health related measures that are widely supported by the public and by specialists even if not by the small minority of well-heeled lobbying groups. Perhaps this would allow democratic governments to better work for the people's interest rather than the large, multinational conglomerates' interest.

Tags: #ConformistBias, #CulturalTransmission, #PolicyMaking, #PracticalSolutions, #CultureDesign

Grand Challenge Response — Representative Example 2

The world is loosing indigenous cultures at an unprecedented rate reflected by an estimated loss of 1 language per day. These cultures hold knowledge and wisdom essential to humanity's well-being and prosperity. More than 370 million Indigenous Peoples live in over 90 countries and constitute the largest minority in the world. Indigenous territories cover 24 percent of the earth’s land surface that harbor 80 percent of the earth’s remaining biodiversity. Indigenous peoples are the stewards of some of the world’s most biologically diverse areas, and their traditional knowledge about nature is invaluable. Today, climate change is among the forces of globalization threatening the very existence of many Indigenous Peoples; some estimate the world is loosing one indigenous language every day. Ironically, traditional indigenous knowledge passed down through the centuries offers highly valuable sources of wisdom to guide all of us in addressing the greatest challenges of our times, as well as offering sources of knowledge and wisdom as a basis for innovation and guiding social well-being.

Tags: #Diversity, #ComparingCultures, #CulturalExtinction, #Environment, #Globalization

Another thing to note in the way hashtags are used is that each entry typically was given several tags—making it possible to add up the number of entries associated with each tag and to capture the relationships between tags that appear together. The analysis that follows is garnered from these two types of information.


What Were The Top Ten Hashtags? A total of 149 hashtags were created (a full list can be found in the appendix at the end of this report), revealing a great diversity of topics that have been flagged as important for consideration by the society. The first thing we wanted to know was which thematic elements appear most frequently in the survey responses.

Since each entry was coded with several hashtags, it was straightforward to add them up and see which ones occur most frequently. This table shows the top ten themes and gives the number of entries that were tagged by each of them.

The highest priority theme was knowledge synthesis. It was tagged in 99 of the 435 entries (22.8% of the total) and appeared almost twice as often as the second-ranked theme of prosociaiity. Similar second-ranked emphasis was given to culture definition, environmental concerns, cultural transmission, and economics.

Each theme was treated as a “generally relevant topic” for the entry it was tagged onto. What this means methodologically is that we created a hashtag each time a new topic appeared as we went through the survey responses. When the same topic was mentioned again (often with a different, albeit related, focus), we applied the hashtag to the new entry. Topics were loosely defined intentionally such that entries can be clustered into categories of themes that are related to each other in a variety of ways. To help this make more sense, here are brief descriptors for the six most frequently used thematic elements:

Knowledge Synthesis deals with the need to combine information across disparate fields of inquiry, such as bridging research from social psychology with anthropological studies of

Thematic Element Frequency of Responses

#KnowledgeSynthesis 99

#ProSociality 51

#CultureDefinition 48

#Environment 46

#CulturalTransmission 45

#Economics 44

#Theory 42

#HistoricTrajectories 38

#ComparingCultures 36


indigenous cultures. Each entry tagged with this theme was a call for synthesis and integration of knowledge to tackle otherwise intractable problems.

ProSociality deals with the underlying mechanisms that give rise to trust, cooperation, altruism, and other social behaviors that enhance the functioning for groups of people. Each entry tagged with this theme was a call for safer communities, better cooperation, and more effective institutions.

Culture Definition deals with lingering confusion about the relationship between biology and culture. Each entry tagged with this theme was a call for greater clarity about the similarities and differences between inheritance through the diverse mechanisms of genetics, epigenetics, social behavior, and symbolic culture.

Environment deals with environmental concerns that threaten human communities and the biosphere in general. Each entry tagged with this theme was a call for action on climate change or for deeper understandings about the roles played by culture in harmonious (and dysfunctional) relationships between humans and the more-than-human world.

Cultural Transmission deals with processes of social learning and exchanges of knowledge from one generation to the next. Each entry tagged with this theme was a call for deeper understandings about the cognitive, anatomical, and evolutionary aspects of cultural change that give rise to and constrain the transmission of cultural practices from one person to another.

Economics deals with the foundational social science of productivity and resource allocation in human societies. Each entry tagged with this theme was a call for clarity about scientifically credible economic knowledge and its applications to both organizational management and public policy.

These are only six of 149 themes that arose at least once in the collection of survey responses—a rich dataset indeed! For this reason, it is unwieldy to tackle the full complexity of the idea network comprising all 435 entries. The next step was to rank order the full list of hashtags and see which ones appear most frequently (not only the top ten listed above). After this we can start to organize the tags into relational webs of co-occurence to see how the themes clustered together in the full collection of responses.

Pulling Back To See The Big Picture We have already seen that our founding members want the society to promote knowledge synthesis, increase collective learning about the nature of cultural change and how it differs from genetic evolution, and apply this knowledge to important environmental and economic projects that impact the real world.


So what else do our founding members want us to focus on? Pulling back to see the bigger picture, let’s start by looking at the top 50 thematic elements, ranked according to their frequency in the survey responses.

This graph shows the top ten entries listed above plus the next forty topics that appeared with decreasing frequency. As you can see there are quite a few worthy themes for consideration, some of them having fairly obvious relationships with each other.

For example, governance and policymaking are going to have important linkages with each other. They will also be implicated in attempts to deal with the global crisis (convergence of threats due to globalization, ecological decline, population growth, and the systemic threats that arise among them). We can also see how storytelling and science communication are relevant to practical solutions and are specifically connected for attempts to deal with resistance to evolution both in the academy and for the lay public.

This tells us that the topics are not separate from each other. They already have semantic structure where their meanings are interrelated and actions around some will influence or be influenced by others. Another way to see the systemic nature of these topics is to construct a graph showing all 149 thematic elements with lines drawn connecting each of them that appears together in at least one entry. Thicken the connections in a linear manner to represent the number of times they appear together and you get this mess—affectionally called the “kitchen sink” graph by the researcher who created it for us.


0

5

10

15

20

25

Top$50$Thematic$Elements$of$Grand$Survey$Results(%$of$Responses$with$Each$Theme)

The “Kitchen Sink” — A Mangle of Topics From All Survey Responses

For example, if historic trajectories appears in the same entry with technology we draw a line between them. The line is then made thicker each time they appear together in a new entry. Do this for a large number of themes and we get a graph like this:

"

This graph is not a full “kitchen sink” because it only includes the topics that appeared at least 13 times in the full collection of survey responses. (This graphic is also simplified further by removing knowledge synthesis to declutter and emphasize second-tier relationships.) Even when simplified in this way, we can see that a great deal of clustering exists between the themes—a reflection of the sophistication and richness for each individual entry as we saw earlier in this report.


The next step we took was to look at the “ego network” for the most prominent themes. This is done by graphing one topic with all of the others that link to it, revealing how this theme stands in relation to others. Here is the ego network for knowledge synthesis:

Several things leap out when we view the data in this way. Firstly, we can see yet again how no topic stands alone. It is not surprising that knowledge synthesis (being the most prominent theme to come up in survey responses) will be connected to almost every other topic. More interesting to note is that this theme is linked most strongly with theory, shared language, culture definition, institutional silos, and method diversity. The structure of this category is revealing itself.

What we can take away from the analysis so far is that SSCE members want to see our fledgling society organize itself around a process of unification in the social sciences. To do this we will need to create a shared language to integrate knowledge across disciplinary silos in the academy. We will have to focus effort on deep theoretical issues—particularly those having to do with the methodological approaches we take to the study of culture (and how this is similar to or divergent from the study of biology, physics, and other scientific domains). And we will have to overcome the institutional barriers that hinder this kind of synthesis, in a sense “evolving” the way our institutions are set up so they can better enable the integration of knowledge across fields.

Clearly, this implies a need for our society to be collaborative and diverse in its membership. Tackling this grand challenge will take many years and require that we form excellent relationships with complementary societies and institutions.


On the practitioner side, we have already mentioned that a number of grand challenge ideas are about the threats of ecological collapse, issues pertaining to governance and community well-being, and many other practical (and urgent!) issues. We were able to unpack this by looking at the ego network for the global crisis theme.

This graph shows how our founding members perceive the human predicament as we enter the early middle of the 21st Century. The largest linkage, not surprisingly, is with environmental concerns—principally global warming and the systemic threats associated with it. More revealing for how we structure the SSCE agenda is how several other themes cluster with each other as they are referenced to the global crisis. Note how historic trajectories, prosociaiity, economics, policymaking, governance, complexity, tribalism, and culture design form a tight weave as a category for strategic engagement.

Some of the implications are:

✦ Practitioners working on the transition to sustainability will need to understand the historic patterns of civilization and how they relate to our evolved psychological dispositions in prehistoric times.

✦ The society needs to provide practical guidance for public policy, community development, and governance through insights about the ways human beings cooperate and build trust, naturally break down into tribal groups where conflict might arise, and how to manage this complexity with design principles.


✦ All of this will depend upon our ability to tackle the grand challenge of knowledge synthesis as part of organizational development efforts worldwide. The SSCE needs to balance scientific rigor with considerable expertise in practical applications.

We could continue this analysis with other themes but the outcomes would be broadly similar. The topics our founding members want this society to address are systemic both in knowledge area and practical application. The survey results tell us that we need to cultivate a strongly collaborative, cross-disciplinary network of partnerships that both advance deep theoretical inquiry and provide assistance to urgent real-world challenges at every level of society.

So how prepared are we now? The rest of this report offers a glimpse at who the founding membership is and what we are already capable of doing together.

Quantitative Assessment — Who Are the Founding Members of SSCE? The survey we sent out included a series of multiple choice questions to help us get a sense of who the founding membership is, what they do, and how extensive their knowledge is about cultural evolutionary studies.

The first question we asked was How do you see your current work fitting into the field of cultural evolutionary studies? Respondents could select one or more of four options. The results are presented in Table 1 showing that 75% of those who filled out the survey come from the research world, more than a third are teachers, and a third work on practical applications.

Table 1. The propor(on of respondents that see their current work as fi5ng into one (or more) of four broad domains within the realm of cultural evolu(onary studies (n = 236). Note: members were able to select more than one op(on.

A follow-up question was asked about how they would like to contribute to activities through the SSCE. The results are shown in Table 2 on the next page. The founding members who filled out this survey are predominantly interested in providing research and educational support to the grand challenges. Some want to help increase the financial investments in cultural evolutionary studies (and design practice, as we saw in the qualitative analysis above) through government funding and private philanthropy.

A strong signal comes through that our members would like to be entrepreneurial and creative through the society—notable emphasis came with 34% wanting to help improve academic institutions and 21% having an interest in creating or improving social impact enterprises.

Research Teaching Applied(Not Active, But)

Interested

0.75 0.38 0.35 0.13


Table 2. The propor(on of respondents who see themselves contribu(ng to the grand challenge effort via several means (n = 236). Note: respondents were able to select more than one op(on.

So how much do our founding members know about cultural evolutionary studies? And how did they acquire the knowledge they currently have. We started by separating cultural studies from evolutionary studies to see how each subdomain of the field is represented by our membership. This allowed us to look at the relative strengths in each area and—as we’ll see in a moment—to get a glimpse into the opportunities for educational improvement this society can help make happen through its activities.

Figure 1. Distribu(on of respondents’ self-‐reported level of understanding in the domain of cultural stud-‐ies (n = 235). Scale ranged from 1 (Novice) to 7 (Expert).

Contribution to Tackling Grand Challenges Through the SSCEProportion of Respondents

Conduct basic and applied research 0.72

Improve academic institutions to better address societal issues 0.34

Run campaigns that change policy outcomes 0.17

Design policy frameworks and new metrics based on scientific research 0.28

Increase financial support for efforts through government funding 0.11

Increase financial support for efforts through private philanthropy 0.08

Engage in entrepreneurial efforts to build social impact enterprises 0.21

Educate the public through communication pathways in the media 0.55

Other 0.16


Not surprisingly, the founding members have a strong knowledge base in cultural studies. Few consider themselves novices and most are approaching the level of mastery, while still feeling they have more to learn.

Figure 2. Distribu(on of respondents’ mode of training within the domain of cultural studies (n = 232). Scale ranged from 1 (Completely Self-‐Taught) to 7 (Completely Formal Educa(on).

Interestingly, when we asked how they acquired their training in cultural studies most said it was a mix of self-directed informal learning and formal academic education. Fewer respondents described themselves as formally educated than self-educated—indicating that community members entered their respective fields of cultural studies through informal and formal pathways.

We ran a subsequent analysis of these results to create a “bi-variate response distribution” that tells us how the mode of learning corresponds with the level of expertise acquired. The results are presented in Figure 3.


Figure 3. The bivariate response distribu(on of re-‐spondents’ level of understanding by mode of training within the domain of cultural studies. Cell color is scaled to the propor(on of overall responses in falling in each (r = 0.588, p < 0.001, n = 232).

We then did the same sequence of analysis for evolutionary studies. This is where it gets interesting because a notable strength stands out. Nearly all respondents described themselves as being well trained in the Theory of Evolution. Very few described themselves as novices. Yet when we look at where they received this education a bimodal pattern emerged. The majority of members are self-taught, with support from formal institutions for some of them.

In other words, while our community is strong on evolution, the academy is not serving them well enough. A lot of people get trained in evolution on their own.

Figure 4. Distribu(on of respondents’ self-‐reported level of understanding of evolu(onary theory (n = 235). Scale ranged from 1 (Novice) to 7 (Expert).

Figure 5. Distribu(on of respondents’ mode of training within the domain of evolu(onary theory (n = 233). Scale ranged from 1 (Completely Self-‐Taught) to 7 (Completely Formal Educa(on).


This becomes even more apparent when we look at the bivariate response distribution in Figure 6. One “peak” is found at the intersection of formal training and expertise. Another “peak” exists for people with slightly less confidence in their knowledge who are mostly self-taught. Herein lies an opportunity to bridge these pathways to educational attainment—bringing the academics together with practitioners who study evolution on their own.

A lesson we can take away from this analysis is that the SSCE is well positioned to unite cultural researchers with evolutionary scientists, both in formal academic settings and among practitioners with informal training. And we can be confident that we have the requisite human capacities by looking at Figure 7 combining these dual strengths in one community of people.


Figure 6. The bivariate response distribu(on of re-‐spondents’ level of understanding by mode of training within the domain of evolu(onary theory. Cell color is scaled to the propor(on of overall responses in falling in each (r = 0.505, p < 0.001, n = 233.

Figure 7. The bivariate response distribu(on of re-‐spondents’ level of understanding of cultural studies by level of understanding of evolu(onary theory. Cell colour is scaled to the propor(on of overall responses in falling in each (r = 0.466, p < 0.001, n = 235).

Figure 7 shows more than half of survey respondents with dual strength in cultural studies and evolutionary theory. Those of us with experience in the academic world know that this is rare indeed. Most social scientists are not trained in evolution. And many evolutionists remain skeptical about the applications of biology to human affairs.

These survey responses are a sign of cultural evolution unfolding in real time. People are scattered across the intellectual landscape with respect to academic institutions and whether they have formal training or not. And these people are finding each other (or will be able to do so as we build capacity) under the heading of cultural evolutionary studies.

In Closing — Where Do We Go From Here? We have learned a great deal from analyzing these survey responses. The next step is to assimilate these findings and present them back to the SSCE community for discussion, elaboration, and refinement. To help get this process going, we offer summary points and propose a course of action.

Summary of Key Findings

✦ The number of responses is a clear indicator of interest in forming this society. We received 435 suggestions for Grand Challenge Ideas from 236 respondents, each articulating a thoughtful and important commentary for what the SSCE might want to do.

✦ Several focus areas became clear from these Grand Challenge Ideas—a strong focus on knowledge synthesis, clear delineation of what culture is and how it changes, and applications of this knowledge to major challenges confronting real-world communities.

✦ The themes offered as grand challenges are plentiful, yet it does feel plausible to tackle them systemically by acknowledging how deeply interwoven and interconnected they are.

✦ The founding members are uniquely prepared to make this effort a success. We have strength in both cultural studies and deep knowledge of evolutionary theory in our midst.

✦ Formation of the society itself is a measure of “cultural evolution in action” as we are already observing a process of those formally trained in academic institutions coming together with practitioners who have been self-taught, with combinations of both life paths for many of our members who straddle academic and institutional boundaries.

Now we are ready to begin. This analysis has one primary purpose—to help the ad hoc steering committee set the SSCE on a launch trajectory that creates real value for its founding members. It is a great pleasure to see how deeply aligned this community is both in terms of focus areas held in common and for bringing diverse intellectual strengths that improve our institutions and communities as we move forward.


Proposed Course of Action

✦ Present these findings to the SSCE community on the Social Evolution Forum and facilitate discussion about scope and focus.

✦ Convene the ad hoc steering committee in person (already scheduled for late December) to unpack what we have learned and propose a strategic planning process to present back to the community.

✦ Build up the community supports—member database, website, publishing and communication platforms, etc.—for the formation of Special Interest Groups as “action committees” or task forces that self-organize around different grand challenges.

✦ Weave this process into the parallel track already underway to create bylaws and membership due structures, plan the first annual meeting of the SSCE, and get members involved in the process using the grand challenges as organizing themes.

This is an exciting time to work in cultural evolution. The field is ready to pop! And these findings, while preliminary, are very encouraging for what is possible to achieve through the Society for the Study of Cultural Evolution for many years to come.


Appendix — Full List of Themes

Theme Number of Times Men<oned

#Adapta(on 16

#AffectControlTheory 3

#Agency 2

#Algorithms 1

#Altruism 2

#AnimalBehavior 5

#AnimalCruelty 1

#Atheism 1

#BrainCulture 5

#Ci(es 1

#Civiliza(onCollapse 2

#CivilSociety 1

#Cogni(on 25

#Collabora(on 19

#Collec(veAc(on 10

#ComparingCultures 36

#Complexity 28

#ConflictResolu(on 20

#ConformistBias 2

#Consump(onPa^erns 1

#Corpora(ons 3

#Corrup(on 5

#CulturalA^rac(on 1

#CulturalEx(nc(on 3

#CulturallyBiasedResearch 6

#CulturalStability 8

#CulturalTransmission 45


#CultureDefini(on 48

#CultureDesign 29

#Cumula(veCulture 22

#CurriculumDesign 1

#Databases 12

#DemographicTransi(on 1

#Development 1

#DirectDemocracy 1

#Diversity 17

#Ea(ngHabits 1

#EcologicalVaria(on 1

#Economics 44

#Educa(on 21

#Emo(ons 1

#EnergyTransi(on 6

#Entropy 3

#Environment 46

#ExtendedLifeSpan 1

#Fairness 6

#FaultyBeliefs 10

#FieldStudies 1

#FinancialSystem 3

#FundingChallenges 1

#GameTheory 1

#GenderDifferences 2

#GenderEquality 8

#GeneCulture 7

#GlobalCrisis 30

#Globaliza(on 10


#Governance 33

#GrandHumanNarra(ve 1

#GroupProcess 4

#HateCrimes 1

#Hierarchy 10

#HistoricTrajectories 38

#HopeVsDespair 2

#HumanBiome 1

#HumanDevelopment 9

#HumanTrafficking 1

#HumanUniqueness 18

#HumanUniversals 1

#IncestuousThinking 1

#IncorporateHumani(es 1

#Individualism 1

#Inequality 15

#Informa(onExplosion 2

#Inheritance 7

#Innova(onDiffusion 19

#Ins(tu(onalSilos 24

#Inten(onalCommuni(es 1

#Interspirituality 1

#KnowledgeSynthesis 99

#LanguageOrigins 10

#LearningHeuris(cs 25

#LegalTheory 1

#LGBTQViolence 1

#Literacy 1

#Localism 5


#Medicine 2

#Meme(cs 3

#MethodDiversity 23

#Militarism 3

#ModelingStudies 6

#MonetarySystem 1

#Morality 11

#Mul(LevelSelec(on 3

#NetworkedSociety 1

#NewMetrics 2

#NicheConstruc(on 3

#Ontology 1

#Organiza(onDevelopment 26

#OutdatedIncen(ves 1

#PathDependence 2

#PolicyMaking 32

#Poli(calPower 1

#Popula(on 1

#Popula(onGene(cs 4

#PostCapitalism 1

#Poverty 1

#Prac(calSolu(ons 15

#ProblemIden(fica(on 3

#ProSociality 51

#PublicHealth 2

#Publishing 1

#Quan(fiedSelf 1

#RaceIssues 6

#RamblingMess 1


#RateOfChange 3

#Reduc(onism 1

#Reframing 1

#Religion 15

#Replicators 3

#ResistanceToEvolu(on 26

#ResourceWars 1

#RuralCommuni(es 1

#ScienceCommunica(on 20

#ScienceStudies 2

#Selec(on 3

#Seman(cs 4

#Sexuality 1

#SharedLanguage 28

#SocialAnaly(cs 1

#SocialConsciousness 4

#SocialIden(ty 1

#Socialism 1

#SocialMovements 15

#SocialOrganiza(on 22

#SocialValues 1

#Storytelling 20

#SystemicRisks 1

#SystemsThinking 2

#Taxes 1

#Technology 13

#TenureProblems 1

#Terrorism 3

#Theory 42


#Transparency 1

#Tribalism 35

#UX/UI 1

#Violence 3

#WorkLifeBalance 1

#Worldviews 1
