The popular Science On Screen series returns to Santa Fe Wednesday evening, May 8, with Simon DeDeo and the 1992 cult hacker film Sneakers.
SFI's 2013 Community Lecture series debuted March 14 with UC-Boulder's Leysia Palen describing how victims, observers, and “citizen-responders” are using modern technology to participate in disaster response. Watch ...
Speaking at SFI yesterday, noted climate scientist James Hansen told an overflow crowd that efforts to stem climate change will be ineffectual as long as fossil fuels remain the cheapest ...
SFI's crowdfunding campaign has reached its goal. The resulting research will help scientists preserve the threatened landscapes on which indigenous human groups depend.
The 2012 Science On Screen series in Santa Fe wrapped up December 13 to a full house, with "The Gods Must Be Crazy" and Murray Gell-Mann's distinctive insight and ...
Seminar
February 11, 2013
12:15 PM
Collins Conference Room
Daniel Dennett (Tufts University)
Abstract. To what extent—if at all—is cultural evolution governed by “Darwinian” algorithms of natural selection? I have been a champion of the “meme’s eye” perspective on culture for several decades, and encountered huge resistance, most of it hysterical and confused, but with some serious exceptions. Work by Boyd and Richerson, Pagel, Sperber, Laland and others provides valuable alternative perspectives, and perhaps the time is right for a taxonomy of sorts. Peter Godfrey Smith’s recent book, Darwinian Populations and Natural Selection, provides a useful thinking tool: a multi-dimensional “Darwinian Space” in which phenomena can be located. He neglects to apply this tool to cultural evolution, which is a task I am now embarking on. (See the brief discussion in “Homunculi Rule,” my commentary on Godfrey Smith’s book.) This will be an introduction to the questions and a request for help from those at SFI who are more adept model-mongers than I am
Purpose: External Faculty
SFI Host: Jennifer Dunne
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