Reply to Martens: Various factors may enable large populations to enhance cumulative cultural evolution, but more evidence is needed

Citation

Fay N, De Kleine N, Walker B & Caldwell CA (2019) Reply to Martens: Various factors may enable large populations to enhance cumulative cultural evolution, but more evidence is needed. Refers to: J. P. Martens, Scenarios where increased population size can enhance cumulative cultural evolution are likely common. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 116, 17160 (2019). Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 116 (35), pp. 17161-17162. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1911176116

Abstract
Martens (1) suggests that including model-based bias (e.g., prestige) in our experiment would have enhanced cumulative cultural evolution (CCE) in the larger populations reported in our paper (2). This is a plausible hypothesis, but not one our experiment was designed to test. Given the controversy around the relationship between population size and CCE (3), our experiment was designed to isolate the basic effect of population size on CCE by excluding extraneous factors, including model-based bias. In our experiment increasing population size did not enhance CCE. We do not conclude that larger populations do not enhance CCE but that other factors may be necessary to see this benefit.

Notes
Output Type: Letter

Journal
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America: Volume 116, Issue 35

People

Professor Christine Anna Caldwell

Professor, Psychology