<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8"></head><body dir="auto"><div dir="auto">Interesting topic but the paper contains no model: no mathematical theory, no experimental data, no agent-based model, nothing. I think it would help a lot to understand gene-culture coevolution if people would start to notice there are indeed hidden genes in cultural evolution, but that's just my point of view. </div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">Cultural evolution is notoriously difficult to model because it is based on language and computers can not understand language (yet). Peter Richerson and Robert Boyd have written a number of books about it and tried to model it mathematically, but it unclear to me how far their complex models match reality. </div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">Even religion is extremely difficult to model, although it is the most basic form of a collective organism in cultural evolution. It is difficult to model because it is based on abstract beliefs and the understanding of language. The best model I can think of is a swarm, because the rules of swarm intelligence are isomorphic to the basic religious rules in "abstract behavior phase space" (as I try to explain in the book).</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">It is possible to use abstract models though which simulate strategies like cooperation and defection, collective processes like wars, tributes and taxes, etc. Robert Axelrod's tribute model for example is a classic agent-based model which is useful to study the emergence of states and empires. I have tried to implement the model in 2 dimensions at the weekend:</div><div dir="auto">https://github.com/JochenFromm/SwarmIntelligence/blob/master/notebooks/Emergence%20of%20Political%20Actors.ipynb</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">-J.</div><div><br></div><div align="left" dir="auto" style="font-size:100%;color:#000000"><div>-------- Original message --------</div><div>From: "uǝlƃ ☤>$" <gepropella@gmail.com> </div><div>Date: 6/7/21 22:17 (GMT+01:00) </div><div>To: FriAM <friam@redfish.com> </div><div>Subject: [FRIAM] gene-culture coevolution </div><div><br></div></div>Researchers: Culture drives human evolution more than genetics<br>https://phys.org/news/2021-06-culture-human-evolution-genetics.html<br><br>Paywalled Paper:<br>https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2021.0538<br><br>Accessible version:<br>https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1039&context=eco_facpub<br><br>-- <br>☤>$ uǝlƃ<br><br>- .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. .<br>FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv<br>Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam<br>un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com<br>FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/<br>archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/<br></body></html>