ArticlePhilosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences2023
Conditions that favour cumulative cultural evolution.
Article in Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 9 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
9 citing papers in PubMed, 28 citations in OpenAlex.
- Conformity to popular, not average, opinions: Models, data, and evolution.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026Article
- How does stochasticity in learning impact the accumulation of knowledge and the evolution of learning?Evolutionary human sciences · 2026Article
- Little Peacemakers: Microbes Can Promote Nonviolent Conflict Resolution by Their Hosts.Ecology and evolution · 2025Article
- Conformity to continuous and discrete ordered traits.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- The refinement paradox and cumulative cultural evolution: Complex products of collective improvement favor conformist outcomes, blind copying, and hyper-credulity.PLoS computational biology · 2024Article
- Prestige bias in cultural evolutionary dynamics.Royal Society open science · 2024Article
- Human socio-cultural evolution in light of evolutionary transitions: introduction to the theme issue.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2023Article
- Scaffolding individuality: coordination, cooperation, collaboration and community.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2023Review
- Conditions that favour cumulative cultural evolution.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors at 2 institutions in 5 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The emergence of human societies with complex language and cumulative culture is considered a major evolutionary transition. Why such a high degree of cumulative culture is unique to humans is perplexing given the potential fitness advantages of cultural accumulation. Here, Boyd & Richerson's (1996 Why culture is common, but cultural evolution is rare.
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.