ArticlePhilosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences2023
Human socio-cultural evolution in light of evolutionary transitions: introduction to the theme issue.
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. An erratum has been issued. Cited by 5 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.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
5 citing papers in PubMed, 13 citations in OpenAlex.
- Major transitions in sociocultural evolution.Evolutionary human sciences · 2025Article
- Cultural evolution: A review of theoretical challenges.Evolutionary human sciences · 2024Review
- Evolution and sustainability: gathering the strands for an Anthropocene synthesis.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2024Review
- Steps to individuality in biology and culture.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2023Article
- Can sociality facilitate learning of complex tasks? Lessons from bees and flowers.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
- Erratum issued
Authors and funding
4 authors at 3 institutions in 8 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Human societies are no doubt complex. They are characterized by division of labour, multiple hierarchies, intricate communication networks and transport systems. These phenomena and others have led scholars to propose that human society may be, or may become, a new hierarchical level that may dominate the individual humans within it, similar to the relations between an organism and its cells, or an ant colony and its members. Recent discussions of the possibility of this major evolutionary transition in individuality (ETI) raise interesting and controversial questions that are explored in the present issue from four different complementary perspectives. (i) The general theory of ETIs. (ii) The unique aspects of cultural evolution. (iii) The evolutionary history and pre-history of humans. (iv) Specific routes of a possible human ETI. Each perspective uses different tools provided by different disciplines: biology, anthropology, cultural evolution, systems theory, psychology, economy, linguistics and philosophy of science. Altogether, this issue provides a broad and rich application of the notion of ETI to human past, present and perhaps also future evolution. It presents important case studies, new theoretical results and novel questions for future research. This article is part of the theme issue 'Human socio-cultural evolution in light of evolutionary transitions'.
Indexed as
Identifiers
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.