Interesting stuff—the questions you raise at the end are difficult but important, and they remind me of a lot of what some poets I know on Substack were saying after Wendell Berry’s passing…
It’s possible that the Tukanoans refined their technique not through blind cultural variation and selection but because processing improves taste and they have a causal model of the connection between taste and toxicity.
Henrich has lots of other examples, but he also ignores many others where people do understand the rationale for their practice.
One big debate between schools of cultural evolution is whether cultural mutations are guided by causal models more than Henrich thinks.
There’s no wisdom without starting from accumulated culture, but humans may have greater powers to improve, to spot adaptive gradation, than Henrich’s work suggests.
Thanks--I don't think I've read that particular piece, but I'm aware that some doubt Henrich's claims. In the cooking example, that practice could survive knowledge of its actual function (and maybe such knowledge always existed). But what about the divination example, in which the practice only "works" because those using it don't know what its actual function is?
I remember the earlier version of this essay. I’d never heard of manioc and that case stuck with me. Nice to revisit this.
Thanks!
Interesting stuff—the questions you raise at the end are difficult but important, and they remind me of a lot of what some poets I know on Substack were saying after Wendell Berry’s passing…
Ever come across this response to Henrich from Mercier and Morin?
https://cognitionandculture.net/blogs/hugo-mercier/a-matter-of-taste/index.html
It’s possible that the Tukanoans refined their technique not through blind cultural variation and selection but because processing improves taste and they have a causal model of the connection between taste and toxicity.
Henrich has lots of other examples, but he also ignores many others where people do understand the rationale for their practice.
One big debate between schools of cultural evolution is whether cultural mutations are guided by causal models more than Henrich thinks.
There’s no wisdom without starting from accumulated culture, but humans may have greater powers to improve, to spot adaptive gradation, than Henrich’s work suggests.
Thanks--I don't think I've read that particular piece, but I'm aware that some doubt Henrich's claims. In the cooking example, that practice could survive knowledge of its actual function (and maybe such knowledge always existed). But what about the divination example, in which the practice only "works" because those using it don't know what its actual function is?