Note that this isn’t exactly the hypothesis proposed in the OP and would point in a different direction.
OP states there is a categorical difference between animals and humans, in the ability of humans to transfer data to future generation. This is not the case, because animals do this as well.
What your paraphrase of Secrets of Our Success is suggesting is this existing capacity for transfer of data across generations is present in many animals, but there is some threshold of ‘social learning’ which was crossed by humans—and when crossed, lead to cultural explosion.
I think this is actually mostly captured by …. One notable thing about humans is, it’s likely the second time in history a new type of replicator with R>1 emerged: memes. From replicator-centric perspective on the history of the universe, this is the fundamental event, starting a different general evolutionary computation operating at much shorter timescale.
Also … I’ve skimmed few chapters of the book and the evidence it gives of the type ‘chimps vs humans’ is mostly for current humans being substantially shaped by cultural evolution, and also our biology being quite influenced by cultural evolution. This is clearly to be expected after the evolutions run for some time, but does not explain causality that much.
(The mentioned new replicator dynamic is actually one of the mechanisms which can lead to discontinuous jumps based on small changes in underlying parameter. Changing the reproduction number of a virus from just below one to above one causes an epidemic.)
OP states there is a categorical difference between animals and humans, in the ability of humans to transfer data to future generation. This is not the case, because animals do this as well.
There doesn’t need to be a categorical difference, just a real difference that is strong enough to explain humanities sharp left turn by something other than increased brain size. I do believe that’s plausible—humans are much much better than other animals at communicating abstractions and ideas accross generations. Can’t speak about the book, but X4vier’s example would seem to support that argument.
Note that this isn’t exactly the hypothesis proposed in the OP and would point in a different direction.
OP states there is a categorical difference between animals and humans, in the ability of humans to transfer data to future generation. This is not the case, because animals do this as well.
What your paraphrase of Secrets of Our Success is suggesting is this existing capacity for transfer of data across generations is present in many animals, but there is some threshold of ‘social learning’ which was crossed by humans—and when crossed, lead to cultural explosion.
I think this is actually mostly captured by …. One notable thing about humans is, it’s likely the second time in history a new type of replicator with R>1 emerged: memes. From replicator-centric perspective on the history of the universe, this is the fundamental event, starting a different general evolutionary computation operating at much shorter timescale.
Also … I’ve skimmed few chapters of the book and the evidence it gives of the type ‘chimps vs humans’ is mostly for current humans being substantially shaped by cultural evolution, and also our biology being quite influenced by cultural evolution. This is clearly to be expected after the evolutions run for some time, but does not explain causality that much.
(The mentioned new replicator dynamic is actually one of the mechanisms which can lead to discontinuous jumps based on small changes in underlying parameter. Changing the reproduction number of a virus from just below one to above one causes an epidemic.)
There doesn’t need to be a categorical difference, just a real difference that is strong enough to explain humanities sharp left turn by something other than increased brain size. I do believe that’s plausible—humans are much much better than other animals at communicating abstractions and ideas accross generations. Can’t speak about the book, but X4vier’s example would seem to support that argument.