A model for the evolutionary diversification of religions

[摘要] We address the problem of cultural diversification by studying selection on cultural ideas that colonize human hosts and using diversification of religions as a conceptual example In analogy to studying the evolution of pathogens or symbionts colonizing animal hosts we use models for host-pathogen dynamics known from theoretical epidemiology In these models religious content colonizes individual humans Rates of transmission of ideas between humans i e transmission of cultural content and rates of loss of ideas (loss of belief) are determined by the phenotype of the cultural content and by interactions between hosts carrying different ideas In particular based on the notion that cultural nonconformism can be negative frequency-dependent (for example religion can lead to oppression of lower classes and emergence of non-conformism and dissent once a religious belief has reached dominance) we assume that the rate of loss of belief increases as the number of humans colonized by a particular religious phenotype increases This generates frequency-dependent selection on cultural content and we use evolutionary theory to show that this frequency dependence can lead to the emergence of coexisting clusters of different cultural types The different clusters correspond to different cultural traditions and hence our model describes the emergence of distinct descendant cultures from a single ancestral culture in the absence of any geographical isolation (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd All rights reserved

[发布日期] 2010-12-21

[关键词] Cultural evolution;Religion;Diversity;Epidemiological modeling