Cultural Evolution & its Interplay with Biological Evolution

I have a longlasting interest in cultural evolution and its interplay with biological evolution. I recently published several papers on the fidelity of transmission in cultural evolution. Together with Mathieu Charbonneau, I argue that degree of fidelity of transmission is tightly linked to the grain of description used to describe a particular transmission event. Further, contrary to the case of biological transmission, there is no general convention—to which researchers in this field adhere—for describing cultural transmission at a particular grain.

Prior to switching to philosophy, I worked on the evolution of religious beliefs. The challenge of integrating the different approaches to this phenomenon formed one reason that prompted me to move into philosophy.