Swarm Intelligence

instance, the norm of wearing clothes, others persist even though there

is no sanction for violating them. The conclusion is that cultures form

simply because conformist learning is adaptive.

Memetics

Since evolution was first proposed as an explanation for biological diver-

sity, numerous social theorists have pointed out its profound similari-

ties to human culture—in fact, it appears that Darwin may have bor-

rowed the insight of incremental adaptation of species from the writings

of Sir William Jones on the evolution of Indo-European languages,

which Jones had described as “homology by descent.” It is apparent that

ideas, behaviors, and other changeable ...