ABSTRACT
In Chapter 7, the natural selection of behavioural traits in biology has been discussed in combination with the units of selection controversy. The discussion in this chapter will also focus on group versus individual selection and the evolution of optimal versus suboptimal rules of behaviour. But now the evolutionary processes that will be analysed are of a cultural type. I shall consider the views of leading social theoreticians on learning individuals and on cultural evolution. In particular, I will concentrate on the ‘Popper-Hayek connection’. The following issues concerning cultural evolution take centre stage. What is the selection mechanism; what is the decisive standard that determines which behavioural rules spread over society? What is the replication mechanism; how are rules passed over from some individuals to others? What is the mutation mechanism; where do new rules come from? And what behavioural rules evolve through the joint operation of the three mechanisms? Are they efficient or inefficient?
