R. Wallace et Rg. Wallace, Organisms, organizations and interactions: an information theory approach to biocultural evolution, BIOSYSTEMS, 51(2), 1999, pp. 101-119
The language metaphor of theoretical biology, proposed by Waddington in 197
2, provides a basis for the formal examination of how different self-reprod
ucing structures interact in an extended evolutionary context. Such interac
tions have become central objects of study in fields ranging from human evo
lution-genes and culture-to economics-firms, markets and technology. Here w
e use the Shannon-McMillan Theorem, one of the fundamental asymptotic relat
ions of probability theory, to study the 'weakest' and hence most universal
, forms of interaction between generalized languages. We propose that the c
o-evolving gene-culture structure that permits human ultra-sociality emerge
d in a singular coagulation of genetic and cultural 'languages', in the gen
eral sense of the word. Human populations have since hosted series of cultu
re-only speciations and coagulations, events that, in this formulation, do
not become mired in the 'meme' concept. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science Ireland L
td. All rights reserved.