AI Summary
- Social tinkering offers a useful framework but is insufficient to account for human cultural complexity.
- The hypothesis overemphasises cooperative interactions, neglecting conflict, violence, and inequality as drivers of cultural change.
- Cultural outcomes depend on who can tinker and which artefacts are selected, shaped by power, coercion, and social hierarchy.
Behav Brain Sci. 2026 Sep 18;49:e411. doi: 10.1017/S0140525X26106414.
ABSTRACT
The concept of social tinkering is useful, but insufficient to explain the evolution of human cultural complexity due to its overemphasis on cooperative interactions. The importance of conflict, violence, and inequality in the evolution of complex cultures complicates the social tinkering hypothesis. Who gets to tinker, and what determines which products of that tinkering are selected?
PMID:42757535 | DOI:10.1017/S0140525X26106414
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