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字数:1325

打造“有色眼镜”的那些人

我有意识地没有在文章中提到科学家和哲学家的名字,除非真的非常有必要。我觉得这样流于形式,也放慢了整个文章的节奏。现在该是列出他们名字的时候了。那么,是谁创造了我所看到的新世界的有色眼镜呢?

首先要提的是那些将生物进化与文化进化初次进行对比的人。达尔文就是其中之一。他的观点是自然选择是“基底中和的”,适用范围不局限于有机体,他通过词汇与工具设计之间的对比以及语言的进化来阐释他的自然选择理论。和他同时期的赫伯特·斯宾塞更善于将这两种进化融合,并将文明的文化作为一个人类思想成长的基础的进化环境。威廉·詹姆斯,作为先锋的心理学家,在1880年得出相同的结论,号召他的追随者完全掌握达尔文理论,从而更好地解释人类社会进化的过程。而这些早期的理论学家都受制于关键的一点,那就是:没人了解基因,所以很难获得文化基因的视角。

Darwin, C. (1859/1964). The Origin of Species. 1st ed. With an Introduction by Ernst Mayr. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.

——(1877/2004).The Descent of Man .2nd ed. With an introduction by Adrian Desmond and James Moore. London: Penguin.

James,W.(1880).‘Great Men, Great Thoughts, and the Environment.’Atlantic Monthly 66: 441-59.

Spencer, H. (1855). The Principles of Psychology. London: Longman,Brown,Green and Longmans.

这条通往文化基因的路上,首先出现的是一位德国动物学家,名叫理查德·沃尔夫冈·西蒙(Richard Wolfgang Semon),他首次假设文化以百万个单元存在于集体人类记忆中。在1904年发表的论文中,他将这些“记忆感知的”单元称为记忆基质,这是源于古希腊学者对记忆力的描述,并认为当大脑觉察到刺激物时,在记忆中形成了由“神经改变”构成的心理状态。他提出,当相同的刺激物再次出现的时候,这种状态又会被激活。

Semon, R. W.(1921). The Mneme. London:George Allen and Unwin.

西蒙之后,理论界没有太大的动静,直到基因视角出现。道金斯在他有所突破的《自私的基因》一书中宣传了汉密尔顿和威廉姆斯对生命的观点,并重新引起了对于“文化基因:新的复制因子”的讨论。与达尔文相似,道金斯想要指出自然选择是“基底中和的”。他选择提出一种叫作“文化基因”的文化复制因子,这个词与西蒙的“文化基质”没太大关系,只是表示与记忆相关,并且和基因相关。这个词选得很好。作为文化基因理论的发明者,道金斯清楚地知道这个词可以当别的词的前缀,比如文化模因、模因、模因复合体等。

Dawkins, R. (1976). The Selfish Gene Oxford: Oxford University Press.

道金斯的文化基因理论是大胆而草率的,并不能被大多数人接受。20世纪80年代,一些研究者也想要通过“共同进化模型”这个概念来解释文化进化与生物进化之间的紧密联系。这些人有社会生物学家E.O.威尔森、领先的人类基因学家路易基·卢卡·卡瓦利——斯福扎、加利福尼亚的人类学家罗伯特·博伊德以及彼得·理查森,他们都出版了作品,认为文化进化是达尔文进化,但这并不等同于文化复制因子。

Boyd, R., and P. Richerson. (1985). Culture and the Evolutionary Process.Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Cavalli-Sforza, L., and M. Feldman. (1981). Cultural Transmission and Evolution: A Quantitative Approach. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.

Lumsden, C., and E. O. Wilson. (1981). Genes, Mind and Culture: The Coevolutionary Process. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.

20世纪90年代,这场讨论被全新出现的科学所中断,这门科学叫作进化心理学。它试图将人类行为回归到编码的有利基因。进化心理学引起了很大的轰动,这门学科的研究热情是20世纪90年代科学界最值得引起注意的,不过最终还是失败了。这些进化心理学家的还原论太贪心,他们的基因决定论太深奥,开始和狭隘的科学联系起来。比如:

Pinker, S. (1994). The Language Instinct. New York: W. Morrow and Co.

——(1997). How the Mind Works. New York: W.W. Norton.

Tooby, J., and L. Cosmides. (1992). ‘The Psychological Foundations of Culture.’ In J. Barkow, L. Cosmides, and J. Tooby (eds.), The Adapted Mind: Evolutionary Psychology and the Generation of Culture. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 19-136.

在这个时间,美国的科学哲学家丹尼尔·德耐特写下了《达尔文的危险思想》。在书中他强调,从哲学观点的角度,我们不应止步于我们进化中非达尔文的任何描述:达尔文主义是我们所知道的所有使设计无意识的唯一事物,所以直到弄明白达尔文主义的发展之前我们都不应止步。他建议我们回到道金斯的文化基因理论,并再次进行研究。最初他无法理解我们是如何构建这么一门科学的,不过通过他的文章,我们有了为之努力的动力。

Dennett, D. C. (1995). Darwin’s Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life. New York: Simon & Schuster.

很多人接受了挑战。其中至今仍活跃在该领域的著名研究学者有心理学家苏珊·布莱克莫尔、阿莱克斯·梅索迪(Alex Mesoudi)、凯文·拉兰德(Kevin Laland),人类学家罗伯特·昂格(Robert Aunger),社会生物学家安德鲁·惠顿(Andrew Whiten)。随着对我们大脑的结构与功能,神经学以及神经心理学研究的不断成熟,我怀疑,这只是刚刚开始。

Aunger, R. (2002). The Electric Meme: A New Theory of How We Think. New York: Free Press.

Blackmore, S. (1999). The Meme Machine. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Mesoudi, A., A. Whiten, and K. N. Laland. (2006). ‘Towards a Unified Science of Cultural Evolution.’ Behavioral and Brain Sciences 29(4):329- 83.

补充阅读

以下所列图书与本书内容相关。它们都在我通过有色眼镜视角表达世界观时发挥了重要作用。

Aunger, R. (2000). Darwinizing Culture: The Status of Memetics as a Science.Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Begon, M., C. R. Townsend, and J. L. Harper. (2006). Ecology: From Individuals to Ecosystems. 4th ed. Malden, Mass.: Blackwell Pub.

Brodie, R. (1996). Virus of the mind: The New Science of the Meme . Seatle,Wash.: Integral Press.

Cavalli-Sforza, L. L. (2000). Genes, Peoples, and Languages. London:Penguin Books.

Darwin, C. (1959). The Voyage of the Beagle. New York: Harper.

Dawkins, R. (1986). The Blind Watchmaker. New York: W.W. Norton.

——(2004). The Ancestor’s Tale: A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Evolution.Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

—— (2009). The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution. New York: Free Press.

Dennett, D. C. (2003). Freedom Evolves. New York: Viking.

——(2006). Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon. New York: Viking.

Diamond,J. M (1998). Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies.New York: W.W. Norton and Co.

—— (2005). Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed. New York:Viking.

Distin, K (2005). The Selfish Meme: A Critical Reassessmet. Cambridge, UK:Cambridge University Press.

Dunbar, R.I.M., C. Knight, and C. Power. (1999). The Evolution of Culture: An Interdisciplinary View. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press.

Evans, D., R. Appignanesi, and O. Zarate. (2005). Introducing Evolutionary Psychology. Cambridge, Mass.: Icon Books.

Fox, K (2004). Watching the English: The Hidden Rules of English Behavior.London: Hodder and Stoughton.

Frank, L. (2009). Mindfield: How Brain Science Is Changing Our World.Oxford: Oneworld.

Gilbert, D. T. (2006). Stumbling on Happiness. New York: Knopf.

Gladwell, M. (2000). The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Differenc. Boston: Little, Brown.

Goble, P. (2007). Tipi: Home of the Nomadic Buffalo Hunter. Bloomington,Ind.: World Wisdom.

Grafen, A., and M. Ridley (2006). Richard Dawkins: How a Scientist Changed the Way We Think: Reflections by Scientists, Writers, and Philosophers. Oxford:Oxford University Press.

lacoboni, M. (2008). Mirroring People: The New Science of How We Connect with Others. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Jablonka, E. and M.J. Lamb (2005). Evolution in Four Dimensions: Genetic, Epigenetic, Behavioral, and Symbolic Variation in the History of Life. Cambridge,Mass: MIT Press.

Jones, S. (2000) Almost Like a Whale: ‘The Origin of Species’ Updated.London: Anchor.

Laland, K N. and B. G. Galef. (2009). The Question of Animal Culture.Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.

Laubin, R, G. Laubin, and S. Vestal. (1997). The Indian Tipi: Its History, Construction, and Use. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.

Lynch, A. (1996). Thought Contagion: How Belief Spreads Through Society.New York: Basic Books.

Lynch, G. and R. Granger. (2008). Big Brain: the Origins and Future of Human Intelligence. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

McWhorter, J. H. (2003). The Power of Babel: A Natural History of Language.London: Arrow.

Marcus, G. F. (2008). Kluge: The Haphazard Construction of the Human Mind. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

Mesoudi, A. (2005). The Transmission and Evolution of Human Culture. St.Andrews: University of St. Andrews.

Raby, P. (2001). Alfred Russel Wallace: A Life. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.

Richerson, P.J and R. Boyd. (2005). Not by Genes Alone: How Culture Transformed Human Evolution. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Ridley, M. (2003). Nature via Nurture: Genes, Experience, and What Makes Us Human. New York: Harper Collins.

Schilthuizen, M. (2001). Frogs, Flies and Dandelions: Speciation-The Evolution of New Species. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Sigmund, K (1993). Games of Life: Explorations in Ecology, Evolution, and Behaviour. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Smith, J., and E. Szathmáry. (1999). The Origins of Life: From the Birth of Life to the Origin of Language. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Waldman, C. and M. Braun. (1988). Encyclopedia of Native American Tribes.New York: Facts on File.

Watson, P. (2005). Ideas: A History of Thought and Invention, from Fire to Freud. New York: Harper Collins.

Wilson, E. O (1998). Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge. New York: Knopf.


第15章 现在这是最后一篇