The Extended Evolutionary Synthesis, Ethnography, and the Human Niche

Revolution, reconciliation, integration: Is there a way to bring social and biological anthropology together?

“…These discussions actually mirror those in the biological sciences . Whatever one might think of this view, it certainly is a thoughtful criticism of current evolutionary approaches rather than some knee‐jerk postmodern critique, as some evolutionary advocates would have us believe …”

“…This is true despite the fact that most of those on the biological side of things acknowledge the importance of, and interaction between, culture and biology and that most researchers fervently deny any kind of overly reductionist or determinist approach. It seems clear, then, that a more integrative "biocultural" (or "biosocial") approach might pay dividends on both sides of the anthropological divide, and could do much to ease existing tensions 17 (although there are those who disagree 18 ). However, the exact manner in which evolutionary theory should feature in such a biosocial approach is still in question.…”

Ideal-Type Narratives for Engineering a Human Niche

“…Since at least the industrial revolution, the globe has been stamped with people's activities [22,23], people vigorously applying engineering science, and geosciences. It can be argued that since the onset of agriculture in the Neolithic age, engineering has been an all-purpose activity to shape the 'sociocultural-ecological niches' of people [24][25][26] for the purpose of maintaining their well-being, mutual care, and reproduction.…”

“…Regarding narratives about Earth' systems, three aspects can be summarized in a succinct manner: (1) people are a kind of 'species of engineers' that carve out their ecological niche from the biogeosphere [25,26]; (2) '[People] consist of abstract information, including the distinctive ideas, theories, intentions, feelings and other states of mind that characterize [an 'I']' them [52] (p. 130) and shapes their mental models [53] or 'memes', that is, insights shared among people [54]; and (3) people conceive engineered systems through the sharing of insights [55][56][57][58][59][60].…”

Attention schema theory, an interdisciplinary turn? Cognition, culture and institutions

“…In this way, the paper charts the multidirectional and interactive causal relationship between intrinsic brain processes, attention and conscious awareness, and how they relate to wider institutional structures and joint attentional interactions at higher levels of aggregation. In the last few decades, a move towards interdisciplinary reconciliation and crossfertilization has occurred against the background of scientific findings emphasizing brain plasticity that have rendered the notion of the biological and the social as distinct domains untenable (Bloch, 2012;Fuentes, 2016;Lende and Downey, 2012;Reyna, 2002Reyna, , 2006. This shift has implications for all sciences dealing with human cognition and social organization.…”