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Cultural evolution
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<p>Cultural evolution is an <a href="/facts/Evolution/qE5amP6a">evolutionary theory</a> of <a href="/facts/Social_change/koLr0mLY">social change</a>. It follows from the definition of <a href="/facts/Culture/c5JgMqpX">culture</a> as "information capable of affecting individuals' behavior that they acquire from other members of their species through teaching, imitation and other forms of social transmission". Cultural evolution is the change of this information over time. </p><p>Cultural evolution, historically also known as <a href="/facts/Sociocultural_evolution/7KgkjD6H">sociocultural evolution</a>, was originally developed in the 19th century by anthropologists stemming from <a href="/facts/Charles_Darwin/uwDLGItY">Charles Darwin</a>'s research on <a href="/facts/Evolution/qE5amP6a">evolution</a>. Today, cultural evolution has become the basis for a growing field of scientific research in the social sciences, including anthropology, economics, psychology, and <a href="/facts/Organization_studies/avhaCkCp">organizational studies</a>. Previously, it was believed that social change resulted from biological <a href="/facts/Adaptation/5K2gNpDB">adaptations</a>; anthropologists now commonly accept that social changes arise in consequence of a combination of social, environmental, and biological influences (viewed from a <a href="/facts/Nature_vs_nurture/G7FuAN03">nature vs nurture</a> framework). </p><p>There have been a number of different approaches to the study of cultural evolution, including <a href="/facts/Dual_inheritance_theory/YlqMNty2">dual inheritance theory</a>, <a href="/facts/Sociocultural_evolution/7KgkjD6H">sociocultural evolution</a>, <a href="/facts/Memetics/MD7vEuTw">memetics</a>, <a href="/facts/Cultural_evolutionism/7KgkjD6H">cultural evolutionism</a>, and other variants on <a href="/facts/Cultural_selection_theory/0jfY9ISy">cultural selection theory</a>. The approaches differ not just in the history of their development and discipline of origin but in how they conceptualize the process of cultural evolution and the assumptions, theories, and methods that they apply to its study. There has been a convergence of the cluster of related theories towards seeing cultural evolution as a unified discipline in its own right. </p>