COMPLEXITY12 Mar 2020

Nicole Creanza on Cultural Evolution in Humans & Songbirds

One feature common to nonlinear phenomena is how they challenge intuitions. Maybe nowhere is this more apparent than in studying the evolutionary process, and organisms in which not just genes but learned behaviors reproduce themselves provide a fountain of reliable surprises. Teasing out the intricate dynamics of gene-culture co-evolution is no easy feat. The dance of language, tools, and rituals together with anatomy reveals a deeper hidden order in how information spreads, and offers clues to why some strategies for innovation repeat themselves across the tree of life.

This week’s guest is Nicole Creanza, an Assistant Professor in the Biological Sciences department at Vanderbilt University whose research merges computational and theoretical approaches to the comparison of cultural and genetic evolution in both human languages and birdsong. In this episode, we discuss how geography, genetics, behavior, and technology collide in fascinating ways and how the study of gene-culture interactions might answer some of natural history’s greatest riddles.

Nicole’s Website.

Nicole’s Google Scholar Page.

Nicole’s Santa Fe Institute Seminar: Cultural Evolution in Structured Populations.

If you enjoy this podcast, please help us reach a wider audience by subscribing, leaving a review, and telling your friends about the show on social media.

Thank you for listening!

Visit our website for more information or to support our science and communication efforts.

Join our Facebook discussion group to meet like minds and talk about each episode.

Podcast Theme Music by Mitch Mignano.

Follow us on social media:
Twitter • YouTube • Facebook • Instagram • LinkedIn

Denne episoden er hentet fra en åpen RSS-feed og er ikke publisert av Podme. Den kan derfor inneholde annonser.

Episoder(119)

Nature of Intelligence, Ep. 6: AI’s changing seasons

Guest: Melanie Mitchell, Resident Professor, Santa Fe InstituteHosts: Abha Eli PhobooProducer: Katherine MoncurePodcast theme music by: Mitch MignanoFollow us on:Twitter • YouTube • Facebook • Instagr...

4 Des 202444min

Nature of Intelligence, Ep. 5: How do we assess intelligence?

Guests: Erica Cartmill, Professor, Anthropology and Cognitive Science, Indiana University BloomingtonEllie Pavlick, Assistant Professor, Computer Science and Linguistics, Brown UniversityHosts: Abha E...

20 Nov 202448min

Nature of Intelligence, Ep. 4: Babies vs Machines

Guests: Linda Smith, Distinguished Professor and Chancellor's Professor, Psychological and Brain Sciences, Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Indiana University BloomingtonMichael Frank, ...

6 Nov 202438min

Nature of Intelligence, Ep. 3: What kind of intelligence is an LLM?

Guests: Tomer Ullman, Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology, Harvard UniversityMurray Shanahan, Professor of Cognitive Robotics, Department of Computing, Imperial College London; Principal Res...

23 Okt 202445min

Nature of Intelligence, Ep. 2: The relationship between language and thought

Guests: Evelina Fedorenko, Associate Professor, Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, and Investigator, McGovern Institute for Brain Research, MITSteve Piantadosi, Professor of Psychology and Ne...

9 Okt 202437min

Nature of Intelligence, Ep. 1: What is Intelligence

Guests: Alison Gopnik, SFI External Faculty; Professor of Psychology and Affiliate Professor of Philosophy at University of California, Berkeley; Member of Berkeley AI Research GroupJohn Krakauer, SFI...

25 Sep 202443min

Trailer for The Nature of Intelligence

Right now, AI is having a moment — and it’s not the first time grand predictions about the potential of machines are being made. But, what does it really mean to say something like ChatGPT is “intelli...

19 Sep 20243min

Physics of Life, Ep 6: Multiple worlds, containing multitudes

Guests: Heather Graham, Research Associate at NASA Goddard Space Flight CenterHosts: Abha Eli Phoboo & Chris KempesProducer: Katherine MoncurePodcast theme music by: Mitch MignanoAdditional sound cred...

10 Apr 202440min