Arne Jarrick

Why does human culture increase exponentially

Historical records show that culture can increase exponentially in time, e.g., in number of poems, musical works, scientific discoveries. We model how human capacities for creativity and cultural transmission may make such an increase possible, suggesting that: (1) creativity played a major role at the origin of human culture and for its accumulation throughout history, because cultural transmission cannot, on its own, generate exponentially increasing amounts of culture; (2) exponential increase in amount of culture can only occur if creativity is positively influenced by culture. The evolution of cultural transmission is often considered the main genetic bottleneck for the origin of culture, because natural selection cannot favor cultural transmission without any culture to transmit. Our models suggest that an increase in individual creativity may have been the first step toward human culture, because in a population of creative individuals there may be enough non-genetic information to favor the evolution of cultural transmission.

The Digital Humanities

In the last 25 years digital technologies have changed the humanities. The question is: by how much? Is the digital revolution transforming the humanities intellectually? Or has it just sped up processes and access in ways that are certainly faster but not essentially different? Are we asking new research questions or are we just using new tools? Furthermore, do the digital humanities require new skillsets, which could cause us to think of universities and research training in fundamentally new ways, or is it sufficient to rely on established ways? This chapter explores these questions.

The Scientific Mission and the Freedom of Research

This chapter takes at its starting point that an academic scientist or scholar, regardless of discipline, must be to produce knowledge, rather than mere opinion. By virtue of his fulfilling this mission, he also supports and contributes to a form of deliberative dialog, the sine qua non for citizenship in liberal democracies, in which argument on the basis of fact and coherence, rather than rhetorical tricks and powers of persuasion, is decisive. Demands for social relevance and usefulness ought to be seen in light of this mission, rather than in terms of political utility or commercial gain. In this sense, the requirement that the university produce useful knowledge is entirely commensurable with academic freedom, provided that politicians, administrators, and business leaders recognize that they cannot determine what questions ought to be asked or how best to answer them, but leave that matter to scientists and scholars to decide.

The Value of the Humanities

What is the value of the humanities? This is a question that guides us throughout this report as we seek conceptual clarity and credibility for practices in digital humanities, knowledge exchange, globalisation, interdisciplinarity, infrastructure and public policy In this chapter, however, we address the question head-on as we report on how humanities researchers themselves articulate the value of their work. This chapter reveals that humanists across the globe more often than not identify a social value to humanities research.

Funding and Infrastructure

This chapter is concerned with the questions: Is funding for the humanities adequate? Do we have adequate infrastructure for humanities research? Are the institutional parameters of the humanities fit for the challenges of the 21st century? The chapter will not look into general questions of university frameworks, relevant as that would be, but it will focus on the perspectives of humanistic researchers themselves, as evidenced by our interviews, and how they experience financial and infrastructural support for their research and how these are conditions changing. Not surprisingly, we found that there are huge levels of inequality within the world of the humanities and that different regional funding systems, even within the developed world, may have hitherto neglected consequences for humanities research practices.

Translating the Humanities

This chapter explores the different ways in which research’s insights and results are communicated and translated to beyond university boundaries. First we outline the flow of academic knowledge from researcher to end user. Second, we look into how this translation takes place, according to current national reports, and identify what senior academic researchers and academics in leading positions believe is happening and what they recommend. We find that the knowledge pool of the humanities is tapped in haphazard and entirely contingent ways. The way forward is to ensure that translational practices are valued and resourced adequately. The flip side of that coin is that problems of academic freedom and ethics must be addressed.

The Culture of Humanities Research

This chapter covers a cluster of issues to do with the culture of humanities research. We found broad institutional and technological changes are affecting the way the humanities operate: Internationalisation: there are more global networks, international collaborations and funding opportunities; increasingly, research is happening outside national and regional boundaries. Interdisciplinarity: there is an established trend for major funding bodies in Europe and the US to insist that projects be interdisciplinary, involving the collaboration of scholars from different fields.