The Costly Information Hypothesis
The costly information hypothesis is used to explore how adaptive biases relate to cultural evolution within the field of dual inheritance theory. The focus is on the evolutionary trade-offs in cost between individual learning, (e.g., operant conditioning) and social learning. If more accurate information that could be acquired through individual learning is too costly, evolution may favor learning mechanisms that, in turn, are biased towards less costly, (though potentially less accurate), information via social learning.
Read more about this topic: Adaptive Bias
Famous quotes containing the words costly, information and/or hypothesis:
“The most costly of all follies is to believe passionately in the palpably not true. It is the chief occupation of mankind.”
—H.L. (Henry Lewis)
“Theories of child development and guidelines for parents are not cast in stone. They are constantly changing and adapting to new information and new pressures. There is no “right” way, just as there are no magic incantations that will always painlessly resolve a child’s problems.”
—Lawrence Kutner (20th century)
“The great tragedy of science—the slaying of a beautiful hypothesis by an ugly fact.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)