Nicole Creanza's guest appearances

Nicole Creanza

Parsing Science: The unpublished stories behind the world’s most compelling science, as told by the researchers themselves.

Center for Mind, Brain, and Culture

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Mark Moffett

Susan Gelman

Lauren Klein

Dimitris Xygalatas

Melanie Mitchell

Jinho Choi

Joseph Ledoux

Deborah Gordon

Anjan Chatterjee

Robert Frank

Brian Nosek

Matt Ridley

Chris Martin

David Krakauer

Andy Clark

OwlTail

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

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 <a href="http://nicolecreanza.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Website</a>. Nicole’s <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&amp;user=vwQdgAYAAAAJ&amp;view_op=list_works&amp;sortby=pubdate" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Google Scholar Page</a>. Nicole’s Santa Fe Institute Seminar: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CpRZzmvHivg" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Cultural Evolution in Structured Populations</a>. 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! <a href="https://santafe.edu/podcast" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Visit our website</a> for more information or to support our science and communication efforts. <a href="https://facebook.com/groups/santafeinstitute" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Join our Facebook discussion group</a> to meet like minds and talk about each episode. Podcast Theme Music by <a href="https://deathlessmusic.bandcamp.com/releases" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Mitch Mignano</a>. Follow us on social media: <a href="http://twitter.com/sfiscience" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Twitter</a> • <a href="http://youtube.com/c/sfiscience" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">YouTube</a> • <a href="http://facebook.com/santafeinstitute" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Facebook</a> • <a href="http://instagram.com/sfiscience" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Instagram</a> • <a href="https://linkedin.com/company/20131/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">LinkedIn</a>

Nicole Creanza on Cultural Evolution in Humans & Songbirds

Cultural traits—behaviors that are learned from others—can change more rapidly than genes and can be inherited not only from parents but also from teachers and peers. How does this complex process of cultural evolution differ from and interact with genetic evolution? In this talk, I will discuss the dynamics of culturally transmitted behaviors on dramatically different evolutionary timescales: the learned songs of a family of songbirds and the spoken languages of modern human populations. Both of these behaviors enable communication between individuals and facilitate complex social interactions that can affect genetic evolution. My analyses of these two systems demonstrate that learned behaviors, while less conserved than genetic traits, can retain evolutionary information across great distances and over long timescales.

Cultural traits—behaviors that are learned from others—can change more rapidly than genes and can be inherited not only from parents but also from teachers and peers. How does this complex process of cultural evolution differ from and interact with genetic evolution? In this talk, I will discuss the dynamics of culturally transmitted behaviors on dramatically different evolutionary timescales: the learned songs of a family of songbirds and the spoken languages of modern human populations. Both of these behaviors enable communication between individuals and facilitate complex social interactions that can affect genetic evolution. My analyses of these two systems demonstrate that learned behaviors, while less conserved than genetic traits, can retain evolutionary information across great distances and over long timescales.

Lecture | Nicole Creanza | The Evolution of Learned Behaviors: Insights from Birds and Humans

What might migration patterns tell us about how modern languages came about? Vanderbilt University's Nicole Creanza talks with us about her research into how migration during the colonial era contributed to the development of the creole language, Sranan.

Linguistic Artifacts in Creole – Nicole Creanza