Causal relationships between human communication, education, and technologies
influences, facilitates, enables, leads to more ...
The following causal Diagram illustrates the relationships between human communication, technologies, and education. Using the reading texts, elaborate the relationships between these human cultural characteristics. Then explain in your group, using the causal diagram, which causal relationships exist between the ability for human communication, education, and the evolution of technology in the course of cultural evolution.
How could these causal relationships influence the future development of human communication, education and technology?
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Communication
Technologies, cultural knowledge
Teaching, Learning, Education
Trend: Human communication - Language, Writing, Printing, Internet
Human communication has been a successful adaptation throughout evolutionary history because it has allowed information, knowledge and technology to be transmitted very accurately and efficiently between humans. The need to learn more and more complex tool making has possibly been an important selection factor for human language and the cognitive abilities it requires. For most of the history of our species, people have communicated through direct contact: starting with gestures, eye contact, and facial expressions. Many anthropologists suggest that human language must have started with pointing, other gestures, and eye contact - how else would two or more people come to a mutual understanding of what they are communicating about (since they did not have this mutual understanding based on instincts)? Over time, sounds were probably used along with gestures (eg, "here," "there," "like this," "no," "yes," ...), and finally, the sounds themselves became meaningful (e.g. in order to have hands free for other things, or if you could not see others).
Only relatively recently have people in different regions begun to record language and meaning, first through cave paintings some 30,000 years ago, then through the use of symbols and writing some 5,000 years ago. Important texts were handwritten, and few people had access to them. In the 11th - 14th centuries, the first printed books appeared in Asia. With the invention of printing in 1440 in Germany, the distribution of printed books in Europe increased rapidly. The first daily newspaper of the world appeared in 1650 in Leipzig - in the history of our species practically only "yesterday"! Today, information can be communicated through the Internet across the globe within seconds. Within 20 years, half of the world's population has gained access to the Internet.
What impact will this have on the future evolution of our species? How will we communicate and exchange information in the future?
Fig. 2: 4600 years old cuneiform writing system
Fig. 1: Ca 30 000 years old cave painting in the Chauvet Cave, France.
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Trend: Human communication - Language, Writing, Printing, Internet
Fig. 5: Development of the percentage of internet users in the world and in different regions and countries between 1990 and 2017.
Fig. 3: Number of printed manuscripts and books in Europe between 500 - 1800 (logarithmic scale!) (wikipedia)
Fig. 4: Leipzig, 1650: First daily newspaper in the world “Einkommende Zeitungen”. Image source
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Trend: Human communication - Language, Writing, Printing, Internet
Fig. 6: NUmbers of internet users in regions of the world. Image source
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Trend: Teaching, Learning, Education
The high ability for social learning is one of the characteristics that sets us apart from other species. Learning from each other and teaching each other things are behaviors that make us human. Our species also has a long childhood and youth compared to other primates, apparently because more and more vital knowledge and skills have to be acquired through social learning during development.
As a result, we humans are highly flexible as a species, adaptable to different habitats through technologies and cultural knowledge, and today we inhabit virtually all regions of the world. Because children have to learn over a long period of time and are dependent on the adults around them, we humans also have a division of labor in the care and education of offspring - not just parents but many other people in the group participate in it.
Fig. 1: The life phases of some primates in comparison.
Die Lebensphasen einiger Primaten im Vergleich.
Fig. 2: Many adults in a child's environment participate in care and education. The more a child has to learn, the longer it takes to become independent and self-sufficient, and the more important are skills for social learning and teaching.
“As adults we can survive in our particular world because as children we figured out how it works.” Gopnik et al. (2000). The scientist in the crib
Fig. 3: Children learn the technologies and the cultural knowledge of the culture, in which they grow up.
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Trend: Teaching, Learning, Education
Fig. 1. Percentage of literate/illiterate people in the world population between 1800 and 2014
For most of human history, people have learned from each other in their groups, largely within the context of everyday life. Formal educational institutions (e.g. schools and universities) have emerged only very recently by comparison. Probably the recording of language through writing and printing was a major factor requiring formal education - because even the ability for reading and writing must first be learned and explicitly taught. Books, on the other hand, made the passing on of cultural knowledge easier and more efficient. Education in monasteries and elite academies already existed in various regions of the world some 3,000 years ago. Public education for the general population was introduced in the 16th and 19th centuries in Europe and parts of Asia. In the 19th century, education spread throughout the world, driven by colonization and industrialization. According to some estimates, by 1800 only 10% of the world's population could read and write. In 2014 it was about 85%. People also spend more and more time with education. So the extension of the childhood and youth period seems to continue.
Yet, many people in the world do not have adequate access to sufficient and high quality education. This lack of education affects their abilities to improve their economic, political, and social situation.
How will or how should the education of the future look like?
How can we ensure that all people in the world have access to good education?
How can we enable all people to become lifelong learners, beyond their formal school years?
What impact can and will education have on the future evolution of our species?
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Trend: Teaching, Learning, Education
Fig. 2.Average number of years that people in different countries spend with formal education (at school / college).
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Trend: Technologies and cumulative culture
Our ancestors probably relied on the use of good tools to survive. Those with better tools had higher chances of survival and reproduction than others. In turn, better tools had those who could communicate better, learn from each other, and teach each other. The more people are networked together, living together or communicating with each other over long distances, the faster knowledge and technology is transmitted and improved. Improved technologies, in turn, have enabled better communication and networking between people.
Thus, the (evolutionary) history of our species is characterized by an ever faster increase in knowledge and innovation. Over the past 200 years, and especially over the past 50 years, we have seen an exponential increase in technological progress.
Fig. 1: The development of the records for the maximum distance that planes were able to fly non-stop.
Fig. 2: The development of the number of human genome base pairs that could be sequences for one US-Dollar.
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Trend: Technologies and cumulative culture
One trend is the observation that computing power has doubled every two years since 1960. That is, there was an exponential increase in digital processing power. This trend is called Moore's Law. Also, the memory capacity of computers, the number of computations per second, and the amount of data that can be sent per second increased exponentially, while costs declined exponentially.
Some people think that this trend will continue until 2050. Then, according to the prediction, people will be able to buy computers that match the computing power and intelligence of all human brains together.
What impact will this technological progress have on the future evolution of our species?
Will technological advances continue to grow exponentially in the coming decades? Or will progress possibly halt or decline due to other limitations, including other sustainable development issues?
Will technologies have more of a positive or negative impact on us? Why?
How can we use our capacity for innovation for fostering human well-being and the sustainable development of our species?
Fig. 1: Increase in the number of computations per second of computers (y-axis is logarithmic!)
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Author: Susan Hanisch
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This material was developed in collaboration with the department of Comparative Cultural Psychology at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.
https://www.eva.mpg.de/comparative-cultural-psychology/research-areas/education-innovation/