The refinement paradox and cumulative cultural evolution: Complex products of collective improvement favor conformist outcomes, blind copying, and hyper-credulity

• Elena Miu ,

  Roles Investigation, Visualization, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

  * E-mail: elena.miu@gmail.com (EM); ler4@st-andrews.ac.uk (LR); knl1@st-andrews.ac.uk (KNL)

  ¶‡ These authors are joint first authors on this work.

  Affiliations School of Biology, University of St Andrews, St Andrews, United Kingdom, School of Human Evolution and Social Change, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona, United States of America, MPI for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany, Department of Archaeology and Heritage Studies, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark

  https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0846-2491

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• Luke Rendell ,

  Roles Conceptualization, Investigation, Methodology, Project administration, Supervision, Visualization, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

  * E-mail: elena.miu@gmail.com (EM); ler4@st-andrews.ac.uk (LR); knl1@st-andrews.ac.uk (KNL)

  ¶‡ These authors are joint first authors on this work.

  Affiliation School of Biology, University of St Andrews, St Andrews, United Kingdom

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• Sam Bowles,

  Roles Methodology, Writing – review & editing

  Affiliation The Santa Fe Institute, Santa Fe, New Mexico, United States of America

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• Rob Boyd,

  Roles Methodology, Writing – review & editing

  Affiliation School of Human Evolution and Social Change, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona, United States of America

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• Daniel Cownden,

  Roles Investigation, Writing – review & editing

  Affiliation Ingrooves Music Group, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada

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• Magnus Enquist,

  Roles Methodology, Writing – review & editing

  Affiliation University of Stockholm, Stockholm, Sweden

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• Kimmo Eriksson,

  Roles Methodology, Writing – review & editing

  Affiliation University of Stockholm, Stockholm, Sweden

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• Marcus W. Feldman,

  Roles Methodology, Writing – review & editing

  Affiliation Department of Biology, Stanford University, Stanford, California, United States of America

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• Timothy Lillicrap,

  Roles Investigation, Writing – review & editing

  Affiliation Google DeepMind, London, United Kingdom

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• Richard McElreath,

  Roles Methodology, Writing – review & editing

  Affiliation MPI for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany

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• Stuart Murray,

  Roles Investigation, Writing – review & editing

  Affiliations School of Biology, University of St Andrews, St Andrews, United Kingdom, School of Medicine, University of St Andrews, St Andrews, United Kingdom

  https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2871-8375

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• James Ounsley,

  Roles Investigation, Visualization, Writing – review & editing

  Affiliations School of Biology, University of St Andrews, St Andrews, United Kingdom, Marine Scotland Science, Freshwater Fisheries Laboratory, Pitlochry, United Kingdom

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• Kevin N. Lala

  Roles Conceptualization, Funding acquisition, Investigation, Methodology, Project administration, Supervision, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

  * E-mail: elena.miu@gmail.com (EM); ler4@st-andrews.ac.uk (LR); knl1@st-andrews.ac.uk (KNL)

  Affiliation School of Biology, University of St Andrews, St Andrews, United Kingdom

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