Argument #3: the importance of culture and traditions across species

I am not sure if I was successful in attempting to upload a connection to a paper entitled "Understanding culture across species". It was written by Richard W. Byrne, Philip J. Barnard, Iaim Davidson, Vincent M. Janik, William C. McGrew, Adam Miklosi, and Polly Wiessner. It was published in Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 8(8) and is available through www.sciencedirect.com

To make a long story short,

"The lack of local behavioral variation in most animals is...taken to relect cognitive simplicity and human cultures are attributed to more sophisticated or hier fidelity mechanism: imitatation, creative ideation, theory of mind, teaching dependent upon join attention or even deliberate instruction."

"Culture [however] can be exhibited by any animal with a mind that allows social learning; conversely, finding cultural variation is no guarantee of unusual cognitive capacity....Part of the excitement about culture in animals is based on culture's potential to allow access to information not available otherwise. With useful, socially learnt traditions, a local population can 'punch above its weight', and thus gain a criticasl survival advantage. Elephants can learn of the location of water sources merely by following their elders. Without this social guidance they could not survive in the Namib; with it, individuals gain valuable knowledge for nothing. If each generation adds something to what they laernt, then 'racheting' of cultural knowledge can occur--a sort of cultural comound interest."

The authors provide many additional example. However, if you have trouble with their definition of culture and tradition, please read the paper.