The Secret of Our Success: How Culture Is Driving Human Evolution, Domesticating Our Species, and Making Us Smarter, Joseph Henrich (Princeton University Press, 2015). There are books that have had a greater influence on my thinking, and there are certainly books I’ve devoured with greater enjoyment, but
Four years ago I tried to read this book, even though the parts I read are very insightful and I realized the book is important, I could not bring myself to finish it.
Glad that I found your review today. Not sure if it were time/personal change or your writing that makes the content much more 'consumable' for me now.
Also, the personal insights and notes of related works throughout the summary give a new dimension to the original content, and are very relatable to me.
Like you said, we can either choose to be rational about every action/decision, or we can simply be meta-rational by surrounding ourselves with people we want to be like. I'm glad I found your substack.
One bit of lost social technology I am currently dealing with: the loss of self-entertainment strategies. We are facing a trip in which we and our children and their grandparents will be stranded at Dead Horse Point's campground with no way to leave for three days. We can hike around Dead Horse Point, but we will also have no access to electronics. The question is: how do three children and four adults avoid losing their minds from boredom? This is hardly a new problem; in fact it's a very old one that we simply have not had for two generations. I know as a kid we played some word games on long walks and of course there's tag and singing 101 bottles of beer and swapping riddles and telling stories and playing practical jokes, but I'm barely equipped beyond that. I have since been digging into this phenomenon and taking copious notes on ways to pass the time that don't involve elaborate tools.
This is a thoughtful review of Joseph Henrich’s The Secret of Our Success. The book’s central insight — that human success comes not from raw intelligence but from cumulative cultural evolution — is powerfully conveyed here. I also appreciate how you highlight Henrich’s argument that technologies spread through social learning. Groups adopt entire packages of practices from those who appear successful, rather than independently “figuring them out.” This reframes progress as a product of collective transmission rather than isolated genius.
Your review also rightly notes that Henrich’s argument extends beyond evolutionary anthropology. If culture is our “collective brain,” then social norms, institutions, and even modern economic systems are chains of transmitted learning.
This resonates strongly with my own essay, History as a Chain of Learning (https://exchangism.substack.com/p/history-as-a-chain-of-learning). There, I argue that societies and nations learn from other societies much like individuals or tribes learn from others. Progress comes from borrowing, imitating, adapting — and then passing accumulated knowledge forward. In that sense, history itself can be seen as a large-scale process of cumulative cultural and social evolution.
Thank you for writing this — it beautifully connects anthropology, history, and the foundations of modern society in a very clarifying way.
A discussion on EconTwitter a few years ago casts doubt about the Israeli daycare paper entirely. When asked for their data by outsiders to review, they basically said, "uh, the dog ate my homework". I can try to find a reference if you're interested.
An overview by Caplan, which includes the quote about not being allowed to confirm independently ("Oddly, I was not allowed to to talk with the teachers"):
I've only read P&P, S&S, and Persuasion so far, and I have to admit that I think Persuasion is #2 after P&P. The pacing just really didn't do it for me. I'm curious to hear your pro-Persuasion, uh, persuasion, though!
Better late than never, I suppose....I don't have any logical reason for enjoying Persuasion. I just remember having had a good feeling about it while reading it.
The preface to _The WEIRDest People in the World_ is pretty explicit that this book was originally part one of that but eventually Henrich concluded it needed a book-length treatment. I don’t think that’s a knock on this one!
Four years ago I tried to read this book, even though the parts I read are very insightful and I realized the book is important, I could not bring myself to finish it.
Glad that I found your review today. Not sure if it were time/personal change or your writing that makes the content much more 'consumable' for me now.
Also, the personal insights and notes of related works throughout the summary give a new dimension to the original content, and are very relatable to me.
Like you said, we can either choose to be rational about every action/decision, or we can simply be meta-rational by surrounding ourselves with people we want to be like. I'm glad I found your substack.
One bit of lost social technology I am currently dealing with: the loss of self-entertainment strategies. We are facing a trip in which we and our children and their grandparents will be stranded at Dead Horse Point's campground with no way to leave for three days. We can hike around Dead Horse Point, but we will also have no access to electronics. The question is: how do three children and four adults avoid losing their minds from boredom? This is hardly a new problem; in fact it's a very old one that we simply have not had for two generations. I know as a kid we played some word games on long walks and of course there's tag and singing 101 bottles of beer and swapping riddles and telling stories and playing practical jokes, but I'm barely equipped beyond that. I have since been digging into this phenomenon and taking copious notes on ways to pass the time that don't involve elaborate tools.
This is a thoughtful review of Joseph Henrich’s The Secret of Our Success. The book’s central insight — that human success comes not from raw intelligence but from cumulative cultural evolution — is powerfully conveyed here. I also appreciate how you highlight Henrich’s argument that technologies spread through social learning. Groups adopt entire packages of practices from those who appear successful, rather than independently “figuring them out.” This reframes progress as a product of collective transmission rather than isolated genius.
Your review also rightly notes that Henrich’s argument extends beyond evolutionary anthropology. If culture is our “collective brain,” then social norms, institutions, and even modern economic systems are chains of transmitted learning.
This resonates strongly with my own essay, History as a Chain of Learning (https://exchangism.substack.com/p/history-as-a-chain-of-learning). There, I argue that societies and nations learn from other societies much like individuals or tribes learn from others. Progress comes from borrowing, imitating, adapting — and then passing accumulated knowledge forward. In that sense, history itself can be seen as a large-scale process of cumulative cultural and social evolution.
Thank you for writing this — it beautifully connects anthropology, history, and the foundations of modern society in a very clarifying way.
Chesterton's Fence
https://theknowledge.io/chestertons-fence-explained/
A discussion on EconTwitter a few years ago casts doubt about the Israeli daycare paper entirely. When asked for their data by outsiders to review, they basically said, "uh, the dog ate my homework". I can try to find a reference if you're interested.
Sure, thanks.
An overview by Caplan, which includes the quote about not being allowed to confirm independently ("Oddly, I was not allowed to to talk with the teachers"):
https://www.econlib.org/archives/2005/10/revenge_of_the.html
My memory served me correctly:
https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2024/09/14/freakonomics-asks-why-is-there-so-much-fraud-in-academia-but-without-addressing-one-big-incentive-for-fraud-which-is-that-if-you-make-grabby-enough-claims-you-can-get-features-in-freako/
Critique of Gneezy, by Rubinstein:
https://arielrubinstein.tau.ac.il/papers/76.pdf
https://arielrubinstein.tau.ac.il/papers/behavioral-economics.pdf (better quality)
Gneezy's response:
https://arielrubinstein.tau.ac.il/papers/WC05/GR.pdf
Gneey claims a later replication, but there is also this anti-replication:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0144818819302741
"As I've been writing this review, I’ve also been making my way through the works of Jane Austen for the first time."
Two questions: 1) which book is your favorite; and 2) why is it Persuasion?
I've only read P&P, S&S, and Persuasion so far, and I have to admit that I think Persuasion is #2 after P&P. The pacing just really didn't do it for me. I'm curious to hear your pro-Persuasion, uh, persuasion, though!
Better late than never, I suppose....I don't have any logical reason for enjoying Persuasion. I just remember having had a good feeling about it while reading it.
The preface to _The WEIRDest People in the World_ is pretty explicit that this book was originally part one of that but eventually Henrich concluded it needed a book-length treatment. I don’t think that’s a knock on this one!