Original ArticleUniversal cognitive mechanisms explain the cultural success of bloodletting
Section snippets
Anthropological data
We performed a search in the Human Relations Area Files anthropological database (eHRAF: World Cultures database) for the words ‘bloodletting,’ ‘bleeding,’ ‘phlebotomy,’ ‘venesection,’ and ‘cupping.’ This yielded 154 references (see ESM for the full list of references, available on the journal's Website at www.ehbonline.org). The first coding aimed at eliminating the instances of cupping that did not involve bloodletting. All instances of cupping that did not involve a cutting tool, incisions,
Experimental data
To further evaluate the role of universal cognitive mechanisms in the attractiveness of bloodletting, we conducted a series of experiments with U.S. participants. As mentioned above, phlebotomy is a rare practice in modern western medicine, and bloodletting is not common as an alternative form of therapy either, so that these participants belong to a population that can be considered not to practice bloodletting. In order to limit the impact of participants' explicit beliefs about the efficacy
Modeling
Experiments have constraints on the number of participants as well as the number of generations. As a result, some of the effects observed might seem too weak to have a significant effect on cultural evolution. However, even very small tendencies can be magnified over multiple transmission episodes and have large effects on cultural evolution (e.g. Kalish, Griffiths, & Lewandowsky, 2007). Modeling bypasses experimental limitations and provides a more accurate representation of the consequences
Conclusion
Three explanations were put forward for the cultural success of bloodletting: medical efficiency, prestige and conformity bias, and attraction based on universal cognitive mechanisms. Regarding medical efficiency, the present data offer no support. Contrary to what one might expect if bloodletting was efficient to treat specific indications, we found it to be applied to a wide variety of indications. Moreover, there was no sign that bloodletting was most often practiced on the population that
Supplementary materials
The following are the supplementary data to this article.
Acknowledgments
We thank the Swiss National Fund for an Ambizione grant to H. Mercier, and the Center for the Study of Mind in Nature (Olso) for its support. N. Claidière gratefully acknowledges funding from the ASCE and LICORNES programs of the French Agence Nationale de la Recherche funding agency. We also thank Dan Sperber, Hugo Viciana, Alex Mesoudi, and two anonymous reviewers for their very useful comments.
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