  This paper reviews and clarifies five misunderstandings about cultural
evolution identified by Henrich, Boyd, and Richerson (2008). First, cultural
representations are neither discrete nor continuous; they are distributed
across neurons that respond to microfeatures. This enables associations to be
made, and cultural change to be generated. Second, 'replicator dynamics' do not
ensure natural selection. The replicator notion does not capture the
distinction between actively interpreted self-assembly code and passively
copied self-description, which leads to a fundamental principle of natural
selection: inherited information is transmitted, whereas acquired information
is not. Third, this principle is violated in culture by the ubiquity of
acquired change. Moreover, biased transmission is less important to culture
than the creative processes by which novelty is generated. Fourth, there is no
objective basis for determining cultural fitness. Fifth, the necessity of
randomness is discussed. It is concluded that natural selection is
inappropriate as an explanatory framework for culture.
