Toronto Mensa INQUIRING MINDS: The Cultural Evolution of Games of Chance in Premodern China

DESCRIPTION:

Chance-based gambling has been a recurrent cultural activity throughout history and across many diverse human societies.

In this talk, Professor Ze (Kevin) Hong, a behavioural scientist at the University of Macau, combines quantitative and qualitative data and will present a cultural evolutionary framework to explain why the odds in games of chance in premodern China appeared "designed" to ensure a moderate yet favorable house advantage.

This is especially intriguing since extensive research in the history of probability has shown that, prior to the development of probability theory, people had very limited understanding of the nature of random events and were generally disinclined to think mathematically about the frequency of their occurrence.

Professor Hong argues that games of chance in the context of gambling may have culturally evolved into their documented forms via a process of selective imitation and retention, and neither the customers nor the gambling houses understood the probability calculus involved in these games.

SPEAKER BIO:

Kevin (Ze) Hong is a behavioral scientist who studies human behavior and culture from evolutionary and cognitive perspectives. He earned a master's degree in Evolutionary Biology from the University of Pennsylvania, and a PhD in Human Evolutionary Biology from Harvard University (where he remains as a research associate). He is (also) currently an assistant professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Macau.

In his research, he uses diverse approaches (e.g., theoretical modeling, quantitative analysis of historical data, ethnographic fieldwork, and controlled experiments) to study human behavior and culture, from rainmaking to gambling. He is also interested in how fundamental psychological concepts, such as chance and fictionality, vary across cultures.

Dr. Hong is the author of the monograph Divination: A Cognitive Perspective, published by Cambridge University Press. His work has been published in leading journals such as Psychological Review and Cognitive Science. His current field sites include the Nuosu in southwest China and the Wa in China-Burma border where he focuses on the psychological and social factors that sustain divination and magic practices.

Dr. Hong serves as an Associate Editor for Human Nature and Cognitive Science, a guest-editor for Evolution and Human Behavior, and is a member of the editorial boards of Humanities and Social Sciences Communications and Religion, Brain & Behavior.

This is a free event, but you must RSVP to Kathleen Smith at Kathleen.walton.smith@gmail.com.

For more information, contact Kathleen Smith at Kathleen.walton.smith@gmail.com.