Self-interested agents create, maintain and modify group-functional culture

We agree that institutions and rules are crucial for explaining human sociality but we question the claim of there not being "alternatives to CGS [that] can easily account for the institutionalized cooperation that characterizes human societies" (target article sect. 7). Hypothesizing that self-interested individuals coercively and collaboratively create rules we propose that agent-based hypotheses offer viable alternatives to cultural group selection (CGS).