The Role of Human Culture In Natural Selection

gollum123 writes with this excerpt from the NY Times: "... for the last 20,000 years or so, people have inadvertently been shaping their own evolution. The force is human culture, broadly defined as any learned behavior, including technology. The evidence of its activity is the more surprising because culture has long seemed to play just the opposite role. Biologists have seen it as a shield that protects people from the full force of other selective pressures, since clothes and shelter dull the bite of cold and farming helps build surpluses to ride out famine. Because of this buffering action, culture was thought to have blunted the rate of human evolution, or even brought it to a halt, in the distant past. Many biologists are now seeing the role of culture in a quite different light. Although it does shield people from other forces, culture itself seems to be a powerful force of natural selection. People adapt genetically to sustained cultural changes, like new diets. And this interaction works more quickly than other selective forces, 'leading some practitioners to argue that gene-culture co-evolution could be the dominant mode of human evolution.'"

Comments

Religious Neanderthals

[grub]

Too bad smarter people tend to breed less. "Liberalism, atheism, male sexual exclusivity linked to IQ"

You can always hope the current crop of Religious Neanderthals will be bred out as their namegivers had.

.

Re:Religious Neanderthals

[ElectricTurtle]

Actually, everybody is deciding to reproduce less, does this mean they are getting smarter?

(It probably does.)

Re:Religious Neanderthals

[ElectricTurtle]

It all depends on to what cause you attribute the observable nature of the Flynn Effect. As an avid synthesizer of history, I think that the average guy today is more intelligent than the average guy of the ancient or medieval periods. I think the primary reason is the cultural reduction (not elimination) of superstition and more practical cause/effect views of the observable world.

eugenics

[Anonymous Coward]

just wait until it becomes culturally acceptable to intentionally modify our genes using technology.

Culture is a meme

[hey]

First culture is a meme post.
Culture is a parasite and the host is people.
It just wants to propagate itself.

Chinese Test Takers?

[Anonymous Coward]

So does this mean that the Chinese should be more inclined to do well in tests?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_examination

Circa 605 AD

Biologists haven't seen it this way for a while

[spun]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_evolutionary_synthesis

The write up is misleading on many levels, and reflects a very nineteenth century understanding of evolution. Fitness criteria are constantly changing, and success changes the fitness landscape. Of course culture will impact evolution. The idea that it could somehow protect from selection pressures is just silly. Culture may protect you from the cold, by giving you a fur coat. Or you could evolve a fur coat, but would you then claim that the fur coat protected you from selection pressures and 'slowed down' evolution? Evolution isn't going some place, it doesn't have a direction, so it is a bit misleading to talk about how fast it is going.

Re:Biologists haven't seen it this way for a while

[Sique]

Evolution isn't going some place, it doesn't have a direction, so it is a bit misleading to talk about how fast it is going.

That's not entirely correct. You can for instance not give a direction for Brownian Motion. But you can give its speed (it is called temperature).

Same for Evolution. While you can't predict the changes it will yield, you can measure the speed of change.

Re:Biologists haven't seen it this way for a while

[spun]

True, you can measure the speed of change. And the speed of change of the human genome has been increasing, not decreasing. The write up, however, presents a view of evolution as directed motion, not temperature. It presents a view where there are objective, external measures for fitness, where a species can be qualified as a success without reference to its environment. And it presents the rather odd view that our social environment and the natural environment are somehow different in regards to our genes.

In short, the write up presents some outdated evolutionary ideas as mainstream, and the mainstream of evolutionary thought as novel.

Re:Biologists haven't seen it this way for a while

[tomhudson]

One of the reasons we were able to achieve such a large brain/body mass ratio is because we do NOT have a fur coat. >p> Humans have hair on the top of the head to protect against the heat of peak insolation, while the rest of the body is comparatively hairless, to allow for sweating.

Let your body temp rise by 5 degrees C and see how well you think. When doing nothing, the brain only uses 6 calories an hour. Thinking raises that to 90 calories an hour. In other words, spending most of your day thinking will mean that your brain is expending more energy than the rest of your body, even though it's only a small fraction of the total mass. Trolling slashdot (especially on Troll Tuesdays) is a good example of an activity that does this, as are puzzles, social games and events, etc., where the cultural interplay requires active thinking.

Contradiction in terms

[joeyblades]

Culture cannot play a role in natural selection, by definition. It does play a role in selection and evolution. That role is known as cultural selection.

Culture evolves too...

[m.shenhav]

Notice the phrasing "gene-culture coevolution" is consistent with Dual-Inheritance theory which considers cultural (behavioural) transmission as an evolutionary process on its own. This can also be extended with Epigenetic mechanisms and Symbolic transmission modes. Technology evolves too and seems like a sensible extension. Its not so far fetched when you consider that Reproduction (or amplification in the continuous case), Variation and Selection are sufficient conditions for evolution. Keep in mind cultural evolution is Lamarckian though... and different in many other ways too.

Natural selection gives way to human selection

[JamJam]

It's not just humans impacts on themselves. Humans have become 'superpredators' speeding up the evolution of the species they hunt and harvest at rates far above what is found in nature. Hunting techniques such as bagging the biggest trophy animal to commercial fisheries where mesh openings in nets capture the largest while allowing the smallest to escape has impacted the natural selection process. Removing the strongest and biggest species from the gene pool has resulted in offspring characteristics such as reduced body size and lower reproductive age.

More info from this article

Re:conservatives don't pay

[NotQuiteReal]

[conservatives don't pay] for public or private resources Huh? Conservatives pay for plenty of both.

the ultimate effect of a conservative ideology is a third world country: a rich upper class of a few, and a vast underclass of poor The ultimate effect of a liberal ideology is a third world country: a rich elite ruling class of a few, and a vast underclass of dependents of the state.

there is no room for the middle class in conservative ideology. this includes no room for middle class idiots who believe the corporate propaganda about "evuls socialisticisms". some people are their own worst enemy I think you are confusing plutocracy for a "conservative ideology". A liberal ideology can lead to the same problems by believing all the propaganda about "evuls greedy capitalists". the road the hell is paved with good intentions.

the money you have in your pocket is an abstract expression of the wealth of the society you live in. if you do not invest in your society, the money in your pocket loses value. if you invest in your society, you are paid dividends of a richer society, which pays you back with more business opportunities, etc The money in my pocket is an abstract expression of the wealth that I have earned. I know best how to invest my money. The money in the pocket of someone who didn't earn it represents the generosity of a charitable person, or the fruits of another's labor, taken by the state, diminished in value through the inefficiencies of layers of bueracracy and allocated to those who can get it.

"but dem freeloading welfare queens..." These are the ones who don't pay for public or private resources.

oh shut up retard. take a look at denmark someday. tell me they aren't happier healthier and wealthier than the average american. and then take a look at their tax rate Denmark is a country with a population the size of an average US state. Conservatives want to "conserve" the original intent of the constitution - e.g. the Federal government has very specific duties, and then ought to butt out and leave each State to sort things out, state by state. After all, who knows better what a population needs, then the people themselves?

i'd rather be taxed to high hell than worry about declaring bankruptcy if i get cancer I'd rather buy a really high deductable major medical policy. Nobody can insure your health, everyone will die sooner or later. You can, however, insure against financial risks - like your house buring down, or a major medical bill. Allocate your resources as you see fit.

but the conservative answer about a rising poor underclass (made up of previous middle class people) is to buy more guns Huh? I don't know what to say about this. Oh, wait, I think I just saw the perfect quote somewhere... "oh shut up retard".

the greatest irony/ tragedy/ comedy is how many previously lower middle class people who are now the new american poor (because of conservative initiatives like gutting depression era financial protections that created the real estate bubble) support with such rapturous passion the gutting of social safety nets that only exist to serve them. some people are full of so much stupidity and hatred- for their own neighbors, their own society, and their own government, that they only destroy themselves There is a fine line between a safety net that breaks your fall and a net that catches one into a life of dependency. The greatest irony /tragedy is that the previously lower middle class of people who "use these services" are now caught in the net, to their own detriment, yet demand more and more.

but i'm not going to let the morons take us all down. and if you read my words and agree with me, roll up your sleeves: there is a real life zombie apocalypse of propagandized retards out there, and we need to fight them to save our country from their self-destructive conservative stupidity But I'm not going to let the morons take us al

Re:conservatives don't pay

[digitalhermit]

I will speak to this.

Based on world per capita income levels, I am quite wealthy. In fact, my income is beyond the dreams of avarice of the inhabitants of several sub-Saharan peoples.

Last week I bought 5 Casual Day stickers benefiting the American Red Cross. They cost $2 apiece, which is equivalent to me working four days in the field on a Guatemalan farm.

Have I not done enough?