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

eugenics

[Anonymous Coward]

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

Re:eugenics

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

I doubt that eugenics in the classic pre-WWII-and-the-nazis-giving-it-a-bad-name sense will be back any time in the foreseeable future(and fair enough, killing people is really ethically dicey); but I suspect that other methods will become acceptable pretty swiftly after we aquire the technology to make them practical.

Consider, for example, the historical trajectory of IVF. When it first became available, there was significant controversy(to this day, the official Catholic position is that it is contrary to natural law). However, because it delivered the results that people (even the people who condemned it) wanted, public perception warmed considerably. You have to look pretty damn hard to find people actively condemning the practice today, even among the sorts of religious hardliners who are stridently anti-abortion and quietly anti-contraception. Among people moderate enough to be considered "serious" in public discourse, the only controversies come up when somebody does something really tacky(e.g. Octomom) or there is some sob story of an infertile couple who can't afford to have the child they always wanted.

Consider also the example of Trisomy 21, Down's syndrome. The population level incidence is roughly 1 in 8000, and has remained fairly level. The individual incidence is strongly correlated with maternal age. In the western world, average maternal age has increased substantially. Downs incidence hasn't. Obvious(but unspoken) conclusion? Selective abortion.

Once sperm sorting gets reasonably cheap, I assume we'll see the same general warming of attitudes that we did with IVF. Proper genetic engineering will probably go the same way, though it really isn't developed enough for human use yet. Of course, it will be customary to vociferously condemn those who do it for the "wrong" reasons(hair/eye color selection, that sort of thing); but there will be enough medically compelling applications(you'd have to be a real asshole to oppose using genetic engineering to ensure that a child isn't born with cystic fibrosis, say) to make the tech commonly available. Once it is commonly available, the uses that everyone will find fashionable to condemn will be widely available, and widely popular.

Re:Religious Neanderthals

[magarity]

The people conducting that study were completely confused:
 
  The study takes the American view of liberal vs. conservative. It defines "liberal" in terms of concern for genetically nonrelated people and support for private resources that help those people
 
Liberals in America think *public* resources should be used to help others. Conservatives think that private resources should be used.

Re:Religious Neanderthals

[MyLongNickName]

Ah, yes. Slashdot... where correlation does not mean causation unless the study supports your prejudices.

Does high IQ produce the bent away from conservative values and religion? Or does high IQ cause one to feel "superior to the masses", arrogance and then a rejection of these values? The study is not able to go into this.

And assuming this is the same study as the one I read... was done on a college population (brilliant sampling technique, I must admit). It also found that the "ubermensch" has an average IQ of 103. Clearly our atheist, liberal overlords are far beyond what I can even imagine intellect wse.

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

[spun]

You are wrong. Wrong about what a scientific theory is, and wrong about the level of evidence for the theory. It is far from being theoretical in the popular sense of the word, and much closer to the popular understood meaning of the word 'fact.'

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.

Re:Religious Neanderthals

[Bemopolis]

In practice, conservatives think that no resources should be used to help others.*

*Except banks and investment firms. Oh, and Halliburton and Blackwater.

Re:Nothing to see here, move along

[Raffaello]

Milk drinking is a direct result of culture - the domestication of cattle for meat and dairy. None of our human ancestors could ever drink milk from a wild Aurochs and survive - (think 2-3 meter horn span, one metric ton, and very touchy).

Re:Contradiction in terms

[Raffaello]

You misunderstand the definition of natural selection. The term exists in contradistinction to the term "artificial selection" which is to say, human controlled selective breeding of the kind that gives rise to domesticated animals. The llama is the result of artificial selection. Its wild ancestor, the guanaco, is the result of natural selection.

Take the well known example of lactose tolerance. Nobody ever conducted a lactose tolerance breeding eugenics program - our ancestors didn't coral whole villages and kill those who were lactose intolerant and force those who were lactose tolerant to breed with each other (this is how artificial selection works). Lactose tolerance in European and African populations where it is prevalent, arose through natural seleciton. Those that were able to digest milk as adults (i.e., the lactose tolerant ones) left more offspring in areas where milk was widely available. This is an example of natural selection, not artificial selection.

It is also a direct result of cuture. The only reason milk was and is available is because of the domestication of cattle, which is a cultural activity. So here is an example where natural selection, (the increase in lactose tolerance among adults), was influenced by culture, (the domestication of dairy cattle).

Re:conservatives don't pay

[wurble]

No offense, but I'm in the position to know the financial dealings of some tens of thousands of wealthy individuals, and I can tell you flatly and honestly that the primary purpose of the vast majority of those "donations" is to dodge taxes. The majority of such donations are to "foundations" which are run by agents who answer directly to the person who "donated" their funds. Such foundations need only use a small fraction of their donations on actual charitable work. In most cases, the work done is very questionably charitable to begin with.

Don't let actual charitable individuals like Bill Gates and Warren Buffet fool you. Wealthy people by and large donate because there is a net gain in it for them.

I would urge you to especially look into information about Charitable Remainder Trusts.

Re:conservatives don't pay

[spun]

Back up your wild assertions with some links, or everyone will be forced to conclude you just made that up. Here's one rebuttal to the assertion: http://immorallogic.blogspot.com/2007/01/liberal-vs-conservative-giving.html

Basically, if you don't count donations to churches, the gap disappears. And why should you? Even when a church does charitable work, it comes with a sermon which is basically a sales pitch to join something very like an MLM scheme. It isn't charity, it's marketing.

The idea that liberals give away 'other people's money' is ludicrous on the face of it. Liberals don't pay taxes? We're putting our money towards charity, too, but charity is a public good, and we demand that you pay your fair share of this shared good. When I give to a charity, you benefit. because the charity makes society a better place. Charities make the hungry and homeless less desperate, and less likely to steal your stuff. They make the useless and uneducated into productive citizens who grow the economy. Charities do all kinds of beneficial things, and everyone benefits, which is why everyone should pay.

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

please tell me

[circletimessquare]

how the average lower middle class person is supposed to pay for healthcare in this country

the conservative answer is "shut up and get busy dying"

you don't have an answer beyond that, and it makes my blood boil. the cost of a sick society is much higher than the cost of a health care system which is attuned to taking care of people, rather than raping them for profit

"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.

can you point to such a society for me please? this is a pleasant fiction to support your bankrupt thinking, as this country doesn't even exist

meanwhile, i can point to many countries without a strong central government which naturally gravitate towards a rich upper class and the vast majority being poor. i don't understand why you cannot see that without strong functioning social nets this is the inevitable result of your ideology. how many examples of how many third world countries with weak central governments and no protections do you want? and yet this third world status quo is EXACTLY what you are arguing for. can you not see the obvious result of your ideology?

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?

Re:Religious Neanderthals

[c6gunner]

Huh? The number 100 has continued to rise? :P

Smartass :)

On the off chance that you're serious - and for those who aren't aware - IQ tests are re-normalized periodically in order to keep 100 as the average. In other words, if a person today and a person 30 years ago took the exact same IQ test and got the exact same answers, the person writing it today would receive a lower score. So yes, the average IQ does keep getting higher, even though it stays at 100 :)

Check here for more info:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect

Re:conservatives don't pay

[spun]

Okay, I will run that by you one more time. Do try to keep up.

People in desperate situations do not just give up and die. They take desperate actions. Not only do they not contribute to society, not only are they a drain, they are dangerous, and a destabilizing element.

Keeping people from desperation thus benefits society. Yes, they are 'freeloaders,' but that is better than being a desperate animal with the brains of a human. And, because people value fairness and reciprocity over self interest, when we help people out, they want to pay it back and contribute to society. They aren't freeloaders for long. They become productive, and as I'm sure we both agree that the economy is not a zero sum game, the more productive members of society we have, the more we all benefit.

See? Everyone benefits. So why should some people get away without paying for that benefit? If they are in a desperate situation themselves, I could understand, but if they can afford to pay for this benefit, and they don't, why should they continue to receive all the other benefits that come from living in a mutually beneficial society?

What statistics do you suggest I look at, exactly? And where do you get the idea I'm a liberal? I'm far scarier than that. I'm an anarcho-syndicalist.