Think of evolution, and you might think of Darwin’s finches and natural selection. But according to researchers writing in the journal BioScience, it is not our genes that are determining our current evolutionary journey. It is our culture.
“Cultural evolution eats genetic evolution for breakfast,” Zachary Wood, a researcher in ecology and environmental sciences at the University of Maine, said in a statement, “it’s not even close.”
If — as Wood and his co-author Timothy Waring say — culture has overtaken biology as the predominant evolutionary force in our species, we could be in the midst of an evolutionary transition.
Culture and Human Evolution
Every now and then, a species undergoes a transition that ultimately transforms what it means to be an individual — a very early example being when a single cell becomes a multicellular organism. Wood, Waring, and many scholars in the field of evolutionary biology believe we are in the midst of another transition, one that has the potential to turn us into a “superorganism.”
In previous chapters of our evolutionary past, the most fundamental changes to us as a species have been the result of genetics. Think of our larger brain size, which equips us with the capacity to learn and retain complex skills and language, or menopause, which enables women in middle and later age to pass their skills onto younger generations.
The issue with genetic change is that it tends to be slow and gradual. Cultural evolution, in contrast, can occur within the time it takes to pass a piece of legislation.
“Human evolution seems to be changing gears,” Waring, an associate professor of economics and sustainability at the University of Maine, said in a press release.
“On reviewing the evidence, we find that culture solves problems much more rapidly than genetic evolution. This suggests our species is in the middle of a great evolutionary transition.”
Read More: Does Evolution Take Millions of Years or Does it Happen in Sudden Bursts?
Culture vs. Genetics
Cultural practices incorporate everything from farming techniques and legal requirements to medical advances. And cultural evolution in and of itself is not new — an early example is the transition to agriculture, which has seen most of the world’s population move from hunter-gatherer societies to permanent settlements.
But, Wood and Waring argue, the speed and scale of cultural evolution is ramping up. When we see increases in our life expectancy and improvements in our health, it is less often the result of genes and more likely the product of advancements in healthcare, sanitation systems, and other group-based infrastructure.
Still not convinced?
“Ask yourself this: what matters more for your personal life outcomes, the genes you are born with, or the country where you live?” said Waring in the press statement.
“Today, your well-being is determined less and less by your personal biology and more and more by the cultural systems that surround you — your community, your nation, your technologies.”
Becoming a “Superorganism”
Evolutionary transition in individuality (ETI) describes the process of a formerly independent organism turning into a component within a larger group. It can refer to individual cells within an organism or ants within a colony. In the case of the latter, the ant colony is a “superorganism” in which the individual ants are so dependent on the group that it essentially functions as its own unit.
Based on our current trajectory, some scholars believe this is where we are heading. Wood and Waring offer a system for testing the theory and measuring how far along this road we may be.
They do not believe we are there yet, but write: “We speculate that, in the long term, culture will continue to grow in influence over human evolution until genes become secondary structures that encode human biological design blueprints but are ultimately governed by culture.”
Read More: What Is the Difference Between Convergent and Divergent Evolution?
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