Culture Overtakes Genes in Human Evolution

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FRoma epic poetry with shows, from stone age axes to space flights, humans have the most complex cultures of all species on earth. Since the Darwin era, scientists have suspected that this culture has played a role in the formation of survival and propagation of species. But over the decades, the influence of culture on evolution has become increasingly clear. We are not only learning the behaviors, language and ruled rules and systems of our neighbors and old, nor transmitting knowledge and technologies to our children. We rely on these flexible cultural attributes through generations.

Now, some scientists affirm in a new article that culture has in fact exceeded genetics as the main force shaping human evolution, marking a major change. Timothy Waring, economist at the University of Maine, and Zachary Wood, Waring’s ecological colleague, argue that our cultural practices have now spread faster than our genes, allowing us to adapt quickly and solve problems. Biology simply cannot follow.

“Cultural evolution eats genetic evolution for breakfast,” Wood said in a press release. “It’s not even close.”

The researchers relied on evidence of anthropology, biology and history to support their argument. Genetic change, they say, takes generations – decades in centuries – while cultural forces can influence evolution in a few days or years. Humans can also choose ideas, behaviors and technologies to adopt, which theoretically accelerates the spread of successful cultural adaptations. Culture can also be self-crushed in the short term, unlike genetic heritage, something reinforced by digital culture, according to researchers. And while genes generally benefit from individuals, culture can benefit (or disadvantage) whole groups.

“Ask yourself this: what matters most for your personal results, the genes you were born or the country where you live?” Said Waring. “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. And the importance of culture tends to grow long -term because culture accumulates adaptive solutions more quickly. ”

Many cultural adaptations now pre -empted genetic effects. Waring and Wood offer examples of glasses and surgery that allow a person with vision problems to prosper despite their genetic gap, or fertility treatments that allow a person with reproduction limitations to build a family and transmit their genes. Especially compared to our prehistoric ancestors, the survival and longevity of a person are today more dependent on cultural systems in the group such as medicine and hospitals, education and public health systems, than individual intelligence or genetics.

The warning and the wood also suggest that, as culture becomes more and more important for human survival and reproduction, we will evolve to become even more oriented towards the group and dependent on the group, potentially fully changing the human condition. If this happens, we will become societal “superorganisms” that adapt through cultural change, they suggest.

Researchers say that their theory is testable and offers a system to measure the speed with which the transition from genetic evolution to cultural evolution occurs, in terms of human phenotypes and physical form. They also offer mathematical models to help describe this process. The study is part of a broader effort in Waring and its team in the applied cultural evolution laboratory at the University of Maine. The researchers studied models in human evolution to promote a positive social change.

If prudence and wood are right, our destiny as a species can be less written in our DNA than in our collective laws, medical treatments and memes.

Image of lead: Rumka Vodki / Shutterstock

• French Kristen

  Published on September 17, 2025

  Kristen French is an assistant editor -in -chief in Nautilus.