A new study shows that culture is helping humanity evolve faster as a species rather than relying solely on genetic changes as in the past.
Evolution is the change in the genetic characteristics of a biological population over successive generations. These characteristics are expressed through genes, resulting from mutations, genetic recombination, and the origins of other genetic variations.
Cultural evolution helps reduce aggressive fighting tendencies, increases cooperation, promotes gentler personalities, and enhances social learning capabilities – (Photo: GETTY)
This process is passed down from parents to children, generation after generation, spanning thousands to millions of years through reproduction.
However, a recent study from the University of Maine (USA) has identified that culture – which scientists define as “knowledge, skills, and practices” that are learned – is becoming a driving force of evolution, helping humans adapt to their environment and overcome challenges more effectively and rapidly than biological genetics as previously asserted by theories.
According to Tim Waring, a member of the research team, culture was previously undervalued in the evolutionary process of humanity. But now, everything has changed.
Like genes, culture helps humans adapt to their living environment and respond to survival and reproductive challenges. However, culture operates more effectively than genes because the transfer of knowledge is faster and more flexible than genetic inheritance.
While gene transfer occurs only once in a generation, rigidly and limited to the genetic information of two parents, cultural practices can be learned quickly and updated frequently.
“Cultural transmission” is also more flexible than genes based on human learning; this transmission is not limited to the number of individuals who can benefit from information from everyone around them. As a result, cultural evolution is a more robust form of adaptation than biological genetics.
The combination of culture and genes enhances human adaptability to new living environments – (Photo: SHUTTERSTOCK).
One of the many indicators that humanity is still evolving both genetically and culturally over time is that we are gradually becoming “more cultural and less genetic” through the processes of reproductive selection and coping with pandemics.
Modern knowledge and medicine intervene in genetics when a woman can help with surrogacy or in vitro fertilization. We also do not wait thousands of years for natural evolution to combat new viruses but have been known to combine science to find ways to cope in a short time.
In a publication in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, a leading biological research journal of the Royal Society in London, scientists from the University of Maine state that this research explains why humans will always be a unique species.
Like biological genetics, culture is also particularly important when it is group-oriented. According to this study, factors such as fit, social identity, norms, and social institutions make cultural evolution highly group-oriented.
Cultural adaptation seems to be occurring faster in larger communities. This suggests that evolution has become oriented towards larger human populations, no longer limited to ethnic groups or small groups. Therefore, cultural competition between human populations also promotes adaptation and social cooperation.
Scientists suggest that in the future, humans may evolve from “individual genetic organisms” into “super-cultural communities,” similar to ant colonies and bee hives.
