The Emergent Fool

Gene-culture Co-evolution

Posted by plektix in Culture, Evolution, Genetics on March 2nd, 2010 | View Comments

A while ago, I wrote on the hypothesis that humans have essentially stopped evolving genetically, because of our cultural emphasis on keeping all humans alive, no matter how disadvantaged.

The New York Times reports today on the opposite idea: that human culture may actually intensify the selective pressure on our genes. This idea is known as gene-culture co-evolution, since although our genes and our culture evolve through separate processes (biological reproduction vs. sharing of ideas), these two processes interact and affect each other.

The Times article surveys how culturally evolved changes in diet, lifestyle, and social norms could have influenced the genetic evolution of our digestive systems and brains. But as a discussion starter, I’m interested in more speculative questions: is our evolving culture still shaping our genetic evolution? If so, in which directions are we being pushed?

Related posts:

Min

“I’m interested in more speculative questions: is our evolving culture still shaping our genetic evolution? If so, in which directions are we being pushed?”

Oh, sure, coevolution is still going on. :) Which directions are we being pushed in? Here’s a thought: Parthenogenesis. ;)

Women are already taking over the professions in the developed world. Eventually that may lead to their taking over political leadership, as well. When men ruled the world, women were seen as necessary both for perpetuating the species and the culture. When women rule, men will become increasingly superfluous, as robots take over physical tasks, and only a few sperm donors are necessary to perpetuate the species. Increasingly, men will become viewed as parasites. Advances in genetic engineering will make parthenogenesis possible, and men will be allowed to die out, as women cease to produce boy babies.

;)
plektix

I guess we men will have to prove our worth in non-reproductive ways.
Rafe Furst

Ben,

Durham’s Coevolution gives very strong evidence for a number of such influences such as the coevolution of the dairy farming meme and tolerance for cows milk, and the adaptive advantages of malaria in populations of high incidence of sickle cell anemia.

The book fundamentally altered my understanding of evolutionary dynamics when I first read it many years ago. Namely I learned (a) what co-evolution was (b) that cultural evolution was as real as biological evolution and (c) evolution in the real world is the story of multi-level evolution, i.e. the co-evolution of biochemical systems, genes, genomes, proteomes, *-eoms, memes, languages, cultures, etc).
Alex Golubev

Plektix, Min,
I find it interesting to look at the question in terms of survival. It seems to me that evolution first applied to matter over millions of years. Order was arising out of non-order, but without much “variation”. Biological life kicked it into high gear and genes started evolving on a much faster timescale, while gene-agents were using/destroying matter as their energy source. Cultural memes operate at even higher life frequency, so in a way meme-agents occupy/consume gene-agents. meme evolution is behind any and all active and passive killing of other species as well as our own as well as reshaping/using/destroying matter.

Technology seems to evolve converge and diverge at an even higher pace. The pace of innovation/evolution is driven by the desire/ability to “win” in the short run and not at all about survival in the long run. I get that we can’t do much to change this. but at the same time, we can’t deny that an acceleration in order arising out of non-order has no capacity to value older forms of life and evolution. so in that sense, humanity is far from being in a privileged position when it comes to our prospects for survival.

if Parhenogenesis is nature’s way to slow down the acceleration at higher orders of evolution, then so be it. At the same time we may be achieving some of these effects on a cultural (meme) evolutionary order through feminism and metrosexualism as i think Min is suggesting. Divorce rate is through the roof (viva individualism) and developed countries aren’t having kids. So it seems our cultural selves are “killing” our biological selves. We can’t wait to jump into our avatars and spread our mind children through blogging :) I can’t knock it too much, because life is quite enjoyable in Mario brothers when you have 3 simulated lives.