Not By Genes Alone: How Culture Transformed Human EvolutionUniversity of Chicago Press, 2008 M06 20 - 342 pages Humans are a striking anomaly in the natural world. While we are similar to other mammals in many ways, our behavior sets us apart. Our unparalleled ability to adapt has allowed us to occupy virtually every habitat on earth using an incredible variety of tools and subsistence techniques. Our societies are larger, more complex, and more cooperative than any other mammal's. In this stunning exploration of human adaptation, Peter J. Richerson and Robert Boyd argue that only a Darwinian theory of cultural evolution can explain these unique characteristics. Not by Genes Alone offers a radical interpretation of human evolution, arguing that our ecological dominance and our singular social systems stem from a psychology uniquely adapted to create complex culture. Richerson and Boyd illustrate here that culture is neither superorganic nor the handmaiden of the genes. Rather, it is essential to human adaptation, as much a part of human biology as bipedal locomotion. Drawing on work in the fields of anthropology, political science, sociology, and economics—and building their case with such fascinating examples as kayaks, corporations, clever knots, and yams that require twelve men to carry them—Richerson and Boyd convincingly demonstrate that culture and biology are inextricably linked, and they show us how to think about their interaction in a way that yields a richer understanding of human nature. In abandoning the nature-versus-nurture debate as fundamentally misconceived, Not by Genes Alone is a truly original and groundbreaking theory of the role of culture in evolution and a book to be reckoned with for generations to come. “I continue to be surprised by the number of educated people (many of them biologists) who think that offering explanations for human behavior in terms of culture somehow disproves the suggestion that human behavior can be explained in Darwinian evolutionary terms. Fortunately, we now have a book to which they may be directed for enlightenment . . . . It is a book full of good sense and the kinds of intellectual rigor and clarity of writing that we have come to expect from the Boyd/Richerson stable.”—Robin Dunbar, Nature “Not by Genes Alone is a valuable and very readable synthesis of a still embryonic but very important subject straddling the sciences and humanities.”—E. O. Wilson, Harvard University |
From inside the book
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Page 11
... - plicit evolutionary scenario seems to be that Pleistocene hominids were just extra - smart chimpanzees , clever social animals in which learning from each other played a negligible role until the evolution of our Culture Is Essential 11.
... - plicit evolutionary scenario seems to be that Pleistocene hominids were just extra - smart chimpanzees , clever social animals in which learning from each other played a negligible role until the evolution of our Culture Is Essential 11.
Page 12
... chimpanzee was able to take up culture . First we got human nature by genetic evolution ; then culture arose as an evolu- tionary byproduct . This way of thinking neglects the inevitable feedback between the na- ture of human psychology ...
... chimpanzee was able to take up culture . First we got human nature by genetic evolution ; then culture arose as an evolu- tionary byproduct . This way of thinking neglects the inevitable feedback between the na- ture of human psychology ...
Page 50
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Page 104
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Contents
| 1 | |
| 18 | |
Chapter 3 Culture Evolves | 58 |
Chapter 4 Culture Is an Adaptation | 99 |
Chapter 5 Culture Is Maladaptive | 148 |
Chapter 6 Culture and Genes Coevolve | 191 |
Chapter 7 Nothing About Culture Makes Sense Except in the Light of Evolution | 237 |
Notes | 259 |
References and Author Index | 285 |
General Index | 317 |
Other editions - View all
Not By Genes Alone: How Culture Transformed Human Evolution Peter J. Richerson,Robert Boyd No preview available - 2004 |
Not By Genes Alone: How Culture Transformed Human Evolution Peter J. Richerson,Robert Boyd No preview available - 2006 |
Common terms and phrases
acquire adopt adults Amish Anabaptist animals anthropologists argue baboons behave beliefs bias biased transmission biologists biology Boyd and Richerson brain cause chapter chimpanzees cognitive common complex societies conformist cooperation cultural adaptation cultural evolution cultural transmission cultural variants cumulative cultural Darwin Darwinian demographic demographic transition Dinka economic effect environment environmental ethnic evidence evolutionary biologist evolutionary processes example experiments explain favor fertility fitness foraging gene-culture coevolution genes genetic group selection havior human behavior human culture hunter-gatherers Hutterites hypothesis ideas imitation important increase individuals innate innovations institutions interact John Tooby language Leda Cosmides living maladaptive mechanisms models modern moralistic punishment natural selection norms Nuer observed organization parents Pleistocene population Press problem reciprocity relatively replication result role selfish similar social instincts social learning species spread studies successful symbolically marked theory tion Tooby traditions transmitted tribal tribes tural Univ variable yeoman values
Popular passages
Page 255 - ... the bushes, with various insects flitting about, and with worms crawling through the damp earth, and to reflect that these elaborately constructed forms, so different from each other, and dependent upon each other in so complex a manner, have all been produced by laws acting around us.
Page 255 - There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being evolved.
Page 255 - It is interesting to contemplate a tangled bank, clothed with many plants of many kinds, with birds singing on the bushes, with various insects flitting about, and with worms crawling through the damp earth...
Page 16 - I may take this opportunity of remarking that my critics frequently assume that I attribute all changes of corporeal structure and mental power exclusively to the natural selection of such variations as are often called spontaneous; whereas, even in the first edition of the "Origin of Species...
Page 283 - To this day, if I hear a distant scream, it recalls with painful vividness my feelings when, passing a house near Pernambuco, I heard the most pitiable moans, and could not but suspect that some poor slave was being tortured, yet knew that I was as powerless as a child even to remonstrate.
Page 165 - ... an infinity of infinitely happy life to be won. But here there is an infinity of infinitely happy life to be won, one chance of winning against a finite number of chances of losing, and what you are staking is finite.
Page 283 - It makes one's blood boil, yet heart tremble, to think that we Englishmen and our American descendants, with their boastful cry of liberty, have been and are so guilty...
Page 232 - ... nested hierarchy of offices, using various mixtures of ascription and achievement principles to staff the offices. Each level of the hierarchy replicates the structure of a hunting and gathering band. A leader at any level interacts mainly with a few near-equals at the next level down in the system. New leaders are usually recruited from the ranks of sub-leaders, often tapping informal leaders at that level. As Eibl-Eibesfeldt (1989: 314) remarks, even high-ranking leaders in modern hierarchies...
Page 283 - American descendants, with their boastful cry of liberty, have been and are so guilty : but it is a consolation to reflect, that we at least have made a greater sacrifice, than ever made by any nation, to expiate our sin.