Page 494 - Cultures and Organizations

The Evolution of Cultures 459

is not easy to know the delineation of groups. Humans can at any point
in time be part of many groups with sometimes ambiguous boundaries.
It is to be hoped that the coming century will see a strong growth in
knowledge about the dynamics of cultural evolution. Fortunately, the
evolutionary mechanism is always the same in essence, whatever the mix

of replicators. If there is reproduction with modification, and selection,
then evolution will occur.

5. Evolution evolves. Over the five billion years of the earth’s history,
evolution has increased in complexity. Evolution does not involve only
genes. It occurred in protein soups before genes existed, and it has
stumbled on more than just genes as well. From mixes of proteins to
DNA molecules to simple cells without nuclei to complex cells con-
taining symbiotic microorganisms (organelles) to colonies of cells to
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organisms to social groups, it keeps stumbling on new inventions.
We humans are now trying to use our evolved brains to anticipate

the future and to influence that future. So, although selection pres-
sures still operate on the current situation, this current situation has
come to include predictions of the future. Humans have refined a few

tricks, notably cultural values and practices, but we still have a poor
understanding of our current evolutionary setting. In particular, we
tend to underestimate the importance of the society as an evolutionary
replicator.

Evolution: More than Genes

This meant that symbolic evolution among human communities largely
supplanted genetic evolution as the driving force of biological change on
earth, and what may properly be called the human era of ecological history

began about 40,000 years ago.
—McNeill and McNeill, The Human Web, 2003

Have you ever fallen in love? If so, did you worry about the anti-immune
system of your beloved? Probably not; yet research has shown that we tend
to fall in love with people whose anti-immune systems are complementary
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to our own. From an evolutionary viewpoint, this tendency is not surpris-
ing; contagious diseases have been our most deadly enemy, and selection
must have favored people with a mixed immune system, because they are