Agriculture is only the best-detectable of many culture-driven genetic revolutions
Evidence
One concern with the above examples is that all stem from the emergence of food production—from agriculture and animal domestication. Perhaps this major revolution in human history is a unique event from which we cannot draw general conclusions? To the contrary, my view is that the agricultural revolution just happens to be the best-timed revolution in order for us to detect its causes and effects in our genome. The industrial revolution is too recent, and the revolutions that preceded food production are much older and thus harder to study. Nevertheless, there’s every reason to suspect that there was a cooking-and-fire revolution, a projectile-weapons revolution, and a spoken-language revolution, among many others. And as you will see in later chapters, technologically driven revolutions are probably underpinned by revolutions in forms of social organization or institutions. The agricultural revolution is just the one in the temporal sweet spot for today’s science. — Joseph Henrich, The Secret of Our Success, 308
Categorization
- XREF: connects to: Culture is not tightly constrained by genetic nature. — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement: How People Do Harm…, 155; Human diversity of societies proves culture is not tightly biologically fixed — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement: How People Do Harm…, 156; Cultural evolution has been the central driver of human genetic evolution for eons. — Joseph Henrich, The Secret of Our Success: How Culture…, 1015 (+7 more)
Broader Connections
- Culture has redirected human genetic evolution since Homo erectus, not only recently.
#corroborates(0.90) — Joseph Henrich, The Secret of Our Success, 1051 - Over 100 human genes show likely selection with cultural origins
#exemplifies(0.90) — Joseph Henrich, The Secret of Our Success, 302 - Cultural evolution has been the central driver of human genetic evolution for eons.
#corroborates(0.88) — Joseph Henrich, The Secret of Our Success, 1015 - Standard accounts wrongly frame culture as beginning only after genetic evolution finished.
#corroborates(0.86) — Joseph Henrich, The Secret of Our Success, 1012 - Cultural economic packages drive genetic differences even between nearby populations
#exemplifies(0.85) — Joseph Henrich, The Secret of Our Success, 311 - Cultural and genetic evolution began mutually reinforcing each other around 2 million years ago
#corroborates(0.85) — Joseph Henrich, The Secret of Our Success, 203 - Religious practices may have genetically altered human populations through gene-culture coevolution
#exemplifies(0.84) - Human diversity of societies proves culture is not tightly biologically fixed
#corroborates(0.78) — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 156 - Culture is not tightly constrained by genetic nature.
#expands(0.75) — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 155 - Cultural upbringing shapes human nature far more than biology does.
#expands(0.72) — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 173