>^^^^^
>CB: Culture does give humans a LaMarckian-LIKE adaptive system.
>
>However, it has turned into its opposite- it's now potentially
anti-adaptive
>with nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction , which are
>self-evidently potentially mal-adaptive.
That isn't its opposite. Cultures which aren't adapted to the real world will disappear. Just as random genetic mutations which are maladapted will do.
^^^^^ CB: I say "self-evidentially, maladaptive" because those weapons haven't caused our species to go extinct, but to me W'sMD pose a threat of exterminating the whole of the human race. Since W'sMD are made possible by culture, culture has turned into its opposite from being a general adaptive advantage for the human species.
(Let me say I premise my discussion here on the scientific analyses during the Cold War that nuclear exchanges being considered by the U.S.S.R and U.S. would kill all humans, through fall out and nuclear winter scenarios. It is not impossible that the some humans would survive, and therefore the species wouldn't be wiped out.)
^^^^^^^
Whether human cultural flexibility is a long term evolutionary advantage is of course an open question. So far it has proved an advantage, human culture has evolved quickly to fit humans to changing environments and humans have not only survived but increased in numbers. Obviously some cultural adaptions have done better than others, for example cultures where in-breeding was the norm haven't done as well as cultures with systems for avoiding in-breeding.
^^^^^^^ CB: Yes, well, for one long term , about 200,000 years , when culture originated, it seems to be an advantage, on balance. Even 200,000 years is not that long in some evolutionary terms.
( I'm thinking of the human species as a whole here, not comparing the adaptive success or failure of different human groups)
The quick evolution you refer to is what the LaMarckian-like nature of culture gives , that is more rapid adaption than Mendelian-limited adaption. In other words, what I mean by LaMarckian-like is that adaption by culture is not limited by Mendelian principles in the way genetic evolution is. LaMarckian-like means that culture allows a type of "inheritance of acquired characteristics", which a process Mendel's laws doesn't allow. Culture allows one generation to learn from its living experience and pass those lessons on immediately to the next generation, passing on a type of "acquired (non bodily) characteristic".
In other words, I'm not comparing different cultures for adaptive traits , but referring to the more flexible and rapid adaptability of Culture in general as compared to _genetic_ inheritance and adaption.
But with the cultural institution of War in combination with these superweapons that Culture ( science) has developed , Culture has created a maladaptive threat.
^^^^^^^
But it could still go horribly wrong, in which case the verdict will be that human cultural adaption was an evolutionary dead end.
^^^^^^ CB: Yes, no adaptation is absolutely adaptive. All are relative to a specific environment. Human culure ,which seems almost absolutely adaptive through most of its existence, now shows potential maladaptiveness relative to an environment that it itself has changed, in that the institution of War is part of the "environment" into which superweapons enter. Even knowledge of nuclear energy would not be a threat to the whole species if there was no institution of War.