CB
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Dual inheritance theory
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual_inheritance_theory
Dual Inheritance Theory (DIT), also known as Gene-Culture Coevolution, was developed in the late 1970s and early 1980s to explain how human behavior is a product of two different and interacting evolutionary processes: genetic evolution and cultural evolution. DIT is a "middle-ground" between much of social science, which views culture as the primary cause of human behavioral variation, and human sociobiology and evolutionary psychology which view culture as an insignificant by-product of genetic selection. [1] In DIT, culture is defined as information in human brains that got there by social learning. Cultural evolution is considered a Darwinian selection process that acts on cultural information. Dual Inheritance Theorists often describe this by analogy to genetic evolution, which is a Darwinian selection process acting on genetic information.[2]
Because genetic evolution is relatively well understood, most of DIT examines cultural evolution and the interactions between cultural evolution and genetic evolution.
Contents [hide] 1 Theoretical basis 1.1 Culture capacities are adaptations 1.2 Culture evolves 1.3 Genes and culture coevolve 2 View of culture 3 Genetic influence on cultural evolution 4 Cultural influences on genetic evolution 5 Mechanisms of cultural evolution 5.1 Natural selection 5.2 Random variation 5.3 Cultural drift 5.4 Guided variation 5.5 Biased transmission 5.5.1 Content bias 5.5.2 Context bias 5.5.2.1 Model-based biases 5.5.2.2 Frequency-dependent biases 6 Social learning and cumulative cultural evolution 7 Cultural group selection 8 Historical development 9 Current and future research 10 Relation to other fields 10.1 Sociology and cultural anthropology 10.2 Human sociobiology and evolutionary psychology 10.3 Human behavioral ecology 10.4 Memetics 11 See also 12 References 13 Further reading 13.1 Books 13.2 Reviews 13.3 Journal articles 14 External links 14.1 Current DIT researchers 14.2 Related researchers
[edit] Theoretical basis DIT holds that genetic and cultural evolution interact in the evolution of Homo sapiens. DIT recognizes that the natural selection of genotypes is an important component of the evolution of human behavior and that cultural traits can be constrained by genetic imperatives. However, DIT also recognizes that genetic evolution has endowed the human species with a parallel evolutionary process of cultural evolution. DIT makes three main claims: [3]
[edit] Culture capacities are adaptations The human capacity to store and transmit culture arose from genetically evolved psychological mechanisms. This implies that at some point during the evolution of the human species a type of social learning leading to cumulative cultural evolution was evolutionarily advantageous.
[edit] Culture evolves Social learning processes give rise to cultural evolution. Cultural traits are transmitted differently than genetic traits and, therefore, result in different population-level effects. These effects can help explain human behavioral variation.
Full at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual_inheritance_theory