It has been suggested that - the human species may be undergoing an evolutionary transition in individuality (ETI).

there is disagreement about - how to apply the ETI framework to our species - and whether culture is implicated - as either cause or consequence.

Long-term gene–culture coevolution (GCC) i- s - also poorly understood.

argued that - culture steers human evolution,

Others proposed - genes hold culture on a leash.

After review of the literature and evidence on long-term GCC in humans - emerge a set of common themes. - First, culture appears to hold greater adaptive potential than genetic inheritance - and is probably driving human evolution. - The evolutionary impact of culture occurs - mainly through culturally organized groups, - which have come to dominate human affairs in recent millennia. - Second, the role of culture appears to be growing, - increasingly bypassing genetic evolution and weakening genetic adaptive potential. -Taken together, these findings suggest that human long-term GCC is characterized by - an evolutionary transition in inheritance - from genes to culture - which entails a transition in individuality (from genetic individual to cultural group). Research on GCC should focus on the possibility of - an ongoing transition in the human inheritance system.

• Title: The genetic and cultural evolution of unsustainability

• Author: Brian F. Snyder

• Abstract

• Summary
• Paraphrase
  • Anthropogenic changes are accelerating and threaten the future of life on earth.
  • While the proximate mechanisms of these anthropogenic changes are well studied
    • climate change,
    • biodiversity loss,
    • population growth
  • the evolutionary causality of these anthropogenic changes have been largely ignored.
  • Anthroecological theory (AET) proposes that the ultimate cause of anthropogenic environmental change is
    • multi-level selection for niche construction and ecosystem engineering.
  • Here, we integrate this theory with
    • Lotka’s Maximum Power Principle
  • and propose a model linking
    • energy extraction from the environment with
    • genetic, technological and cultural evolution
  • to increase human ecosystem carrying capacity.
  • Carrying capacity is partially determined by energetic factors such as
    • the net energy a population can acquire from its environment and
    • the efficiency of conversion from energy input to offspring output.
  • These factors are under Darwinian genetic selection
  • in all species,
  • but in humans, they are also determined by
    • technology and
    • culture.
  • If there is genetic or non-genetic heritable variation in
    • the ability of an individual or social group
  • to increase its carrying capacity,
  • then we hypothesize that - selection or cultural evolution will act - to increase carrying capacity.
  • Furthermore, if this evolution of carrying capacity occurs - faster than the biotic components of the ecological system can respond via their own evolution,
    • then we hypothesize that unsustainable ecological changes will result.

• Quote
  • In the very long term, we suggest that humans are evolving from individual genetic organisms to cultural groups which function as superorganisms, similar to ant colonies and beehives,
  • Tim Waring

• key observation
  • human culture may represent a key evolutionary milestone
  • culture may be the next evolutionary transition state
    • pre-single self organisms like mitochondria increased fitness by sharing the environment with other life forms and formed the single cell
    • then multi-cellular organisms set the stage for the next big evolutionary paradigm
    • splitting into plants and animals
    • sexual reproduction
    • transition to land
  • we are possibly undergoing the next major evolutionary transition
  • in which we will still evolve genetically,
  • but genetics may not determine human survival as much as culture does

• key observation
• paraphrase

• why cultural evolution is too fast for genetic evolution

  • Culture is group-oriented, and people in those groups talk to, learn from and imitate one another.
  • These group behaviors allow people to pass on adaptations they learned through culture faster than genes can transmit similar survival benefits.
  • An individual can learn skills and information from a nearly unlimited number of people in a small amount of time
    • and, in turn, spread that information to many others.
  • And the more people available to learn from, the better.
  • Large groups solve problems faster than smaller groups,
  • and intergroup competition stimulates adaptations that might help those groups survive.

  • As ideas spread, cultures develop new traits.

  • In contrast, a person only inherits genetic information from two parents

    • and racks up relatively few random mutations in their eggs or sperm, which takes about 20 years to be passed on to their small handful of children.
  • That's just a much slower pace of change.

!- key finding - human culture may be driving evolution faster than genetic mutation can work - the major delay, measured in many orders of magnitude - does not allow genetic evolution to adapt quickly enough - to harmful environmental changes brought about through cultural evolution

• TItle: Humans might be making genetic evolution obsolete

// In Other Words

• we must undo the myopic cultural evolution that has already taken place with a more collectively conscious form of cultural evolution //

• Title: Gene–culture coevolution and the nature of human sociality
• Author: Herbert Gintis

//Abstract - Summary - Human characteristics are the product of gene–culture coevolution, - which is an evolutionary dynamic involving the interaction of genes and culture - over long time periods. - Gene–culture coevolution is a special case of niche construction. - Gene–culture coevolution is responsible for: - human other-regarding preferences, - a taste for fairness, - the capacity to empathize and - salience of morality and character virtues.

• Title: Human niche construction in interdisciplinary focus
• Author:
  • Jeremy Kendal
  • Jamshid J. Tehrani
  • John Oding-Smee
• Abstract
  • summary
  • Niche construction is an endogenous causal process in evolution,
• reciprocal to the causal process of natural selection.
  • It works by adding ecological inheritance,
  • comprising the inheritance of natural selection pressures previously modified by niche construction,
  • to genetic inheritance in evolution.
  • Human niche construction modifies selection pressures in environments in ways that affect both human evolution, and the evolution of other species.
  • Human ecological inheritance is exceptionally potent
  • because it includes the social transmission and inheritance
  • of cultural knowledge, and material culture.
  • Human genetic inheritance
  • in combination with human cultural inheritance
  • thus provides a basis for gene–culture coevolution,
  • and multivariate dynamics in cultural evolution.
  • Niche construction theory potentially integrates the biological and social aspects of the human sciences.
  • We elaborate on these processes,
  • and provide brief introductions to each of the papers published in this theme issue.

• Abstract
• summary
  • The exhibition of increasingly intensive and complex niche construction behaviors through time
  • is a key feature of human evolution,
  • culminating in the advanced capacity for ecosystem engineering exhibited by Homo sapiens.
  • A crucial outcome of such behaviors has been the dramatic reshaping of the global biosphere,
    • a transformation whose early origins are increasingly apparent
    • from cumulative archaeological and paleoecological datasets.
  • Such data suggest that, by the Late Pleistocene,
  • humans had begun to engage in activities
  • that have led to alterations in the distributions of a vast array of species
  • across most, if not all, taxonomic groups.
  • Changes to biodiversity have included
    • extinctions,
    • extirpations, and
    • shifts in species
      • composition,
      • diversity, and
      • community structure.
  • We outline key examples of these changes,
  • highlighting findings from the study of new datasets, like
    • ancient DNA (aDNA),
    • stable isotopes, and
    • microfossils, as well as
    • the application of new statistical and computational methods to datasets that have accumulated significantly in recent decades.
  • We focus on four major phases that witnessed broad anthropogenic alterations to biodiversity:
    • the Late Pleistocene global human expansion,
    • the Neolithic spread of agriculture,
    • the era of island colonization, and
    • the emergence of early urbanized societies and commercial networks.
  • Archaeological evidence documents millennia of anthropogenic transformations
  • that have created novel ecosystems around the world.
  • This record has implications for:
    • ecological and evolutionary research,
    • conservation strategies, and
    • the maintenance of ecosystem services,
  • pointing to a significant need for broader cross-disciplinary engagement between:
    • archaeology
    • the biological sciences and
    • the environmental sciences.

• Title: Ecological consequences of human niche construction: Examining long-term anthropogenic shaping of global species distributions
• Author:
  • Nicole L. Bolvin
  • Melinda A. Zeder
  • Dorian O. Fuller
  • Michael D. Petraglia

• Comment
  • the power of the mind can indeed be extended,
  • but without the simultaneous extension of the power of the heart,
    • https://jonudell.info/h/facet/?max=100&expanded=true&user=stopresetgo&exactTagSearch=true&any=Jan%2Bsmuts
  • We will only create destructive technologies with ever greater efficiency
  • that is is why the next major evolutionary transition
  • must involve compassion and the rediscovery of the sacred
  • which this journey of life has blinded us to
  • The next great evolutionary shift must be conscious cultural evolution
    • https://jonudell.info/h/facet/?max=100&expanded=true&user=stopresetgo&exactTagSearch=true&any=Jan%2Bsmuts
  • that is the direction civilization must collectively move
  • if civilization itself is to have a chance of surviving
  • emotional intelligence needs to balance intellectual intelligence

• Timothy Morton's concept of = hyperobject
• can be interpreted as reflections of alienation
• emerging out of rapid cumulative cultural evolution
• that has made our cognitive machinery genetically evolved and adapted to small group living ( within Dunbar's number) over hundreds of thousands of years

• maladaptive to our too-quickly-culturally-evolved modernity

• References

• https://jonudell.info/h/facet/?max=100&expanded=true&user=stopresetgo&exactTagSearch=true&any=Maladaptive+cognitive+bias

• This paper is relevant to understanding

  • cumulative cultural evolution
    • https://jonudell.info/h/facet/?user=stopresetgo&max=300&expanded=true&any=cumulative+cultural+evolution&exactTagSearch=true
  • social tipping points
    • https://jonudell.info/h/facet/?user=stopresetgo&max=300&expanded=true&any=social+tipping+points&exactTagSearch=true

• Learning

• it introduces me to a number of new useful concepts
  • cognitive advantage
  • cultural network analysis
  • more detailed understanding of memetics
  • cultural epidemiology

• = human being's = altricial nature - is an = evolutionary adaptation
• resulting in exceptional = complex social learning
• tradeoff of helplessness at birth
• is complex social learning
• that enables cumulative cultural evolution

• = cumulative cultural evolution
• humans excel at surviving in = novel ecological niches
• because we share information with each other
• = cumulative cultural evolution - prevents us
• from = reinventing the wheel

• = feral children
  • what does the study of = feral children
  • raised without = human culture
  • tell us about how culture shapes our experience of reality?
  • we are an = altricial species - but what happens when our natural parents are removed
    • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precociality_and_altriciality

!- quotable : Freeman Dyson - the speed of cultural evolution is now faster than the speed of biological evolution - references on the speed of cultural evolution: https://jonudell.info/h/facet/?user=stopresetgo&max=50&any=Cultural+evolution - Freeman Dyson essay on biological and cultural evolution: https://hyp.is/go?url=https%3A%2F%2Fviahtml.hypothes.is%2Fconversation%2Ffreeman_dyson-biological-and-cultural-evolution&group=world

!- Dual task: wrt biological and cultural evolution

!- The story of human evolution : is the story of hybrid biological and cultural evolution - Svante Paabo shows that 50,000 years ago biological evolution was already deeply affected by human cultural evolution - biological evolution favoured genetic isolation of small populations, like cave dwellers during the ice age - when cultural evolution took over between Neanderthal, Denisovan and Early ancestors of modern humans and memes drove inter species socialisation, crossbreeding LED to mixing and sharing of genes as an unintended consequences

!- expansion into outer space : natural consequence of evolution itself to continue genetic drift

!- comment : Dyson Extrapolates that expansion into outer space is a logical next step for evolution

!- explaining human history : combination of cultural and biological evolution

!- connection : genetic drift and cultural evolution - still no compelling evidence

!- quotable : Cultural Evolution

!- H.G. Wells : Outline of history - cultural evolution as the main theme

!- Herbert Wells : Cultural Evolution

!- modern humans : unique species adept at cultural evolution

!- genetic engineering : risk - cultural evolution via genetic engineering could make the concept of species meaningless - it is a significant b potential progress traps

!- Title : Biological and Cultural Evolution Six Characters in Search of an Author !- Author : Freeman Dyson !- Date : 2019

!- symbiocene :key attribute - understanding the dangers of cultural evolution to the degree that we can mitigate the dangers emergent from progress traps

!- Charles Darwin : cultural evolution - Darwin understood that behavior could evolve and be passed on to offsprings

!- example of : cultural evolution leading to genetic evolution - lactose intolerance

!- in other words : cumulative cultural evolution

!- equivalent to : cumulative cultural evolution (CCE) - the cultural activity of our species will determine not only or species fate, but that of all other species in the biosphere through the complex webs of entangled life or collective human behaviour will impact

!- Futures Thinking : summary - our generation has the most wisdom to deal with the problem, even though it is an unprecedented problem - We need diversity of opinions and perspectives. Like in evolution, that diversity will emerge an optimal solution - To consciously culturally evolve, we need to put all ideas on the table and discuss openly - An open, interpersonal, people-centered knowledge ecosystem such as Indyweb is suitable for such a process

!- Social Superorganism : Biological Survival metaphor - the current social superorganism is fighting to survive as it's life is threatened by the transformation - the metamorphosis will transform it to group 4, if successful

!- impact : human cultural evolution - is of global evolutionary significance

!- for : Cultural Evolution - the findings of this paper point to culture is displacing genetic adaptive potential as the main driver of evolution. This is a very profound finding!

!- for : Deep Humanity - intriguing result with important implications on cultural evolution

Atari, M., Reimer, N. K., Graham, J., Hoover, J., Kennedy, B., Davani, A. M., Karimi-Malekabadi, F., Birjandi, S., & Dehghani, M. (2021). Pathogens Are Linked to Human Moral Systems Across Time and Space. PsyArXiv. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/tnyh9

The maladaptive cultural evolution of our species has led us to the height of human technological and economic prowess as well as the height of ecological disaster. This can be interpreted as the result of linear vs nonlinear thinking, simplistic modeling vs complex modeling and reductionistic approach vs a systems approach. An attitude of separation engenders a controlling attitude of nature based on hubris, instead of humbling ourselves at the vast ignorance each of us and also collectively we have about nature. Design based on a consistent attitude of willful ignorance is sure to fail. Then Ascent of Humanity will lead to a trajectory of its own downfall as long as that ascent depends on the cannibalization of its own life support system based on ignorance of our deep entanglement with nature. http://ascentofhumanity.com/text/

Biological evolution works on relatively long time scales. Cultural evolution works on very short time scales. If we do not seriously listen to the lessons of history that teach valuable social norms, then we don't learn from history and history repeats.

Salali, G. D., Uysal, M. S., Bozyel, G., Akpınar, E., & Aksu, A. (2022). Does social influence affect COVID-19 vaccination intention among the unvaccinated? PsyArXiv. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/5qc3z

The Palette of Being is a very useful idea that is related to Cumulative Cultural Evolution (CCE) and autopoiesis. From CCE, humans are able to pass on new ideas from one generation to the next, made possible by the tool of inscribed language.

Peter Nonacs group at UCLA as well as Stuart West at Oxford research Major Evolutionary Transitions (MET) West elucidates that modern hominids integrate the remnants of four major stages of MET that have occurred over deep time. Amanda Robins, a researcher in Nonacs group posits the idea that our species of modern hominids are undergoing a Major Systems Transition (MST), due specifically to our development of inscribed language.

CCE emerges new technologies that shape our human environments in time frames far faster than biological evolutionary timeframes. New human experiences are created which have never been exposed to human brains before, which feedback to affect our biological evolution as well in the process of gene-culture coevolution (GCC), also known as Dual Inheritance theory. In this way, CCE and GCC are entangled. "Gene–culture coevolution is the application of niche-construction reasoning to the human species, recognizing that both genes and culture are subject to similar dynamics, and human society is a cultural construction that provides the environment for fitness-enhancing genetic changes in individuals. The resulting social system is a complex dynamic nonlinear system. " (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3048999/)

This metaphor of experiences constituting different colors on a Palette of Being is a powerful one that can contextualize human experiences from a deep time framework. One could argue that language usage automatically forces us into an anthropomorphic lens, for sophisticated language usage at the level of humans appears to be unique amongst our species. Within that constraint, the Palette of Being still provides us with a less myopic, less immediate and arguably less anthropomorphic view of human experience. It is philosophically problematic, however, in the sense that we can speculate about nonhuman modalities of being but never truly experience them. Philosopher Thomas Nagel wrote his classic paper "What it's like to be a bat" to illustrate this problem of experiencing the other. (https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/cross_fac/iatl/study/ugmodules/humananimalstudies/lectures/32/nagel_bat.pdf)

We can also leverage the Palette of Being in education. Deep Humanity (DH) BEing Journeys are a new kind of experiential, participatory contemplative practice and teaching tool designed to deepen our appreciation of what it is to be human. The polycrisis of the Anthropocene, especially the self-induced climate crisis and the Covid-19 pandemic have precipitated the erosion of stable social norms and reference frames, inducing another crisis, a meaning crisis. In this context, a re-education of embodied philosophy is seen as urgent to make sense of a radically shifting human reality.

Different human experiences presented as different colors of the Palette of Being situate our crisis in a larger context. One important Deep Humanity BEing journey that can help contextualize and make sense of our experiences is language. Once upon a time, language did not exist. As it gradually emerged, this color came to be added to our Palette of Being, and shaped the normative experiences of humanity in profound ways. It is the case that such profound shifts, lost over deep time come to be taken for granted by modern conspecifics. When such particular colors of the Palette of Being are not situated in deep time, and crisis ensues, that loss of contextualizing and situatedness can be quite disruptive, de-centering, confusing and alienating.

Being aware of the colors in the Palette can help us shed light on the amazing aspects that culture has invisibly transmitted to us, helping us not take them for granted, and re-establish a sense of awe about our lives as human beings.

Beginning, Middle, End

Micah White wrote of the end: The End of Protest.

Micah White is the award-winning activist who co-created Occupy Wall Street, a global social movement, while an editor of Adbusters magazine.

Occupy Wall Street was a constructive failure but not a total failure. Occupy demonstrated the efficacy of using social memes to quickly spread a movement, shifted the political debate on the fair distribution of wealth, trained a new generation of activists who went on to be the base for movements ranging from campus fossil fuel divestment to Black Lives Matter protests. Occupy launched many local projects that will have lasting small-scale impact. Occupy buoyed many institutional activist organizations that were able to materially profit from the renewed interest in protest. All of these are signs that our movement was culturally influential. It may be comforting to believe that Occupy splintered into a thousand shards of light. However, an honest assessment reveals that Occupy Wall Street failed to live up to its revolutionary potential: we did not bring an end to the influence of money on democracy, overthrow the corporatocracy of the 1 percent or solve income inequality. If our movement did achieve successes, they were not the ones we’d intended. When victory eluded Occupy, a world of activist certainties fell apart.

I call Occupy Wall Street a constructive failure because the movement revealed underlying flaws in dominant, and still prevalent, theories of how to achieve social change through collective action. Occupy set out to “get money out of politics,” and we succeeded in catalyzing a global social movement that tested all of our hypotheses. The failure of our efforts reveals a truth that will hasten the next successful revolution: the assumptions underlying contemporary protest are false. Change won’t happen through the old models of activism. Western democracies will not be swayed by public spectacles and mast frenzy. Protests have become an accepted, and therefore ignored, by-product of politics-as-usual. Western governments are not susceptible to international pressure to heed the protests of their citizens. Occupy’s failure was constructive because it demonstrated the limitations of contemporary ideas of Protest. I capitalize p to emphasize that the limitation was not in a particular tactic but ratter in our concept of Protest, or our theory of social change, which determined the overall script. Occupy revealed that activists need to revolutionize their approach to revolution.

Failure can be liberating. Defeat detaches us from a theory of revolution that is no longer effective, reopening the possibility of true change. “For a revolutionary,” writes Régis Debray, professor of philosophy and associate of Che Guevara, “failure is a springboard. As a course of theory it is richer than victory: it accumulates experience and knowledge.”

(Pages 26-27)

A Theory of Change

How did we get here?

Yesterday (October 26, 2021), I picked up David Graeber’s book, The Dawn of Everything: a New History of Humanity, written with David Wengrow, at Coles in Abbotsford.

It is interesting to note that David Graeber was interested in the origins, the beginnings.

Renowned for his biting and incisive writing about bureaucracy, politics and capitalism, Graeber was a leading figure in the Occupy Wall Street movement and professor of anthropology at the London School of Economics (LSE) at the time of his death.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/sep/03/david-graeber-anthropologist-and-author-of-bullshit-jobs-dies-aged-59

Originally published on Medium on August 29, 2019.

Sallie McFague, in The Meaning of Life in the World Religions, writes an article entitled, “The World as God’s Body.”

Evolution is not only or solely biological; it is also historical and cultural. Once evolutionary history reaches the human, self-conscious stage, natural selection is not the only operative principle, for natural selection can be countered with the principle of solidarity.

(Page 297)

Smaldino, Paul E., and Cailin O’Connor. ‘Interdisciplinarity Can Aid the Spread of Better Methods Between Scientific Communities’. MetaArXiv, 5 November 2020. https://doi.org/10.31222/osf.io/cm5v3.

Seitz, B. M., Aktipis, A., Buss, D. M., Alcock, J., Bloom, P., Gelfand, M., Harris, S., Lieberman, D., Horowitz, B. N., Pinker, S., Wilson, D. S., & Haselton, M. G. (2020). The pandemic exposes human nature: 10 evolutionary insights. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 117(45), 27767–27776. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2009787117

Obradovich, N., Özak, Ö., Martín, I., Ortuño-Ortín, I., Awad, E., Cebrián, M., Cuevas, R., Desmet, K., Rahwan, I., & Cuevas, Á. (2020). Expanding the measurement of culture with a sample of two billion humans [Preprint]. SocArXiv. https://doi.org/10.31235/osf.io/qkf42

Long read: Cultural evolution, Covid-19, and preparing for what’s next. (2020, April 22). LSE Business Review. https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/businessreview/2020/04/22/long-read-cultural-evolution-covid-19-and-preparing-for-whats-next/

Segovia-Martín, J., & Tamariz, M. (2020, May 5). Testing early and late connectivity dynamics in the lab: an experiment using 4-agent micro-societies. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/nuf78