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.

• 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