Anthropology 153 -Lecture 5-September 2024 CULTURALLY INHERITED ADAPTATIONS GIVE THE HUMAN SPECIES HIGH DARWINIAN FITNESS-POPULATION GROWTH, BECAUSE CULTURAL ADAPTATIONS ARE CAUSED BY THE ADAPTIVE PROBLEM THAT THEY SOLVE.<


Culturally inherited adaptations give human species high Darwinian fitness- How ? Darwin's natural laws, physiology laws, DNA-gene laws, and ecological laws are the central organizing principles of Modern Biology. The laws of symbolically constituted language and culture as the defining characteristics of humans are the central organizing principles of anthropology. Symbolic communication and behavior give humans a way of adapting (in the Darwinian sense ) that is more efficient than adapting based on random genetic mutation, because cultural adaptations are caused by the adaptive problem ( problems in the struggle for existence) that they solve; the adaptive problem causes humans to invent in symbolic thought, imagination, a solution to the adaptive problem.


With language and culture, Necessity is the mother of invention. Culture allows non-random Darwinian adaption, unlike genetic adaptations; the adaptive solution does not arise only coincidentally with the problem it solves, not just by luck as with genetic adaptations.



For example, we might hypothesize that Homo erectus invented clothes or controlled fire in response to moving into colder regions North of Africa. The acts of invention were caused by the problem in the struggle for existence of cold body temperature. _The adaptive problem caused its own solution_ Relying on the adaptation by way of genetic changes (maybe to grow fur) would mean waiting on a genetic mutation NOT CAUSED BY THE COLDER TEMPERATURE, a mutation not caused by the adaptive problem, but arising coincidentally or randomly relative to the problem it solves.


In this hypothetical thought experiment, survival in the struggle for existence, material necessity, changes the cultural ideas of the inventors, adds a custom of clothes, costumes to the their customs, their traditions, their culture.


Non-randomly arising solutions to adaptive problems are La Marckian-LIKE. In LaMarck's famous thought experiment as to "how the giraffe got its long neck", the adaptive problem of food only available high up _causes_ the giraffe to solve the problem by stretching its neck ( this is a fictional account). The solution does not arise _randomly_ relative to the problem it solves. It is inheritance of an acquired characteristic.


It is likely that more adaptive problems are solved if the problem tends to cause its own solution than if the solutions just happen luckily to occur as with _random_ genetic mutations solving adaptive problems.


Thus, with culture, language (symbolic inheritance, symbolic imagination and symbolic communication) humans have a more efficient adaptive process than all other life forms. Humans have both cultural, non-random adaptation and random genetic mutation adaptation. Other life forms, species, only have random genetic mutation adaptation.problem arising? Because symbolic thinking allows imaginative thinking or Imagination; a form of Furthermore, symbolic thinking allows SYMBOLIC INHERITANCE of adaptive inventions by future generations ! Genes and culture/words are inherited - IN DIFFERENT WAYS. For example, almost all the words in the vocabulary of a living generation were invented by dead past generations, inherited. The invention of words is "acquiring" them, acquired cultural characteristics in past generations: and the words are inherited by future generations.


Ancestor veneration The difference between humans and all other species is that through symbolic communication, words and culture, dead generations have a certain immortality and are part of the society of living generations. Living generations share the experiences of dead generations through SYMBOLIC INHERITANCE. Thereby knowledge accumulates. All humans stand on the shoulders of giants, as the scientist Issac Newton put it. Accumulated knowledge gives a growing ability to adapt, in Darwin's sense , to problems in the struggle for existence.


Symbolic Inheritance For anthropology, culture-language-Symbolic Inheritance is the unique species characteristic of _homo sapiens_. In a sense, "culture-language-Symbolic Inheritance is another word for "wisdom", inherited knowledge, from the notion that humans are the species _homo wise_. It is humans socially learned practices, customs, language, traditions, beliefs, religion, spirituality that make us "wise" in so many ways, certainly clever and winners _as a species_ ( not just as a few "fit" Individuals) in the struggles and snuggles to survive as a species. Since the advent of civilization, however, sometimes it's not so clear how wise our culture makes us. Greed, slavery, war, male supremacy, Egoism originate with Civilization !


It is better termed Savagery and Barbarism. Therein lies the central drama of the history of the human Nonetheless, clearly in the Stone Age, our having culture-language-Symbolic Inheritance was a highly adaptive advantage over species that did not have culture, stone tools, control of fire, knowledge of the nature of animals and vegetables, scientific knowledge even in the Stone Age (1); humans have always been standing on the shoulders of dead generations. This allowed our population to grow more than other mammals, raising our species fitness. This is evidenced by _homo sapiens_ expanding in population and therefore migrating to an expanded area of living space across the earth. out of what is now Africa to the other continents. Stone Age foraging-hunting-gathering and kinship ( "family tree") organized, peaceful and sharing societies were the mode of life for the vast maiority of time of human organized, peaceful and sharing societies were the mode of life for the vast maiority of time of human species ' existence, 99% plus. Charles Brown