Product Description

Humans are a striking anomaly in the natural world. While we are similar to other mammals in many ways, our behavior sets us apart. Our unparalleled ability to adapt has allowed us to occupy virtually every habitat on earth, and our societies are larger, more complex, and more cooperative than any other mammal's. In "Not by Genes Alone", Peter J. Richerson and Robert Boyd argue that only a Darwinian theory of cultural evolution can explain these unique characteristics. "Not by Genes Alone" offers a radical interpretation of human evolution, arguing that our ecological dominance and our singular social systems stem from a psychology uniquely adapted to create complex culture. Richerson and Boyd consider culture to be essential to human adaptation, as much a part of human biology as bipedal locomotion. Drawing on work in the fields of anthropology, political science, sociology, and economics - and building their case with such fascinating examples as kayaks, clever knots, and yams that require twelve men to carry them - Richerson and Boyd convincingly demonstrate that culture and biology are inextricably linked. In abandoning the nature-versus-nurture debate as fundamentally misconceived, "Not by Genes Alone" is a truly original and groundbreaking theory of the role of culture in evolution and a book to be reckoned with for generations to come.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #65317 in Books
• Published on: 2006-06-23
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 342 pages

Review
"Not by Genes Alone is a valuable and very readable synthesis of a still embryonic but very important subject straddling the sciences and humanities." - E. O. Wilson, Harvard University "I continue to be surprised by the number of educated people (many of them biologists) who think that offering explanations for human behavior in terms of culture somehow disproves the suggestion that human behavior can be explained in Darwinian evolutionary terms. Fortunately, we now have a book to which they may be directed for enlightenment.... It is a book full of good sense and the kinds of intellectual rigor and clarity of writing that we have come to expect from the Boyd/Richerson stable." - Robin Dunbar, Nature"

About the Author
Peter J. Richerson is professor of environmental science at the University of California, Davis. Robert Boyd is professor of anthropology at the University of California, Los Angeles. Prolific authors and editors, they coauthored Culture and the Evolutionary Process, also published by the University of Chicago Press.

Customer Reviews

Gently bashing the straw man
Some years ago, Richard Dawkins published "The Selfish Gene", explaining how gene survival was fundamental in natural selection. He also coined the term "meme" to explain the dissemination of ideas across societies. Almost immediately, there was a strident chorus of objection, based on the theme of "you can't say that about humans!" The outcry hasn't ceased, but in the case of Richerson and Boyd, it's become somewhat muted. This book is designed to gently persuade you that human evolution rests on a solid "cultural" base. Biology is under there somewhere, but for humanity, cultural impact overwhelms our genetic roots.

The authors would like to abandon the dichotomy of what's usually referred to as the "nature versus nurture" debate. That's admirable, but not only has that contest been challenged elsewhere, finding anyone adhering to either position as an absolute is difficult, if not impossible. Who claims "genes" are the sole behaviour drive? Not even religions, the most dogmatic element in our society, any longer label infants as "blank slates" to be moulded at will. Individuality and expression may be curtailed, but not constrained. Yet that curtailment, even if only mindless imitation, is the foundation of this book. Instead of the chaos of individual response to environmental pressures, "culture" guides behaviour to the extent that groups become predictable in their activities. For them, "culture" is a sort of behavioural umbrella keeping families and small communities from unravelling the fabric of society.

Richerson and Boyd gather a wide spectrum of studies to erect their cultural edifice. They examine studies of social animals, scrutinise the grim world of economics and wonder how it is that of all species, human beings filled nearly every environmental niche. They accept the complexity of human society as naturally hierarchical. That organisation, coupled with a strong imitative/cooperative sense enabled our species to readily adapt to so many ecological niches. Where some say, "If it works, don't fix it!", Richerson and Boyd counter, "If it works, imitate it!" Human beings, they contend, are better imitators than other species because we can judge long-term impacts of actions. This talent, coupled with language, provides our unique adaptability in varied environments. We can test for success and pass our findings to our neighbours. This gives groups within our species both unique abilities and the means to improve them. Not all of humanity is but one culture. It's a melange of groups, each culture representing a regional or social norm.

"Group selection" is the offshoot of an older, flawed, evolutionary concept - "species selection". With the idea of "species selection" quickly demonstrated as false, group selection arose to replace it. A close look at group selection reveals that it's but another mechanism to keep humanity separated from the remainder of the animal kingdom. If you downplay any similarities between us and other beasts, you are able to retain a "divine spark" or other metaphysical notions for humanity. And only humanity. Richerson and Boyd's use of animal behaviour studies to ameliorate this distinction are a welcome addition to social studies. However, these examples are carefully selected and interpreted by the authors. They aren't set in an evolutionary context, but are given solely as a contrast to the also carefully chosen aspects of human behaviour. The book raises a number of interesting questions, but answers few of them satisfactorily. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]

Cultural Evolution by Mechanical Adapatation?
I have to admit that with a title that makes as straighforward a declaration as this one does, I anticipated an imaginative, full frontal assault against the increasing dependence on genetics, DNA, & biology to explain our human nature. Instead, Richerson & Boyd divide the pie pretty equally among genetics, culture, and environment, noting that these three factors are mutually dependent and interactive. Fair enough, but I was disappointed how far they leaned into the genetics camp and how little they credit to human creativity. In fact, they state there really is no such thing as individual creativity but only individuals who are able to carry forth mass cultural trends that have been underway for some time. "Culture usually evolves by the accumulation of small variations" (p. 50). One should note here the early emphasis on the concept of evolution because their book turns out to take Darwin's foundational principles of biological evolution and directly apply them to cultural evolution. Culture, itself, they state, is an adaptation.

Other animals have exhibited certain local behaviour patterns that others have termed cultural, but "only humans show much evidence of *cumulative* cultural evolution. By cumulative cultural evolution, we mean behaviors or artifacts that are transmitted and modified over many generations, leading to complex artifacts and behaviors" (p. 107). In this way, complex artifacts are not "invented by individuals; they evolve gradually over many generations" (p. 107). So human cultural evolution, though not inspired by "great person breakthroughs" is still unique, depending as it does on external memory storage and teaching-learning. I liked this, as I am an educator.

I also liked the point that culture and genes co-evolve. Still it seems to me, they tend to see the human species in a more mechanical manner than is necessarily the case: Everything is ultimately done for survival. Cases where cultural choices like human sacrifice or mass witch-hunts have been undertaken are seen as mistaken attempts at survival. I wonder how this accounts for the suicide cults that have appeared and, not surprisingly, rapidly disappeared? They explain altruism or kindness in the same way, as leading to survival of the group. They even seem to disparage efforts to control population growth. Such efforts, mostly in the middle & upper classes of industrialized countries, are said to be the result of "selfish cultural variants" (p. 169). "Modern low fertility does not maximize fitness" (p. 173). Surely this puts them firmly in the evolutionary biology camp.

The writing is most often turgid & uninspired, with the many examples of cultural continuity or adaptation being local, mundane, & unimpresssive. They end by pleading for the wide acceptance of "a proper evolutionary theory of culture" since that "should make a major contribution to the unification of the social sciences" (p. 246). They call for the development of a mass of quantitative detail on cultural variation to equal the detail found in the study of genetic variation, simply equating the two.

I felt let down at the easy way cultural symbolism & artistic experession were simply dismissed by suggesting a little quatitative analysis would reveal them as simple functionalism. By now I was bored. By the time they snidely state that "So many older scientists try their hand at philosophy that it can practically be regarded as a normal sign of aging" (p. 254), I was glad to finish the book and close it.