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Wired for Culture: Origins of the Human Social Mind
A unique trait of the human species is that our personalities, lifestyles, and worldviews are shaped by an accident of birth—namely, the culture into which we are born. It is our cultures and not our genes that determine which foods we eat, which languages we speak, which people we love and marry, and which people we kill in war. But how did our species develop a mind that is hardwired for culture—and why?
Evolutionary biologist Mark Pagel tracks this intriguing question through the last 80,000 years of human evolution, revealing how an innate propensity to contribute and conform to the culture of our birth not only enabled human survival and progress in the past but also continues to influence our behavior today. Shedding light on our species’ defining attributes—from art, morality, and altruism to self-interest, deception, and prejudice—Wired for Culture offers surprising new insights into what it means to be human.
Evolutionary biologist Mark Pagel tracks this intriguing question through the last 80,000 years of human evolution, revealing how an innate propensity to contribute and conform to the culture of our birth not only enabled human survival and progress in the past but also continues to influence our behavior today. Shedding light on our species’ defining attributes—from art, morality, and altruism to self-interest, deception, and prejudice—Wired for Culture offers surprising new insights into what it means to be human.
432 pages, Hardcover
First published February 20, 2012
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 38 reviews
June 12, 2017
An interesting book that provides an extensive and highly plausible account of the evolution of culture in our species. The book's central tenet, selfish genes construct "physical survival vehicles" in our bodies and "cultural survival machines" solely as a means to increase their own survival may sound reductionist to some in the humanities, but is well argued.
Moreover the book reviews many of the important ways in which culture, once it had sprang up altered the selection pressures operating on our genes. Thus, although culture may be a product of selfish genes to improve their chances of survival, our gene pool has also been altered by the new selection pressures introduced by culture.
The book has some problems too. First, culture may have led to the existence of a new type of replicators, memes. These reproduce differently than our genes and as such may have given rise to conflicting selection pressures. This problem is discussed, but I think is not given the prominence it deserves.
Second, although the book has an extensive bibliography, no notes to support claims in the text are present. As such, it is sometimes difficult to evaluate whether something is a plausible just-so story, for which alternatives could be envisaged, or whether something is supported by hard facts. I encountered some inadequacies in the treatment of my own area of expertise, which makes me suspect that there may be some in other areas too and leaves me unable to fully appreciate the strength of the central thesis of the book.
Moreover the book reviews many of the important ways in which culture, once it had sprang up altered the selection pressures operating on our genes. Thus, although culture may be a product of selfish genes to improve their chances of survival, our gene pool has also been altered by the new selection pressures introduced by culture.
The book has some problems too. First, culture may have led to the existence of a new type of replicators, memes. These reproduce differently than our genes and as such may have given rise to conflicting selection pressures. This problem is discussed, but I think is not given the prominence it deserves.
Second, although the book has an extensive bibliography, no notes to support claims in the text are present. As such, it is sometimes difficult to evaluate whether something is a plausible just-so story, for which alternatives could be envisaged, or whether something is supported by hard facts. I encountered some inadequacies in the treatment of my own area of expertise, which makes me suspect that there may be some in other areas too and leaves me unable to fully appreciate the strength of the central thesis of the book.
June 13, 2012
For whatever reason, late spring and early summer is my slowest reading time so this one took me a while to finish. It was not because it was not good or interesting. The concept of what makes humans uniquely human has evolved over the years and has settled on symbolic language and culture. We are the only animal that can record our thoughts or instructions in a form that someone can later reproduce (almost) perfectly. Symbolic language allows us to pass ideas or memes amongst ourselves in a manner similar to how DNA is used to replicate genes. The memes work on a cultural level rather than on a biological level as with your bodies. The end result is that human culture can evolve at a dizzying rate compared to biological evolution which allows us to have unprecedented cooperation amongst ourselves. So for all of our emphasis on being unique and competitive, it is really cooperation enabled by symbolic language and culture that makes us what we are.
May 26, 2022
[I wrote this review on May 26, 2013 and posted it to GoodReads on May 26, 2022.]
[Note: To get a sense of the contents of this book without reading my entire review/summary, you can examine the first two paragraphs and the last one (that begins with “This delightful book”).]
The central thesis of this book is that humans are driven by culture every bit as much as, and perhaps more so than, by genes. The age-old question, “Are we pretty much fixed by our genes or is the environment also a factor in our destiny?” has to do with genetic versus cultural influences [p. 113]. Elements of culture can act like genes in the sense of being capable of transmission and reproduction [p. 2]. But whereas humans are stuck with genes from their parents, there is no such limitation in the transfer of ideas. Unlike other animals, humans derive their behaviors from the accumulated knowledge of their ancestors, rather than solely from the genes passed on to them. Ironically, forming tribes and cultures that are perpetually at war with each other is in direct conflict with our genetic disposition to get along and be mutually altruistic [p. x].
The deep influence of culture arises from the fact that even if only one person entertains a thought, it can still potentially spread to the entire human population through social learning. Good ideas survive and spread and bad ideas die out. Here, goodness is not judged by moral standards but by the contribution of the idea to human survival. The culture into which we happen to be born determines our diet, language, who we befriend or mate, and who we fight or kill. The culture’s influence is so strong that it can even get us to kill our own children (“honor” killings), something that is in direct conflict with our evolutionary imperative to spread our genes [p. 8]. I may come to believe that there is only one true and just God. This belief might make my mind vulnerable to the further idea that people who believe in other gods should be punished or perhaps even killed [pp. 22-23]. Other animals also exhibit some social learning (such as the blue tit, a bird closely related to the American chickadee, learning to poke holes in the foil tops of milk bottles left at the doorsteps of houses in a southern England village, a behavior that spread in that region for some 20 years), but the extent of their learning is very limited [p. 38].
Bodies are mere vehicles to help genes survive. Viruses use our bodies in much the same way for their own survival. Cultural elements or ideas are viruses of our minds, using our bodies as vehicles to propagate in much the same way as biological viruses do. In the words of philosopher Daniel Dennett: “A scholar is just a library’s way of making another library” [p. 21]. But whereas our genes share a common route into the future, elements of culture survive more or less independently of each other. Cultural evolution allowed humans to be the first species to spread out and occupy every corner of the world, regardless of climate and available local resources. All other animals are limited by their genes to life in specific environments [p. 46]. The development of culture is probably what saved us humans from extinction. About 80,000 years ago, there may have been as few as 10,000 (some say fewer) of our ancestors alive, so we were as endangered as a species as today’s rhinoceros [p. 4].
Biologically, species acquire new traits as a result of random genetic mutation. Those new traits that contribute to the species’ survival then propagate, as members of the species lacking them die off or do not reproduce as much. In this way, evolution tends to produce uniformity in survival-relevant traits, but other traits, such as height, hair color, personality, or math ability, may exhibit more variations if they are not critical to survival. Examples of uniformity in mammals include the same number 7 of neck vertebrae (yes, even in giraffes), 2 arms, and 10 fingers [p. 117]. Our genetic evolution is still in progress. For example, the ability to digest milk as an adult is a very recent genetic development in humans [p. 264]. We have been evolving to become more peaceful beings. UK data shows that crime has been steadily declining for 1000 years [p. 266]. There are no genes for various professions or religions, but your genetic makeup gives you a particular temperament or personality that can influence your attraction to some profession or religious faith [p. 114].
We have evolved to be optimistic and trusting. We have also developed a capability to detect among us the social cheats, those individuals who benefit from the others’ good will, without intending to return it, as demonstrated by the research of my UCSB colleagues, Leah Cosmides and John Tooby [pp. 208-209]. The rose-colored glasses we wear sometimes hide certain ugly truths from us. I was surprised to learn that “people susceptible to depression often have more accurate perceptions of the world than non-depressives. When they say they have no friends, nobody likes them, they are hopeless at their job, or have no future, they are often more right than not” [p. 150].
Natural selection has accomplished all this by sculpting simple local rules, not the complex, finished systems that we see in nature. New research has revealed that complex system can possess emergent properties that no one designed into them [p. 351]. Termites build large, elaborate structures not by thinking and designing the structure in its entirety, but by following simple local rules [p. 352]. An example of such a rule might be: If you see a woodchip and you are not carrying one, then pick it up and move on; otherwise, drop the woodchip you are carrying next the one you see. By each termite following this simple rule, large piles of woodchip will materialize over time, without any planning or even awareness on the part of the participating termites. More generally, following very simple local rules can lead to global, self-organizing systems.
Evolution is often viewed and explained in the competitive context of “survival of the fittest.” However, we now understand that selflessness and collaboration also contribute to survival, albeit in an indirect way. There is no better evidence of the evolutionary basis of sacrifice and altruism than this anecdote about slime molds, also known as social amoebae. Most of the time, they lead a solitary existence. But when threatened with starvation, they send out a chemical alarm summoning them to unite. Then, the amoebae cooperate, climbing up over each other to build a physical tower or stalk. From those who reach the very top of the tower, a fortunate few participate in launching spores that may be carried by the wind or passing animals to better lands. The rest will die, having given their lives for total strangers [p. 77].
The large size of our brain distinguishes us from other animal species. Generally speaking, Carnivores have larger brains relative to their body sizes because they have to outwit their prey [p. 246]. Using our oversized brains to outmaneuver and take advantage of other animals, including other humans, is part of our nature [p. 195]. “No one would ever ask if a snake’s deadly poison has been a force for good or why the snake embraces it. No one would ask why our armies embraced better longbows, or later on, better guns. In fact, because of culture and civilization, we no longer need such a large brain, so after a remarkable growth spurt in recent evolutionary history, the human brain has started to shrink [p. 254]. The ability to make decisions is another hallmark of humans (next on my to-read list is Jonah Lehrer’s How We Decide). Many of our important decisions are instantaneous, but if asked how we made the decisions, our minds require some time to explain the logical bases for those decisions, suggesting that the initial snap decisions did not involve logical reasoning or detailed trade-off analyses [p. 329].
Like all other animals, human beings are better at copying and following than at innovating and leading. Fortunately, cultural learning allows novel ideas to propagate, even if only a few people produce them. This is why as a survival skill, social intelligence is more important than inventiveness [p. 247]. We are also not very good at connecting causes with effects. We easily mistake correlation for causation. For example, doctors know that most common illnesses get better on their own within about 2 weeks. Now, if someone proposes a ritual or ceremonial treatment, we may come to associate the improvement with the treatment [p. 145]. Pigeons fed at random times have shown a tendency to move or prance in a certain way within their cages, if they were engaged in similar movements at a few of the random feeding times [p. 142].
Religion is a very important component of culture, in the sense of influencing human behavior. Throughout history, religion has thrived by providing hope as well as motivation to fight. First, regarding hope: A man who had survived Haitian hurricanes in 2008 and 2009 and then lost his wife and children in the 2010 earthquake was thankful that God had chosen to spare him [p. 149]. Second, fear and hatred of despicable people is more motivating in a bitter conflict than thinking of your enemy as a person just like you who happens to be competing with you for some limited resource. In other words: “Up against a group in battle who consider you despicable, it might be useful for you to acquire your own brand of motivational bigotry” [p. 151]. “Now, if you are the sort of person who can hold false beliefs, or have an ability to act on blind faith, you are probably also the sort of person who could be persuaded of the moral superiority of your group over the one next door. When group conflict is never very far away, religious believers become the kind of people others like to have around” [p. 156].
One of the most interesting information nuggets in the book is the description of an experiment performed on monkeys placed in a room, with a banana hanging from the ceiling. There is a box on which a monkey can hop to reach the banana. But whenever a monkey tries to do this, the entire group is sprayed with water, something the monkeys hate. After a while, no monkey tries to reach the banana by hopping on the box and if an errant monkey decides to do that, the other monkeys would restrain it. Then a monkey is removed and replaced by a newcomer to the group. Not surprisingly, the uninformed newcomer tries to hop on the box, but the other monkeys restrain it each time, until the new monkey is indoctrinated. The original monkeys are replaced one by one with newcomers, until no member of the original group is left. The monkeys continue to restrain any adventurous soul that tries to hop on the box, although at this stage, none of them knows why it’s not a good idea to try to get the banana [p. 151].
The most important tool in the development and spread of culture is language, which allows us to express ideas for propagation in time and space. Human language is digital, offering an endless combination of words; other animals communicate via continuous howls and the like [p. 289]. Human language has its own intriguing evolutionary history. As our languages evolve and branch out, more frequently used words undergo small or virtually no changes, whereas less frequently used words change drastically. Some 25% of our speech is made up of 25 words, and this is true in nearly any language [p. 293].
Language allows us to propagate many ideas, but our brain has not kept up in its ability to process vast amounts of information. Today’s humans misuse the wealth of information available to them from many different sources, “because our brains assume that the rate at which these things come to our attention from all over the world is the same as the rate in our local area. … So, when I hear every day of children being snatched, my brain gives me the wrong answer to the question of risk: it has divided a big number (the children snatched all over the world) by a small number (the tribe)” [pp. 338-339].
This delightful book is full of interesting observations and useful information, weaved together in an entertaining and easily understood way. The author instills in us the idea that culture is really a system for selecting best ideas and practices and for enabling cooperation through managing a currency of reputations. Culture may in the end allow us to move beyond our tribalism and ethnocentric tendencies that have been ingrained in us “because all that is required for it to have been a successful strategy throughout our history is that markers of common ethnicity were a better-than-chance predictor of common culture, and thus common goals and values” [p. 368]. But the aforementioned system of reputations allows us to reach out to people outside our tribes and ethnic groups and to develop mutual trust.
[Note: To get a sense of the contents of this book without reading my entire review/summary, you can examine the first two paragraphs and the last one (that begins with “This delightful book”).]
The central thesis of this book is that humans are driven by culture every bit as much as, and perhaps more so than, by genes. The age-old question, “Are we pretty much fixed by our genes or is the environment also a factor in our destiny?” has to do with genetic versus cultural influences [p. 113]. Elements of culture can act like genes in the sense of being capable of transmission and reproduction [p. 2]. But whereas humans are stuck with genes from their parents, there is no such limitation in the transfer of ideas. Unlike other animals, humans derive their behaviors from the accumulated knowledge of their ancestors, rather than solely from the genes passed on to them. Ironically, forming tribes and cultures that are perpetually at war with each other is in direct conflict with our genetic disposition to get along and be mutually altruistic [p. x].
The deep influence of culture arises from the fact that even if only one person entertains a thought, it can still potentially spread to the entire human population through social learning. Good ideas survive and spread and bad ideas die out. Here, goodness is not judged by moral standards but by the contribution of the idea to human survival. The culture into which we happen to be born determines our diet, language, who we befriend or mate, and who we fight or kill. The culture’s influence is so strong that it can even get us to kill our own children (“honor” killings), something that is in direct conflict with our evolutionary imperative to spread our genes [p. 8]. I may come to believe that there is only one true and just God. This belief might make my mind vulnerable to the further idea that people who believe in other gods should be punished or perhaps even killed [pp. 22-23]. Other animals also exhibit some social learning (such as the blue tit, a bird closely related to the American chickadee, learning to poke holes in the foil tops of milk bottles left at the doorsteps of houses in a southern England village, a behavior that spread in that region for some 20 years), but the extent of their learning is very limited [p. 38].
Bodies are mere vehicles to help genes survive. Viruses use our bodies in much the same way for their own survival. Cultural elements or ideas are viruses of our minds, using our bodies as vehicles to propagate in much the same way as biological viruses do. In the words of philosopher Daniel Dennett: “A scholar is just a library’s way of making another library” [p. 21]. But whereas our genes share a common route into the future, elements of culture survive more or less independently of each other. Cultural evolution allowed humans to be the first species to spread out and occupy every corner of the world, regardless of climate and available local resources. All other animals are limited by their genes to life in specific environments [p. 46]. The development of culture is probably what saved us humans from extinction. About 80,000 years ago, there may have been as few as 10,000 (some say fewer) of our ancestors alive, so we were as endangered as a species as today’s rhinoceros [p. 4].
Biologically, species acquire new traits as a result of random genetic mutation. Those new traits that contribute to the species’ survival then propagate, as members of the species lacking them die off or do not reproduce as much. In this way, evolution tends to produce uniformity in survival-relevant traits, but other traits, such as height, hair color, personality, or math ability, may exhibit more variations if they are not critical to survival. Examples of uniformity in mammals include the same number 7 of neck vertebrae (yes, even in giraffes), 2 arms, and 10 fingers [p. 117]. Our genetic evolution is still in progress. For example, the ability to digest milk as an adult is a very recent genetic development in humans [p. 264]. We have been evolving to become more peaceful beings. UK data shows that crime has been steadily declining for 1000 years [p. 266]. There are no genes for various professions or religions, but your genetic makeup gives you a particular temperament or personality that can influence your attraction to some profession or religious faith [p. 114].
We have evolved to be optimistic and trusting. We have also developed a capability to detect among us the social cheats, those individuals who benefit from the others’ good will, without intending to return it, as demonstrated by the research of my UCSB colleagues, Leah Cosmides and John Tooby [pp. 208-209]. The rose-colored glasses we wear sometimes hide certain ugly truths from us. I was surprised to learn that “people susceptible to depression often have more accurate perceptions of the world than non-depressives. When they say they have no friends, nobody likes them, they are hopeless at their job, or have no future, they are often more right than not” [p. 150].
Natural selection has accomplished all this by sculpting simple local rules, not the complex, finished systems that we see in nature. New research has revealed that complex system can possess emergent properties that no one designed into them [p. 351]. Termites build large, elaborate structures not by thinking and designing the structure in its entirety, but by following simple local rules [p. 352]. An example of such a rule might be: If you see a woodchip and you are not carrying one, then pick it up and move on; otherwise, drop the woodchip you are carrying next the one you see. By each termite following this simple rule, large piles of woodchip will materialize over time, without any planning or even awareness on the part of the participating termites. More generally, following very simple local rules can lead to global, self-organizing systems.
Evolution is often viewed and explained in the competitive context of “survival of the fittest.” However, we now understand that selflessness and collaboration also contribute to survival, albeit in an indirect way. There is no better evidence of the evolutionary basis of sacrifice and altruism than this anecdote about slime molds, also known as social amoebae. Most of the time, they lead a solitary existence. But when threatened with starvation, they send out a chemical alarm summoning them to unite. Then, the amoebae cooperate, climbing up over each other to build a physical tower or stalk. From those who reach the very top of the tower, a fortunate few participate in launching spores that may be carried by the wind or passing animals to better lands. The rest will die, having given their lives for total strangers [p. 77].
The large size of our brain distinguishes us from other animal species. Generally speaking, Carnivores have larger brains relative to their body sizes because they have to outwit their prey [p. 246]. Using our oversized brains to outmaneuver and take advantage of other animals, including other humans, is part of our nature [p. 195]. “No one would ever ask if a snake’s deadly poison has been a force for good or why the snake embraces it. No one would ask why our armies embraced better longbows, or later on, better guns. In fact, because of culture and civilization, we no longer need such a large brain, so after a remarkable growth spurt in recent evolutionary history, the human brain has started to shrink [p. 254]. The ability to make decisions is another hallmark of humans (next on my to-read list is Jonah Lehrer’s How We Decide). Many of our important decisions are instantaneous, but if asked how we made the decisions, our minds require some time to explain the logical bases for those decisions, suggesting that the initial snap decisions did not involve logical reasoning or detailed trade-off analyses [p. 329].
Like all other animals, human beings are better at copying and following than at innovating and leading. Fortunately, cultural learning allows novel ideas to propagate, even if only a few people produce them. This is why as a survival skill, social intelligence is more important than inventiveness [p. 247]. We are also not very good at connecting causes with effects. We easily mistake correlation for causation. For example, doctors know that most common illnesses get better on their own within about 2 weeks. Now, if someone proposes a ritual or ceremonial treatment, we may come to associate the improvement with the treatment [p. 145]. Pigeons fed at random times have shown a tendency to move or prance in a certain way within their cages, if they were engaged in similar movements at a few of the random feeding times [p. 142].
Religion is a very important component of culture, in the sense of influencing human behavior. Throughout history, religion has thrived by providing hope as well as motivation to fight. First, regarding hope: A man who had survived Haitian hurricanes in 2008 and 2009 and then lost his wife and children in the 2010 earthquake was thankful that God had chosen to spare him [p. 149]. Second, fear and hatred of despicable people is more motivating in a bitter conflict than thinking of your enemy as a person just like you who happens to be competing with you for some limited resource. In other words: “Up against a group in battle who consider you despicable, it might be useful for you to acquire your own brand of motivational bigotry” [p. 151]. “Now, if you are the sort of person who can hold false beliefs, or have an ability to act on blind faith, you are probably also the sort of person who could be persuaded of the moral superiority of your group over the one next door. When group conflict is never very far away, religious believers become the kind of people others like to have around” [p. 156].
One of the most interesting information nuggets in the book is the description of an experiment performed on monkeys placed in a room, with a banana hanging from the ceiling. There is a box on which a monkey can hop to reach the banana. But whenever a monkey tries to do this, the entire group is sprayed with water, something the monkeys hate. After a while, no monkey tries to reach the banana by hopping on the box and if an errant monkey decides to do that, the other monkeys would restrain it. Then a monkey is removed and replaced by a newcomer to the group. Not surprisingly, the uninformed newcomer tries to hop on the box, but the other monkeys restrain it each time, until the new monkey is indoctrinated. The original monkeys are replaced one by one with newcomers, until no member of the original group is left. The monkeys continue to restrain any adventurous soul that tries to hop on the box, although at this stage, none of them knows why it’s not a good idea to try to get the banana [p. 151].
The most important tool in the development and spread of culture is language, which allows us to express ideas for propagation in time and space. Human language is digital, offering an endless combination of words; other animals communicate via continuous howls and the like [p. 289]. Human language has its own intriguing evolutionary history. As our languages evolve and branch out, more frequently used words undergo small or virtually no changes, whereas less frequently used words change drastically. Some 25% of our speech is made up of 25 words, and this is true in nearly any language [p. 293].
Language allows us to propagate many ideas, but our brain has not kept up in its ability to process vast amounts of information. Today’s humans misuse the wealth of information available to them from many different sources, “because our brains assume that the rate at which these things come to our attention from all over the world is the same as the rate in our local area. … So, when I hear every day of children being snatched, my brain gives me the wrong answer to the question of risk: it has divided a big number (the children snatched all over the world) by a small number (the tribe)” [pp. 338-339].
This delightful book is full of interesting observations and useful information, weaved together in an entertaining and easily understood way. The author instills in us the idea that culture is really a system for selecting best ideas and practices and for enabling cooperation through managing a currency of reputations. Culture may in the end allow us to move beyond our tribalism and ethnocentric tendencies that have been ingrained in us “because all that is required for it to have been a successful strategy throughout our history is that markers of common ethnicity were a better-than-chance predictor of common culture, and thus common goals and values” [p. 368]. But the aforementioned system of reputations allows us to reach out to people outside our tribes and ethnic groups and to develop mutual trust.
July 5, 2020
If I can only use one word to encapsulate the message which the authors tries to convey in this book, the word would be: CYNICISM.
The author tries to rationalize human behaviors of all kinds, whether it be a disposition to subscribe to a certain religious belief, ideology, culture, or having acts of altruism etc. using the notion of cynicism, suggesting that every acts of humans, be it good or evil, are motivated by self interest.
In one example, the author presented the case of social amoebas and uses that as a basis to decipher the reason for altruistic acts by humans, which again is a reason that stems from the notion of cynicism. But how can one liken humans' behaviors to the behaviors of cellular organisms?
Humans are fundamentally different because of our emotions and conscience which are absent in many, if not all, other organisms. Therefore, I believe humans are capable of genuine emotions, we are capable of kindness, ready to give help without expecting anything in return. Conversely, we are capable of apathy. People who believe in a certain religion may have first hand experience of a spiritual encounter. Nonetheless, this book is worth a read as the arguments, though flawed, are presented in a concise manner and the concepts are thought provoking.
The author tries to rationalize human behaviors of all kinds, whether it be a disposition to subscribe to a certain religious belief, ideology, culture, or having acts of altruism etc. using the notion of cynicism, suggesting that every acts of humans, be it good or evil, are motivated by self interest.
In one example, the author presented the case of social amoebas and uses that as a basis to decipher the reason for altruistic acts by humans, which again is a reason that stems from the notion of cynicism. But how can one liken humans' behaviors to the behaviors of cellular organisms?
Humans are fundamentally different because of our emotions and conscience which are absent in many, if not all, other organisms. Therefore, I believe humans are capable of genuine emotions, we are capable of kindness, ready to give help without expecting anything in return. Conversely, we are capable of apathy. People who believe in a certain religion may have first hand experience of a spiritual encounter. Nonetheless, this book is worth a read as the arguments, though flawed, are presented in a concise manner and the concepts are thought provoking.
October 2, 2012
A book in my favourite genre: social science well explained and up-to-date but not overly simplified. Took me quite a long time to finish - not because of the book, but because I had to put it aside for other books to be read first. Pagel's style of writing is very pleasant with a good sense of style. Some of his witty remarks came quite close to political commentary, but luckily not to an annoying degree. Cultural evolution is a hot topic that can be used to explain almost anything. Pagel stands clear from political opportunism and focuses on his core topic: what makes us, the humans, fundamentally different from the rest of the animal kingdom.
This question - although very much worth discussing - oddly enough slightly undermines the whole idea of culture. My reading of culture is that it is just a tool box for coping in a shared sense of reality. Pagel's reading is different as he seems to think that culture is matter of sophistication, development and progress. By the same token, I personally regard the humans not as fundamentally different from animals but only as an astonishing example of the mammal species. Pagel's viewpoint seems to be more hierarchial and he values animal cultures whether or not they attain the same qualities as the human version does. Obviously, they never do, and theregy Pagel is slightly trapped in a viscious circle.
Nevertheless, I very much enjoyed reading this highly enlightening book. One of its jewels is in its excellent list of references. I am doubtful whether the Kindle edition was the best choice. On one hand, I made many notes and highlights and will propably return to the book for references, but on the other hand, I would have liked to quickly page back to earlier chapters just to check things out. I also wonder whether the paper versions had any illustrations - the topic could certainly have deserved some.
This question - although very much worth discussing - oddly enough slightly undermines the whole idea of culture. My reading of culture is that it is just a tool box for coping in a shared sense of reality. Pagel's reading is different as he seems to think that culture is matter of sophistication, development and progress. By the same token, I personally regard the humans not as fundamentally different from animals but only as an astonishing example of the mammal species. Pagel's viewpoint seems to be more hierarchial and he values animal cultures whether or not they attain the same qualities as the human version does. Obviously, they never do, and theregy Pagel is slightly trapped in a viscious circle.
Nevertheless, I very much enjoyed reading this highly enlightening book. One of its jewels is in its excellent list of references. I am doubtful whether the Kindle edition was the best choice. On one hand, I made many notes and highlights and will propably return to the book for references, but on the other hand, I would have liked to quickly page back to earlier chapters just to check things out. I also wonder whether the paper versions had any illustrations - the topic could certainly have deserved some.
February 27, 2018
Interesting book about our genetic human evolution and our cultural social evolution. A long, dry, academic and textbook-y book. Three and a half stars.
Genes ruled the evolution of life for billions of years. But then, a hundred eighty thousand years ago, culture began competing with genes to guide humanoid evolution. These humans could copy, improve and learn from others. Culture explains the difference between us and chimpanzees, who, after millions of years, still crack the same nuts with the same rocks.
Eighty-thousand years ago, upright apes emerged from a million years on the African savanna. The new species lived in larger family groups, whose societies developed art, skills, customs, beliefs and language. By roaming and exploring the world beyond the savanna, humans adapted to their new environments, expanding the culture.
Culture, itself, makes adaptations. And that starts with our fortuitous accident of getting born into one culture while our neighbors live in a slightly different one. While our genes share a common path into the future, we enjoy free will to live and join the cultures of our choice, writes Pagel.
This book argues that because of culture we developed language, empathy and intelligence as well as attributes such as charity and empathy. The book tells how culture sculpted our minds and behavior.
Arts, music and culture cover the spheres most people think of as culture that moves, consoles and entertains. The memories of these experiences lodge in our brains.
Genes ruled the evolution of life for billions of years. But then, a hundred eighty thousand years ago, culture began competing with genes to guide humanoid evolution. These humans could copy, improve and learn from others. Culture explains the difference between us and chimpanzees, who, after millions of years, still crack the same nuts with the same rocks.
Eighty-thousand years ago, upright apes emerged from a million years on the African savanna. The new species lived in larger family groups, whose societies developed art, skills, customs, beliefs and language. By roaming and exploring the world beyond the savanna, humans adapted to their new environments, expanding the culture.
Culture, itself, makes adaptations. And that starts with our fortuitous accident of getting born into one culture while our neighbors live in a slightly different one. While our genes share a common path into the future, we enjoy free will to live and join the cultures of our choice, writes Pagel.
This book argues that because of culture we developed language, empathy and intelligence as well as attributes such as charity and empathy. The book tells how culture sculpted our minds and behavior.
Arts, music and culture cover the spheres most people think of as culture that moves, consoles and entertains. The memories of these experiences lodge in our brains.
February 2, 2019
I didn't exactly finish this, I read about 1/4, then samples from the remaining chapters in the hopes that it would get better. It didn't. Even though I agree with some of Pagel’s conclusions, his arguments made me cringe. Much cherry-picking of data, so even when I agreed with the conclusion, I found myself thinking of counter-examples that came fairly readily to mind. Much illustration by false analogies: the "queen" in an ant colony does not "rule" the colony in the same way as a human monarch rules a nation.
Another review on Goodreads said that the reviewer thought that the book showed that "All of human behavior can be explained by looking at our genes." while the review quoted on the back of the book was closer to what I thought the theme was - that our genes enabled culture but after that, cultures produced wide variance in human behaviour. But the confusion is not surprising.
I'm going to re-read "Not by Genes Alone", which I remember as being a much better book on this topic, rather than spend any more time on this mess of a book.
Another review on Goodreads said that the reviewer thought that the book showed that "All of human behavior can be explained by looking at our genes." while the review quoted on the back of the book was closer to what I thought the theme was - that our genes enabled culture but after that, cultures produced wide variance in human behaviour. But the confusion is not surprising.
I'm going to re-read "Not by Genes Alone", which I remember as being a much better book on this topic, rather than spend any more time on this mess of a book.
March 21, 2014
The book annoyed me on several levels. It seems like a book for logic: if you can accept this, than this other thing is true, and so forth constructing a foundation for his theory. It seems like a science book letting me know only some of the facts, only the ones who will support his theory, and not the other ones. Talking about totipotent cells and their divisions and at some point (when?) probably influenced by the local conditions, they decide to transform in pluripotent, to specialize a little. It is like the genes have some intelligence and it's up to them to become, or not, pluri or multi or uni-potent cells. He covered up the fact that there are sequences of DNA that control the number of divisions and which genes come to be expressed, though he talked lengthly about the random insertions of DNA. The social part did not convince me.
May 4, 2019
What this book is about "Left unchecked, these ploys [kin selection] would have caused our societies to collapse before they god off the ground. To make our societies work, then, we had to acquire the social and psychological systems that could somehow overcome and tame selfish instincts born of millions of years of evolution by natural selection to cheat, exploit, dupe and even murder’s one rivals. " These systems are our culture.
Is it worth reading? Yes, do read the chapters Ultra-sociality and the Cultrual Survival Vehicle and Local Rules and the Emergence of Self-Organization, but feel free to skip everything else.
Is it worth reading? Yes, do read the chapters Ultra-sociality and the Cultrual Survival Vehicle and Local Rules and the Emergence of Self-Organization, but feel free to skip everything else.
January 29, 2013
Informative, thought provoking. I took notes.
August 5, 2013
A very ambitious and enjoyable book. What I got out of this book was this message: All of human behavior can be explained by looking at our genes.
This was a great summer read because it is very accessible. The dense and jargony nonfictions have their merits, but there’s something to be said for a nice light nonfiction book. I was a bit skeptical of some of the claims presented in the book, however… some explanations felt too convenient or too speculative for me.
It irritated me when Pagel used language implying that genes/cells/memes were sentient. Maybe he was just trying to be poetic, or simplify things, but I didn’t like it. It makes it easy to lose sight of the real way natural selection works. Example:
Pg 71: “...your skin cells are happy to die to protect you from the penetrating and deadly rays of the sun.”
Despite this, this book is one of my all time favorites because it is very smart and very fun. I marked many parts of this book with post it notes, so the favorite parts section of this review is going to be very long.
Favorite parts:
Pg 20:
“…there is a well-known fungus called Cordyceps that infects a species of carpenter ant. The fungus finds its way to the ant’s brain where it controls the ant like a puppeteer, getting it to climb to the top of blades of grass or small plants. Once there, the ant clamps its jaws shut and then dangles like a flag in the wind. Meanwhile, the fungus devours the ant from within and eventually erupts in its brain, flowering out of the top of its head, releasing spores to be carried off to infect some new ant or even some grazing animals.”
Pg 20: explanation of why super deadly diseases like Ebola are rare- their victims die before they can spread the disease very far.
Pg 21: I love this:
“The philosopher Daniel Dennett once quipped that perhaps ‘a scholar is just a library’s way of making another library.’”
Pg 41: Animals lack a theory of mind- they don’t assume that others have a reason or purpose for doing the things they do.
Pg 49: Incredible linguistic diversity in New Guinea
Pg 53: “Human cultural groups have historically partitioned the landscape among themselves almost as if they were a separate biological species. But why speak a different language every few miles? Why not in regions such as the tropics form one giant cooperative society?”
Pg 64:
“The capacity of common bacteria to reproduce is so great that if their growth went unchecked we would in a matter of days (or less time) ball be standing up to our waists in a mat of bacteria that carpeted the entire world”
Okay, besides just being an awesome mental image, this brings up the question, what would a mat of bacteria feel like? What would it even look like? Would it be black or transparent? Would it feel like more like sand, dirt, or water? I want to know!!
Pg 77:
Description of slime molds! SO COOL!
Pg 117:
“Similarities among perfect strangers reared apart” study. :)
Pg 121: I love this:
“Males of the common side-blotched lizard (Uta stansburiana) play a pure strategy version of the rock-scissors-paper game in their competition to mate with females. Each male has one of three different genetically determined mating strategies. Polygynous males are large in size and can therefore control large territories. By controlling these large territories, the polygynous males can guard and exclusively mate with a number of females. The polygynous males can even take females away from smaller monogamous males which, having smaller territories, attempt to guard just a single female. But the polygynous males don’t ever take over completely. A small, sneaky male can take advantage of the polygynous males by snatching a liaison with one of his females when the polygynous male is not watching. On the other hand, the sneaky tactic does not work against the monogamous males because they can guard their single female. As with the parlor game, each one of these strategies can ‘beat’ a different one of the others, and whenever one becomes too numerous, one of the others will take advantage of it.”
Pg 148: Discussion of why religions exist
Pg 155 - 156:
“Veblen made the bold claim that rich people throughout history have advertised their wealth through acts of what he called conspicuous consumption – ostentatious and extravagant displays that genuinely reveal how much they have by showing how much they can afford to throw away on otherwise useless objects. As with the peacock’s tail, the waste allows us a way of glimpsing what must lie behind the flamboyance.”
“We are now in a position to see why religious belief can be a powerful indicator of someone’s commitment. Your religion is not just a marker of group membership, such as your language might be. Faith is about believing things that by all known rules cannot possibly be true or verified, and could even get you killed. It is about acting without evidence, participating in its rituals, fasting (a form of starvation), memorizing scripture, scarification, crucifixion, and paying of tithes. Veblen and Zahavi’s insights tell us that it is the utter recklessness and costliness of adhering to religious beliefs that makes them a believable way of advertising your commitment to a group, and thereby attracting altruism from others (you could try to demonstrate your commitment to your group by, for example, helping to build a boat, but its usefulness means your effort might be seen as partly for your own gain.”
Pg 211: just reminded me of a question I had back when I was in biology that never got answered. Technically wouldn’t it be possible (though extremely unlikely) to have a sibling that despite being born from the same parents as you, was genetically a stranger? Say m-A, m-B, and m-C genes from mom and d-A, d-B, and d-C genes from dad come together, and you end up with m-A, d-B, m-C, and your sibling ends up with d-A, m-B, and d-C? You and your sibling would be as related as your parents were. This is probably a dumb thought, though… I haven’t had biology in a while so I probably don’t know what I’m talking about.
Pg 222 – Altruistic actions – actions for the good of the group—are explained as actions made for the good of the individual. “It is precisely the most costly acts—the ones least likely to benefit us individually- that most efficiently purchase reputations…”
Pg 237: I felt Pagel was overly dismissive of human’s inventiveness. He took examples that supported his claims that humans are copiers and not inventors, and ignored examples that did not.
Pg 253: Let’s modify HAR1 ourselves and create a superhuman!!! (I’m kidding) (kind of)
Pg 255: This is brilliant:
“Domestication is like taking up residence in a protective bubble, and right across the history of evolution it is linked to things becoming simpler. Single-celled organisms that have taken up residence inside the cells of other organisms normally have many fewer genes than their wild ancestors. They jettison genes they no longer need, genes that served functions in their wild state but that are now provided by their host. The structures called mitochondria that exist inside each of our cells and that produce energy are thought to be ancient bacteria that took up residence inside cells like ours over 1.5 billion years ago. They probably had around 3,000 genes when they moved in; now they have 16.”
Pg 280: Interesting theory on why we evolved language
Pg 285:
“Much of the junk DNA exists in the form of small genetic parasites called transposons that can infect our genomes in much the same sense that a virus infects our bodies. They go by names such as LINE-I (long interspersed nuclear element), SINE (short interspersed nuclear element), P-elements, and Mariner. They derive the name transposon from their capability to make a copy of themselves that gets inserted at a different place in the genome… It has long been a puzzle why we put up with junk DNA rather than evolve ways to remove it… Some unusual cases of hemophilia and even of bowel cancer have been blamed on LINE- 1 transposons moving around inside our genomes.”
Pg 289: digital vs. continuous signals
Pg 301: Pagel, are you ignoring phonotactic constraints in your calculation of the number of possible English words? Also, letters are not the building blocks of language, phonemes are.
Chapter 9: Our inner “I” is an illusion
Pg 308:
“Indeed, the whole concept of personal identity is so tenuous that John Locke devoted an entire chapter to it in his Essay Concerning Human Understanding. Locke came to the startling conclusion that, apart from our memories, we cannot even be sure we are the same person we were in the past.”
Pg 318:
“In extreme cases, the loyalties get tipped entirely to one sex, even though the gene can appear in males and females. You inherit a small amount of DNA in the structure known as the mitochondrion that resides in each of your cells. Mitochondria are inherited solely form mothers, even though mothers and fathers both have them. This means that even though the mitochondrion spends exactly half of its time in each sex, this small piece of DNA is at a dead end when it finds itself in a male because it knows it will not be transmitted to his offspring. This puts it in direct conflict with the male’s body. There are remarkable instances in the animal kingdom in which genes on the mitochondrion feminize males to such an extent that they become females, thereby ensuring this mitochondrion does get transmitted.”
Careful there. How does the DNA “know” it will not be transmitted? More accurate to say that DNA that randomly evolves the ability to feminize males survives and reproduces more than the DNA that doesn’t? Intelligence without self-awareness?
Pg 319: Okay, this is a little creepy:
“It gets worse. Bacteria known as Wolbachia live inside the cells of some ladybird, fruitfly, butterfly, and woodlice species. As with mitochondria, only mothers transmit these Wolbachia to their offspring. Now, females of these species lay a large clutch of brother and sister embryos, each carrying the mother’s Wolbachia. As with the mitochondria, the Wolbachia in the male embryos are at a dead end. In some ladybird species, these Wolbachia commit suicide by killing the male embryos in which they reside. Why? In ladybirds at least, the surviving sisters (who carry identical copies of the suicidal Wolbachia) feast on their dead brothers. This improves the sisters’ survival and therefore the survival of the Wolbachia in them.”
Pg 332: Interesting theory about the purpose of our consciousness.
For me, at least, language and consciousness are deeply intertwined. My consciousness feels like a pile of language.
Pg 337: I want to read more about Laland’s tournament of innovative vs copier computer programs
Pg 351: Rule of how to build a mound. Seriously, like, the coolest thing I have read in a long time. Just awesome.
This was a great summer read because it is very accessible. The dense and jargony nonfictions have their merits, but there’s something to be said for a nice light nonfiction book. I was a bit skeptical of some of the claims presented in the book, however… some explanations felt too convenient or too speculative for me.
It irritated me when Pagel used language implying that genes/cells/memes were sentient. Maybe he was just trying to be poetic, or simplify things, but I didn’t like it. It makes it easy to lose sight of the real way natural selection works. Example:
Pg 71: “...your skin cells are happy to die to protect you from the penetrating and deadly rays of the sun.”
Despite this, this book is one of my all time favorites because it is very smart and very fun. I marked many parts of this book with post it notes, so the favorite parts section of this review is going to be very long.
Favorite parts:
Pg 20:
“…there is a well-known fungus called Cordyceps that infects a species of carpenter ant. The fungus finds its way to the ant’s brain where it controls the ant like a puppeteer, getting it to climb to the top of blades of grass or small plants. Once there, the ant clamps its jaws shut and then dangles like a flag in the wind. Meanwhile, the fungus devours the ant from within and eventually erupts in its brain, flowering out of the top of its head, releasing spores to be carried off to infect some new ant or even some grazing animals.”
Pg 20: explanation of why super deadly diseases like Ebola are rare- their victims die before they can spread the disease very far.
Pg 21: I love this:
“The philosopher Daniel Dennett once quipped that perhaps ‘a scholar is just a library’s way of making another library.’”
Pg 41: Animals lack a theory of mind- they don’t assume that others have a reason or purpose for doing the things they do.
Pg 49: Incredible linguistic diversity in New Guinea
Pg 53: “Human cultural groups have historically partitioned the landscape among themselves almost as if they were a separate biological species. But why speak a different language every few miles? Why not in regions such as the tropics form one giant cooperative society?”
Pg 64:
“The capacity of common bacteria to reproduce is so great that if their growth went unchecked we would in a matter of days (or less time) ball be standing up to our waists in a mat of bacteria that carpeted the entire world”
Okay, besides just being an awesome mental image, this brings up the question, what would a mat of bacteria feel like? What would it even look like? Would it be black or transparent? Would it feel like more like sand, dirt, or water? I want to know!!
Pg 77:
Description of slime molds! SO COOL!
Pg 117:
“Similarities among perfect strangers reared apart” study. :)
Pg 121: I love this:
“Males of the common side-blotched lizard (Uta stansburiana) play a pure strategy version of the rock-scissors-paper game in their competition to mate with females. Each male has one of three different genetically determined mating strategies. Polygynous males are large in size and can therefore control large territories. By controlling these large territories, the polygynous males can guard and exclusively mate with a number of females. The polygynous males can even take females away from smaller monogamous males which, having smaller territories, attempt to guard just a single female. But the polygynous males don’t ever take over completely. A small, sneaky male can take advantage of the polygynous males by snatching a liaison with one of his females when the polygynous male is not watching. On the other hand, the sneaky tactic does not work against the monogamous males because they can guard their single female. As with the parlor game, each one of these strategies can ‘beat’ a different one of the others, and whenever one becomes too numerous, one of the others will take advantage of it.”
Pg 148: Discussion of why religions exist
Pg 155 - 156:
“Veblen made the bold claim that rich people throughout history have advertised their wealth through acts of what he called conspicuous consumption – ostentatious and extravagant displays that genuinely reveal how much they have by showing how much they can afford to throw away on otherwise useless objects. As with the peacock’s tail, the waste allows us a way of glimpsing what must lie behind the flamboyance.”
“We are now in a position to see why religious belief can be a powerful indicator of someone’s commitment. Your religion is not just a marker of group membership, such as your language might be. Faith is about believing things that by all known rules cannot possibly be true or verified, and could even get you killed. It is about acting without evidence, participating in its rituals, fasting (a form of starvation), memorizing scripture, scarification, crucifixion, and paying of tithes. Veblen and Zahavi’s insights tell us that it is the utter recklessness and costliness of adhering to religious beliefs that makes them a believable way of advertising your commitment to a group, and thereby attracting altruism from others (you could try to demonstrate your commitment to your group by, for example, helping to build a boat, but its usefulness means your effort might be seen as partly for your own gain.”
Pg 211: just reminded me of a question I had back when I was in biology that never got answered. Technically wouldn’t it be possible (though extremely unlikely) to have a sibling that despite being born from the same parents as you, was genetically a stranger? Say m-A, m-B, and m-C genes from mom and d-A, d-B, and d-C genes from dad come together, and you end up with m-A, d-B, m-C, and your sibling ends up with d-A, m-B, and d-C? You and your sibling would be as related as your parents were. This is probably a dumb thought, though… I haven’t had biology in a while so I probably don’t know what I’m talking about.
Pg 222 – Altruistic actions – actions for the good of the group—are explained as actions made for the good of the individual. “It is precisely the most costly acts—the ones least likely to benefit us individually- that most efficiently purchase reputations…”
Pg 237: I felt Pagel was overly dismissive of human’s inventiveness. He took examples that supported his claims that humans are copiers and not inventors, and ignored examples that did not.
Pg 253: Let’s modify HAR1 ourselves and create a superhuman!!! (I’m kidding) (kind of)
Pg 255: This is brilliant:
“Domestication is like taking up residence in a protective bubble, and right across the history of evolution it is linked to things becoming simpler. Single-celled organisms that have taken up residence inside the cells of other organisms normally have many fewer genes than their wild ancestors. They jettison genes they no longer need, genes that served functions in their wild state but that are now provided by their host. The structures called mitochondria that exist inside each of our cells and that produce energy are thought to be ancient bacteria that took up residence inside cells like ours over 1.5 billion years ago. They probably had around 3,000 genes when they moved in; now they have 16.”
Pg 280: Interesting theory on why we evolved language
Pg 285:
“Much of the junk DNA exists in the form of small genetic parasites called transposons that can infect our genomes in much the same sense that a virus infects our bodies. They go by names such as LINE-I (long interspersed nuclear element), SINE (short interspersed nuclear element), P-elements, and Mariner. They derive the name transposon from their capability to make a copy of themselves that gets inserted at a different place in the genome… It has long been a puzzle why we put up with junk DNA rather than evolve ways to remove it… Some unusual cases of hemophilia and even of bowel cancer have been blamed on LINE- 1 transposons moving around inside our genomes.”
Pg 289: digital vs. continuous signals
Pg 301: Pagel, are you ignoring phonotactic constraints in your calculation of the number of possible English words? Also, letters are not the building blocks of language, phonemes are.
Chapter 9: Our inner “I” is an illusion
Pg 308:
“Indeed, the whole concept of personal identity is so tenuous that John Locke devoted an entire chapter to it in his Essay Concerning Human Understanding. Locke came to the startling conclusion that, apart from our memories, we cannot even be sure we are the same person we were in the past.”
Pg 318:
“In extreme cases, the loyalties get tipped entirely to one sex, even though the gene can appear in males and females. You inherit a small amount of DNA in the structure known as the mitochondrion that resides in each of your cells. Mitochondria are inherited solely form mothers, even though mothers and fathers both have them. This means that even though the mitochondrion spends exactly half of its time in each sex, this small piece of DNA is at a dead end when it finds itself in a male because it knows it will not be transmitted to his offspring. This puts it in direct conflict with the male’s body. There are remarkable instances in the animal kingdom in which genes on the mitochondrion feminize males to such an extent that they become females, thereby ensuring this mitochondrion does get transmitted.”
Careful there. How does the DNA “know” it will not be transmitted? More accurate to say that DNA that randomly evolves the ability to feminize males survives and reproduces more than the DNA that doesn’t? Intelligence without self-awareness?
Pg 319: Okay, this is a little creepy:
“It gets worse. Bacteria known as Wolbachia live inside the cells of some ladybird, fruitfly, butterfly, and woodlice species. As with mitochondria, only mothers transmit these Wolbachia to their offspring. Now, females of these species lay a large clutch of brother and sister embryos, each carrying the mother’s Wolbachia. As with the mitochondria, the Wolbachia in the male embryos are at a dead end. In some ladybird species, these Wolbachia commit suicide by killing the male embryos in which they reside. Why? In ladybirds at least, the surviving sisters (who carry identical copies of the suicidal Wolbachia) feast on their dead brothers. This improves the sisters’ survival and therefore the survival of the Wolbachia in them.”
Pg 332: Interesting theory about the purpose of our consciousness.
For me, at least, language and consciousness are deeply intertwined. My consciousness feels like a pile of language.
Pg 337: I want to read more about Laland’s tournament of innovative vs copier computer programs
Pg 351: Rule of how to build a mound. Seriously, like, the coolest thing I have read in a long time. Just awesome.
July 19, 2022
This book makes the remarkable claim that not only is human biology subject to evolution, but also human psychology and social institutions. It takes the perspective of the Dawkins’ “Selfish Gene” which posits that evolution is about the survival of genes rather than species, but there is nothing in this book that I can see that relies on this provocative interpretation of evolution.
This claim amounts to saying that whatever permits the propagation of more and healthier offspring will tend to survive. Offspring must be healthy, that is, capable of reproducing themselves; a trait which results in numerous sterile offspring will not survive. Evolution tends to produce “better” organisms, but better is understood only in terms of a single criterion—the ability to produce more and healthier descendants.
This book repeatedly uses terms like “might” and “possibly”. Almost all the claims of this book amount to saying that evolution could have produced such a key biological or psychological characteristic or social institution. There are undoubtedly readers who will ignore these more modest statements and understand this book as providing scientific proof that evolution accounts for all these human characteristics.
However, the tentativeness of the author’s claims is appropriate. At the grossest level, one cannot rerun human evolution in the lab. There are no experiments showing that evolution accounts for these features of humanity. Scientific theories are most often taken as true because a competent scientist can repeat an experiment and produce the same result. In other cases, observation can verify the theory—e.g. if given atmospheric conditions are present, then this type of weather can be expected.
These kinds of verification are not possible for most of the author’s claims and modesty is indeed appropriate. He cannot offer proof that evolution produced specific traits, but he say that his explanation are plausible.
Because he is talking about the whole range of biology, psychology, and social institutions, his treatment of specific examples is a bit cursory. For example, he takes on the very hard case of honor killings in which a parent kills an offspring because they have brought the family into disrepute. This often involves killing a daughter who marries without the family’s approval. The author explains these events as extreme examples of families showing that they adhere to the norms of the group and thereby can benefit from belonging to the group. However, the author does not show how this custom results in the production of more and healthier progeny, the single criterion of evolution.
The analysis is complicated by the fact that evolution involves an element of randomness. Random mutations in genes occasionally give rise to traits that make an organism more fit, again in terms of the evolutionary criterion. On the hand, such mutations might make an organism less fit, and these mutations will gradually be weeded out of the gene pool. Presumably the same thing could happen with psychological traits and social institutions. Conceivably, honor killings are a random social phenomenon that do not help a population reproduce in which case, using the author’s logic, they will gradually disappear.
On the whole, this book is extremely thought provoking. I am skeptical of a number of his claims, but this book offers an interesting perspective. Importantly, this book does not take cognizance of any contradictory evidence or arguments.
I should mention one quibble. At a couple of different points, he refers to our conception of the self as “illusory”. What would constitute evidence that the self exists? A box inside the brain with a label “self”? We do experience ourselves as having an individual identity. As psychologists have been pointing out for over a century, that identity is more complex than we might think. Simple introspection does not give us immediate access to all that is happening in our mind. That hardly means that we do not have an identity.
This claim amounts to saying that whatever permits the propagation of more and healthier offspring will tend to survive. Offspring must be healthy, that is, capable of reproducing themselves; a trait which results in numerous sterile offspring will not survive. Evolution tends to produce “better” organisms, but better is understood only in terms of a single criterion—the ability to produce more and healthier descendants.
This book repeatedly uses terms like “might” and “possibly”. Almost all the claims of this book amount to saying that evolution could have produced such a key biological or psychological characteristic or social institution. There are undoubtedly readers who will ignore these more modest statements and understand this book as providing scientific proof that evolution accounts for all these human characteristics.
However, the tentativeness of the author’s claims is appropriate. At the grossest level, one cannot rerun human evolution in the lab. There are no experiments showing that evolution accounts for these features of humanity. Scientific theories are most often taken as true because a competent scientist can repeat an experiment and produce the same result. In other cases, observation can verify the theory—e.g. if given atmospheric conditions are present, then this type of weather can be expected.
These kinds of verification are not possible for most of the author’s claims and modesty is indeed appropriate. He cannot offer proof that evolution produced specific traits, but he say that his explanation are plausible.
Because he is talking about the whole range of biology, psychology, and social institutions, his treatment of specific examples is a bit cursory. For example, he takes on the very hard case of honor killings in which a parent kills an offspring because they have brought the family into disrepute. This often involves killing a daughter who marries without the family’s approval. The author explains these events as extreme examples of families showing that they adhere to the norms of the group and thereby can benefit from belonging to the group. However, the author does not show how this custom results in the production of more and healthier progeny, the single criterion of evolution.
The analysis is complicated by the fact that evolution involves an element of randomness. Random mutations in genes occasionally give rise to traits that make an organism more fit, again in terms of the evolutionary criterion. On the hand, such mutations might make an organism less fit, and these mutations will gradually be weeded out of the gene pool. Presumably the same thing could happen with psychological traits and social institutions. Conceivably, honor killings are a random social phenomenon that do not help a population reproduce in which case, using the author’s logic, they will gradually disappear.
On the whole, this book is extremely thought provoking. I am skeptical of a number of his claims, but this book offers an interesting perspective. Importantly, this book does not take cognizance of any contradictory evidence or arguments.
I should mention one quibble. At a couple of different points, he refers to our conception of the self as “illusory”. What would constitute evidence that the self exists? A box inside the brain with a label “self”? We do experience ourselves as having an individual identity. As psychologists have been pointing out for over a century, that identity is more complex than we might think. Simple introspection does not give us immediate access to all that is happening in our mind. That hardly means that we do not have an identity.
May 5, 2023
Mark Pagel writes well about how culture is a central feature in an evolutionary understanding of Homo sapiens. Altruism, selfishness, group formation, compassion, enmity and many other topics are discussed from the evolutionary point of view. Culture has emerged out of human sociality, but as any emergent phenomenon, it partially transcends its origins, and becomes a force of its own.
Pagel argues that once culture got started, maybe 200,000 years ago, it quickly caused a very strong evolutionary pressure for humans to become better at interacting with each other in a cultural setting. Culture became a new, vast ecological niche. The changes accelerated by approximately 40,00 years ago, and Pagel speculates that this is due to strong selection for cultural competence.
The discussion stresses the conflicts between different strategies and solutions to problems of cooperation and survival that is the human condition. There is a strong undercurrent in much political philosophy that there is - has to be - some kind of unity underlying the awful complexity o the conflict-ridden reality. This book carefully explains why this is not so. "Our societies are perched on a shaky pillar of conflicting interests." Our excellent cooperation skills may be due to the conflicts between groups that occur routinely in our social lives.
Pagel discusses creativity in a particularly sharp way. We humans are not masters of creativity. Rather, our culture relies on us being extremely good imitators and learners, rather than inventors of new ideas. We are hyper-imitators, often copying actions that are not strictly necessary to achieve a specific goal.
There are many more topics covered in this book. It is worth reading.
Pagel argues that once culture got started, maybe 200,000 years ago, it quickly caused a very strong evolutionary pressure for humans to become better at interacting with each other in a cultural setting. Culture became a new, vast ecological niche. The changes accelerated by approximately 40,00 years ago, and Pagel speculates that this is due to strong selection for cultural competence.
The discussion stresses the conflicts between different strategies and solutions to problems of cooperation and survival that is the human condition. There is a strong undercurrent in much political philosophy that there is - has to be - some kind of unity underlying the awful complexity o the conflict-ridden reality. This book carefully explains why this is not so. "Our societies are perched on a shaky pillar of conflicting interests." Our excellent cooperation skills may be due to the conflicts between groups that occur routinely in our social lives.
Pagel discusses creativity in a particularly sharp way. We humans are not masters of creativity. Rather, our culture relies on us being extremely good imitators and learners, rather than inventors of new ideas. We are hyper-imitators, often copying actions that are not strictly necessary to achieve a specific goal.
There are many more topics covered in this book. It is worth reading.
September 2, 2021
Cute book, worth reading, but I would not trust anything in there without checking it out further. There were things I think were mistakes. Simple examples, I believe that the tragedy of the commons was the Enclosure Acts making the commons private, which left poor people with too little, forcing them to move to cities for factory work, and the ultimatum game doesn't always get the same results in non-western cultures like he says.
December 13, 2019
Somewhat stimulating exploration, with conjecture.
December 25, 2019
Fascinating and explains some comp!ex biology quite well. I just wish the author had spent more time on describing how religion fits into our
Biology and the imp!ications.
Biology and the imp!ications.
to-read-later
April 23, 2021As mentioned in We Need to Talk.
February 1, 2022
Already said what I had to say.
August 10, 2022
Some time ago I made a list of books that truly define me...who I am and what I believe. After reading Wired for Culture, I added it to that list.
First off, I should say that I believe in evolution as far as I understand it. And yet, I can hardly claim to be an expert and, in the past, I've come across questions I didn't know the answer to. "How did humans become self-aware?" "How can evolution account for the human mind?" "How do scientists explain things like language, that do not occur anywhere else in the animal world?" This book answered a lot of those questions for me. Granted, evolution is still a theory and Pagel doesn't say "this is the way it happened." But he does say, "this is the way it might have happened." And I appreciate that. In the end, this is the type of book that you read and feel smarter for having read. It makes you understand the world and yourself better. What more can you want from non-fiction?
Here are a few of my favorite passages:
-- [T]he familiar beliefs that power xenophobia, racism, bigotry, and parochialism, and the violence that often attends those views […] take hold because they promote survival, not because they are true. (p. 150)
-- Most people would agree that stealing and killing are wrong, and even morally wrong, but it is never very clear what we mean by morally wrong: human beings kill each other regularly. We do so in brutal and violent ways, often in large numbers, sometimes sadistically, and we even heap praise on people who kill when it is done against someone we deem to be an enemy. So, morals must confront the charge that they are rules that society merely makes up to serve its interests. (p. 223)
-- [W]hy do we honor our dead so highly, especially as it is too late for them to benefit? They deserve our highest respect for their sacrifice, but somehow in doing so we acknowledge that some form of payback—reputation enhancement—is needed to keep families willing to send their sons off to battle. No ant, bee, or wasp would make such a request. (p. 225)
First off, I should say that I believe in evolution as far as I understand it. And yet, I can hardly claim to be an expert and, in the past, I've come across questions I didn't know the answer to. "How did humans become self-aware?" "How can evolution account for the human mind?" "How do scientists explain things like language, that do not occur anywhere else in the animal world?" This book answered a lot of those questions for me. Granted, evolution is still a theory and Pagel doesn't say "this is the way it happened." But he does say, "this is the way it might have happened." And I appreciate that. In the end, this is the type of book that you read and feel smarter for having read. It makes you understand the world and yourself better. What more can you want from non-fiction?
Here are a few of my favorite passages:
-- [T]he familiar beliefs that power xenophobia, racism, bigotry, and parochialism, and the violence that often attends those views […] take hold because they promote survival, not because they are true. (p. 150)
-- Most people would agree that stealing and killing are wrong, and even morally wrong, but it is never very clear what we mean by morally wrong: human beings kill each other regularly. We do so in brutal and violent ways, often in large numbers, sometimes sadistically, and we even heap praise on people who kill when it is done against someone we deem to be an enemy. So, morals must confront the charge that they are rules that society merely makes up to serve its interests. (p. 223)
-- [W]hy do we honor our dead so highly, especially as it is too late for them to benefit? They deserve our highest respect for their sacrifice, but somehow in doing so we acknowledge that some form of payback—reputation enhancement—is needed to keep families willing to send their sons off to battle. No ant, bee, or wasp would make such a request. (p. 225)
April 2, 2023
Pagel can be a clunking writer but he gives the latest clarifications on human evolution, which since E O Wilson's On Human Nature in 1977 has begun to redraw the map of all our learning (and stir the kind of bitter controversy Galileo did in 1615 but that not even Einstein and relativity have done in our day).
Even our storytelling, unique to humans, is "shaped by the hammer of natural selection upon the anvil of nature." We are the only species that tells its own story in advance.
I wrote to a friend (a retired doctor and Claremont graduate where he studied with James Robinson who led the translation of the Nag Hammadi manuscripts):
Long time since a book answered an entire spectrum of questions for me.
It's somehow soothing to see the biology beneath our political polarization. Is a nation a) an idea that draws promising people from all over? Or b) a colored shape on a map, and the dominant bloodlines of the people there?
Chimps would answer (b) if they understood the question. Kinship selection: Blood relations defending a hunting territory. But chimps will never understand this or any other question, or get a whit closer across all the eons.
Don't (a) and (b) remind you of our two political parties? Not always, just lately?
Who else chooses (b)? The blood-and-soil movements that forever soak the soil of Europe with blood: Franco of Spain, Mussolini of Italy, Stalin of Russia, Schicklgruber of Germany, Putin of the Rus....
Answer (a) is the only answer unique to our species, the one and only species that creates itself with ideas of itself; the only one that can, as the teacher once urged, "consider the fowls of the air."
Even our storytelling, unique to humans, is "shaped by the hammer of natural selection upon the anvil of nature." We are the only species that tells its own story in advance.
I wrote to a friend (a retired doctor and Claremont graduate where he studied with James Robinson who led the translation of the Nag Hammadi manuscripts):
Long time since a book answered an entire spectrum of questions for me.
It's somehow soothing to see the biology beneath our political polarization. Is a nation a) an idea that draws promising people from all over? Or b) a colored shape on a map, and the dominant bloodlines of the people there?
Chimps would answer (b) if they understood the question. Kinship selection: Blood relations defending a hunting territory. But chimps will never understand this or any other question, or get a whit closer across all the eons.
Don't (a) and (b) remind you of our two political parties? Not always, just lately?
Who else chooses (b)? The blood-and-soil movements that forever soak the soil of Europe with blood: Franco of Spain, Mussolini of Italy, Stalin of Russia, Schicklgruber of Germany, Putin of the Rus....
Answer (a) is the only answer unique to our species, the one and only species that creates itself with ideas of itself; the only one that can, as the teacher once urged, "consider the fowls of the air."
May 14, 2015
An interesting subject, and although I agree that our species is wired for culture, as the title says, I had issues with some of the particulars in this book and how they were stated. The thing that tended to bug me the most was the way some explanations were phrased. Now I'm sure the author doesn't believe this, but often his choice of words imply that genes act out of conscious intent, or that behaviors that are instinctive are instead volitional. A peahen, for example, doesn't 'know' in any cognitive sense that a peacock with impressive plumage must be healthier than one without, which is what he says. Naked mole rats did not loose their fur in order to avoid parasites. In each case, a mutated gene conferred a physiological or behavioral change which provided some reproductive advantage. When a person jumps into a river to save someone, he isn't first doing some kind of mental calculation to decide how many genes he and the person drowning share. Gene reproduction may benefit from his act of bravery, but it's not why he does it. Chances are, it's motivated mainly by instinct, but the genes that prompt that instinct aren't thinking about it any more than the guy jumping in the river. They don't 'know' anything. They survive or they don't. Those that do, reproduce, and because the behavior has survival benefits, the instinct to save others spreads.
I can't say I gained any great insights from reading this, but it offers some interesting potential explanations for human behavior.
I can't say I gained any great insights from reading this, but it offers some interesting potential explanations for human behavior.
July 5, 2012
I like reading books that make me think of concepts and ideas that I take for granted and Wired for Culture was one of the best I read in awhile that made me wonder about where our culture/world is going. I particularly liked reading about the link between modern culture and apes because I tend to think that modern culture is inhuman and far above other animals and it was nice to get that wake up call that we are still 99% (!!!) like chimpanzees as well as a lot of other creatures.
The guy who wrote the book seemed like a very esteemed sort of person and I wondered what his life is like on a daily basis. I bet he must influence quite a lot of people with a book like this. He seemed very humble though and it must be a joy to him to have such knowledge on such a heavily debated subject (at least I suppose it is).
I also enjoyed hearing about all the history of what accomplishments (or lack thereof) we have made in society. It was fascinating to read about all the little things we do that make us so different from other species. A must read for anyone who wants to understand our ancestors and how we have benefited from them.
The guy who wrote the book seemed like a very esteemed sort of person and I wondered what his life is like on a daily basis. I bet he must influence quite a lot of people with a book like this. He seemed very humble though and it must be a joy to him to have such knowledge on such a heavily debated subject (at least I suppose it is).
I also enjoyed hearing about all the history of what accomplishments (or lack thereof) we have made in society. It was fascinating to read about all the little things we do that make us so different from other species. A must read for anyone who wants to understand our ancestors and how we have benefited from them.
August 13, 2014
Victoria Crosses for self-sacrificing slime molds and suicide bomber ants: this book gives you an evolutionary theory and reason for just about everything we humans do -- including the urge to push anonymous strangers under the Subway train -- and shows the way memes, or cultural traits, evolve not so much to help us as to serve their own needs, just as genes do, which explains a lot of seemingly irrational behaviour. Of particular interest to me was it explanation of the evolutionary uses of religion -- basically, if you're facing a determined and deadly foe, you want a fearless Richard the Lionheart at your side, not Richard Dawkins -- and how religion allowed humans to transcend the narrow confines of the family unit or tribe and thrive in far larger communities governed by a kinship of belief, even if the belief itself was erroneous. I found this book very well written and compulsive reading, pinpointing the rational in the seemingly irrational. Can't recommend it highly enough, and I wish I'd read it before I wrote my own book, Spiders of Allah, because I would have liberally nicked lots of Mark Pagel's brilliant ideas
November 30, 2014
Not an easy book to read, but ultimately rewarding and informative. Pagel draws on anthropology, evolutionary biology, neurology and philosophy to demonstrate how culture has evolved via natural selection of ideas and memes in exactly the same way as genes have evolved. Pagel takes us back to paleo-archaeology, presenting the evidence for physical changes in human physiognomy since hominids left Africa in parallel with the cultural changes. He examines the current scientific evidence with regard to issues such as changes in brain size and physiology, the emergence of cooking, language, agriculture and cities. He reveals our extraordinary evolutionary leap from beings who like most great apes would have loyalty only to people related to them, to the complex networks of altruism, mistrust and self regulation that are necessary for our complex cultures to exist. Densely written requiring concentration and time, but Pagel does repeat information in different chapters in a slightly different framework meaning that complex concepts do become clearer. Worth the effort!
Want to read
January 16, 2012From Publisher's Weekly starred review (http://bitly.com/yLPZNI):
"“80,000 years ago... our genes undertook a remarkable gamble,” writes Pagel, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Reading in England. Our genes “handed over control to ideas,” and as a result, humans became the earth’s dominant species. Culture became “a second great system of inheritance to stand alongside our genes—a new way of transmitting information from one generation to the next, shortcutting the normal genetic routes of inheritance.” Pagel does an excellent job of using evolutionary biology to discuss the origins of religion, music, and art, and the reasons why, cross-culturally, we generally share a sense of morality."
"“80,000 years ago... our genes undertook a remarkable gamble,” writes Pagel, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Reading in England. Our genes “handed over control to ideas,” and as a result, humans became the earth’s dominant species. Culture became “a second great system of inheritance to stand alongside our genes—a new way of transmitting information from one generation to the next, shortcutting the normal genetic routes of inheritance.” Pagel does an excellent job of using evolutionary biology to discuss the origins of religion, music, and art, and the reasons why, cross-culturally, we generally share a sense of morality."
August 7, 2012
I enjoyed reading this book as it stretched my own point of view. I appreciate that the author, though a rabid Stephen Hawking fan, acknowledged that human culture is unique among the animal kingdom. While there are some individual aspects of human culture reflected in specific animal behaviors -- who knew that altruism can be found in other animals -- no other animals have anywhere close to such a complex system of culture.
Man alone stands with non-related others to work for the benefit of all. While Pagel argues that this is due to the meme, he must allow that the meme remains a theory. Somehow, humans are predisposed to engaging with others. I am so glad. Hurrah for human culture!
Man alone stands with non-related others to work for the benefit of all. While Pagel argues that this is due to the meme, he must allow that the meme remains a theory. Somehow, humans are predisposed to engaging with others. I am so glad. Hurrah for human culture!
July 2, 2013
Overall I enjoyed this, despite the fact that Pagel engaged in implicit philosphizing and as is usually the case when that happens fares poorly. For instance he describes how human sense of morality might have developed and then has the hubris to determine that that is all that morality must reduce to. A common but annoying sort of reduction. He also seems to be purposefully agitating for some kind of group evolution, and engages in rather speculative evolutionary psychology, but so long as you are expecting that sort of typical thing it's amusing.
April 29, 2013
It is a very interesting book, because it turns several ideas that we may have about ourselves and societies on their head and forces us to think a lot, even if only on the realm of possibilities. It is open ended, a permanent challenge, something I appreciate a lot. It goes deeper that the latest Jared Diamond book (The World until Yesterday), even if some of the ideas are somehow common to both.
July 22, 2014
I ultimately came away from this book feeling quite disappointed. Where Pagel talks about evolution and biology he often shines, but as soon as he tries to tie these concepts in a more concrete way to culture (and with it social psychology, anthropology etc) the book becomes incredibly lose. So discussions on the role of deception or language - both very relevant for any discussion of human cultural evolution - end up being more frustrating than informative.
August 15, 2012
A useful compilation around the subject. Sadly, not much was new however it was written in plain, easily understood language that developed the idea of the Human Social Mind. These are the basics everyone should know about how we individually fit into our larger communities (and are ourselves products of).
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