Comments on: Culture Overrides Biology (Another falsehood)

By: Mircea

Mircea — Sat, 03 Apr 2010 07:35:55 +0000

Hey! Summer is coming and I`m going to be kicked out from the University. I`m a final year biology student from Romania and I don`t have money to pay my school tax. Please help. http://schooltaxsos.wordpress.com/

By: Digdug

Digdug — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 11:32:47 +0000

You seem to jump back and forth between the speed of culture and the rationality of culture. I suggest that these two topics have very little to do with each other, and you could present a clearer argument if you were to stick to one for your discussion. Cultural Evolution does move faster than Biological Evolution, but these two are distinct from each other because they function using very different processes and mechanisms, which is not to say they donâ??t effect each other. Cultural Evolution is no more (or less) rational than Biological Evolution, and we should not expect it to be because we do not control Cultural Evolution.

If you are interested in Cultural Evolution you should visit Digdugâ??s blog at:

http://culturalevolutionscience.blogspot.com

This blog uses the Complex-Systems Theory of Culture (the only published scientific theory of culture) to explore current topics in cultural evolution that are pertinent to America and the world.

By: Gilian

Gilian — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 08:15:59 +0000

Ah, that makes a lot of sense, thank you for the explanation.

By: Jim Thomerson

Jim Thomerson — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 15:20:35 +0000

When you do horticulture, you have to stay in one place and tend/protect your potential crop. This means you can accumulate wealth. Wealth which you, and others, see as worth fighting for. You also, so to speak, crap up the place as a result of long occupation. This suits various parasites and other disease organisms. Their cause is helped by increased population density. You are also dependent on your crop(s) as your major source of calories, and thus begin to limit your food sources. If you crops fail, you can starve. Maybe go fight someone with crops which did not fail. So I agree with Greg’s previous post.

By: Greg Laden

Greg Laden — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 14:42:55 +0000

Gilian: There have been numerous studies of foraging people around the world, but since the beginnings of agriculture go back to 7 to 10 thousand years ago or so in most of the many places where that occurs, and for various other reasons, it is best to consider mainly tropical and subtropical and temperate groups. In any event, the actual foraging time spent by these groups is nothing like an eight hour day and certainly not 24/7 (when would you sleep!). The total workload for most horticultural populations using traditional horticulture is much greater than for foraging groups.

The invention of agriculture did not reduce the work load.

In comparing foraging and farming groups, it also seems that the frequency and severity of food crashes is much greater in the latter (farming) groups, so your basic periodic starvation is more of an issue for those who grow their own food.

In comparing foraging and farming groups, the overal quality of the diet has often been reduced for farming groups. In fact, much of the recent evolution we’ve seen in our species is probably adaptation to crappy diets that came about with horticulture. (and no, this is not about horticulturists getting smarter. It’s about horticulturist adapting to anemia and also probably certain diseases).

Then we add in the fact that constant ongoing warfare is not found among foragers but is common among hortulturists.

By: Gilian

Gilian — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 14:28:34 +0000

The sentence *Until the invention of agriculture (a bad idea all around) humans in most places in the world and at most points in history probably spent very little time in the direct acquisition of food because our technology (which is a cultural thing) is so wicked cool.*

confuses me a bit.
Up to the invention of agriculture we would have been busy acquiring food almost 24/7 hunting and gathering and all. Also we’d be moving around a lot. All in all we’d be very occupied with survival.
So, maybe you mean *After the invention of agriculture* ? As, we would have had a lot more ‘free’ time available to us with the semi-guaranteed food from the farms ?

By: intercoastal

intercoastal — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 05:28:52 +0000

In ancient Rome, the “officially” standardized ages for puberty were 12 for girls, 14 for boys. (Originally, Roman law had put simply “puberty” as the minimum age for marriage; later this was standardized to 12/14.) So having it at 12 was apparently standard at the time.

Wasn’t the 16-17 thing a feature of the 1800s primarily, with all their unusual traits (compressed waists, bad diets etc.)?

By: llewelly

llewelly — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 15:59:47 +0000

One day, up at my wife's family cabin, I helped my father-in-law put a row boat, upside down, on a set of blocks late in the fall. When we were done, he said: "I'm not sure why we do this. My father did this, and his father before him probably did it. So I do it. I'm afraid to not do it because there may be a reason for doing this."

Your father-in-law is stoopid. If a row boat is stored upside down, and elephant will wander by and fill it with urine. And a row boat full of elephant urine smells awful . But if the row boat is upside down, the boat's arched shape sheds the elephant urine easily, and it doesn't fill with urine.

By: Greg Laden

Greg Laden — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 22:45:56 +0000

Yogi: Good point! Next falshood: “Glaciers change at a glacial pace” …

By: yogi-one

yogi-one — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 21:01:13 +0000

At issue here is the idea that “biology” is slow and ponderous, glacial, even geological, in its rate of change, while culture is quick and snappy and makes rapid adjustment.

UmHmmm…so, answer me this: what happens when the glaciers are changing faster than the culture adapts to it, as we have nowadays?