[ExI] Humans might be making genetic evolution obsolete

[Stuart LaForge]

Quoting BillK <pharos at gmail.com>:

> Humans might be making genetic evolution obsolete
> By Cameron Duke - Live Science Contributor   14 June 2021
>
> Humans now evolve faster than ever, and it's not because of genes.
> <https://www.livescience.com/culture-evolves-faster-than-genes.html>
> Quotes:
> Waring and Wood argue in their new study, published June 2 in the
> journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, that at some point in
> human history, culture began to wrest evolutionary control from our
> DNA. And now, they say, cultural change is allowing us to evolve in
> ways biological change alone could not.
[snip]
> It?s possible, the researchers suggest, that the appearance of human
> culture represents a key evolutionary milestone.
> -----------
>
> Sounds good to me........

Indeed. The relationship between genetics and culture is much like the  
relationship between hardware and software. Culture runs on top of the  
underlying biology. Which is why, while I agree with the scientific  
study, the Live Science article headline was off-putting for me; it  
was like saying "Software might be making hardware obsolete" or  
"Automobiles might be making wheels obsolete."

Another thing I didn't like was that it was unnecessarily  
anthropocentric. There are some pretty clear indications of culture  
among many higher animals: primates, elephants, dolphins, and as your  
video suggests, magpies. After all, it is not genetics that has that  
flock of magpies following that woman around.

Stuart LaForge