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Not By Genes Alone: How Culture Transformed Human Evolution
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Product Description
Not by Genes Alone offers a radical interpretation of human evolution, arguing that our ecological dominance and our singular social systems stem from a psychology uniquely adapted to create complex culture. Richerson and Boyd illustrate here that culture is neither superorganic nor the handmaiden of the genes. Rather, it is essential to human adaptation, as much a part of human biology as bipedal locomotion. Drawing on work in the fields of anthropology, political science, sociology, and economics—and building their case with such fascinating examples as kayaks, corporations, clever knots, and yams that require twelve men to carry them—Richerson and Boyd convincingly demonstrate that culture and biology are inextricably linked, and they show us how to think about their interaction in a way that yields a richer understanding of human nature.
In abandoning the nature-versus-nurture debate as fundamentally misconceived, Not by Genes Alone is a truly original and groundbreaking theory of the role of culture in evolution and a book to be reckoned with for generations to come.
“I continue to be surprised by the number of educated people (many of them biologists) who think that offering explanations for human behavior in terms of culture somehow disproves the suggestion that human behavior can be explained in Darwinian evolutionary terms. Fortunately, we now have a book to which they may be directed for enlightenment . . . . It is a book full of good sense and the kinds of intellectual rigor and clarity of writing that we have come to expect from the Boyd/Richerson stable.”—Robin Dunbar, Nature
“Not by Genes Alone is a valuable and very readable synthesis of a still embryonic but very important subject straddling the sciences and humanities.”—E. O. Wilson, Harvard University
Product Details
- Amazon Sales Rank: #728425 in Books
- Published on: 2004-12-31
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Binding: Hardcover
- 342 pages
Editorial Reviews
Review
"Drawing on new ideas about multilevel selection, evolutionary psychology and . . . `strong reciprocity' (the bestowing of rewards and punishments even where there is no direct personal gain for this behavior), Richerson and Boyd build a case for a special role for cultural processes in human evolution. . . . It is a book full of good sense and the kinds of intellectual rigour and clarity that we have come to expect from [the authors]."-Robin Dunbar, Nature (Robin Dunbar Nature )
"Ambitious and wide-ranging. . . . The writing is lucid, even eloquent. . . . Richerson and Boyd have done a rare thing: Casting their net widely across a range of disciplines, in order to tackle the most complex phenomenon of our species, and they have achieved consilience. Read and ponder."-W. C. McGrew, Journal of Human Evolution (W. C. McGrew Journal of Human Evolution )
"Writing in a much more accessible form than they have before, Richerson and Boyd lay out their case for the role of culture in shaping the human mind and behavior. . . . . This book provides an excellent account of Richerson and Boyd''s theory, and is a must-read for anyone interested in gene-culture coevolution."-Susan Blackmore, Bioscience (Susan Blackmore Bioscience )
"[The] subject, the place of culture in human evolutionary dynamics, is relatively neglected, and is rarely as well debated as it is here. . . . Indeed, their text deserves to be considered by all of us in any field of archaeology."-Don Brothwell, Antiquity (Don Brothwell Antiquity )
"This is an important work that is sure to generate lively discussion on a topic crucial to our understanding of ourselves." (Northeastern Naturalist )
About the Author
Peter J. Richerson is professor of environmental science at the University of California, Davis. Robert Boyd is professor of anthropology at the University of California, Los Angeles. Prolific authors and editors, they coauthored Culture and the Evolutionary Process, published by the University of Chicago Press.
Customer Reviews
Culture? Or izzit still genetics in disguise?
I have to admit that with a title that makes as straighforward a declaration as this one does, I anticipated an imaginative, full frontal assault against the increasing dependence on genetics, DNA, & biology to explain our human nature. Instead, Richerson & Boyd divide the pie pretty equally among genetics, culture, and environment, noting that these three factors are mutually dependent and interactive. Fair enough, but I was disappointed how far they leaned into the genetics camp and how little they credit to human creativity. In fact, they state there really is no such thing as individual creativity but only individuals who are able to carry forth mass cultural trends that have been underway for some time. "Culture usually evolves by the accumulation of small variations" (p. 50). One should note here the early emphasis on the concept of evolution because their book turns out to take Darwin's foundational principles of biological evolution and directly apply them to cultural evolution. Culture, itself, they state, is an adaptation.
Other animals have exhibited certain local behaviour patterns that others have termed cultural, but "only humans show much evidence of *cumulative* cultural evolution. By cumulative cultural evolution, we mean behaviors or artifacts that are transmitted and modified over many generations, leading to complex artifacts and behaviors" (p. 107). In this way, complex artifacts are not "invented by individuals; they evolve gradually over many generations" (p. 107). So human cultural evolution, though not inspired by "great person breakthroughs" is still unique, depending as it does on external memory storage and teaching-learning. I liked this, as I am an educator.
I also liked the point that culture and genes co-evolve. Still it seems to me, they tend to see the human species in a more mechanical manner than is necessarily the case: Everything is ultimately done for survival. Cases where cultural choices like human sacrifice or mass witch-hunts have been undertaken are seen as mistaken attempts at survival. I wonder how this accounts for the suicide cults that have appeared and, not surprisingly, rapidly disappeared? They explain altruism or kindness in the same way, as leading to survival of the group. They even seem to disparage efforts to control population growth. Such efforts, mostly in the middle & upper classes of industrialized countries, are said to be the result of "selfish cultural variants" (p. 169). "Modern low fertility does not maximize fitness" (p. 173). Surely this puts them firmly in the evolutionary biology camp.
The writing is most often turgid & uninspired, with the many examples of cultural continuity or adaptation being local, mundane, & unimpresssive. They end by pleading for the wide acceptance of "a proper evolutionary theory of culture" since that "should make a major contribution to the unification of the social sciences" (p. 246). They call for the development of a mass of quantitative detail on cultural variation to equal the detail found in the study of genetic variation, simply equating the two.
I felt let down at the easy way cultural symbolism & artistic experession were simply dismissed by suggesting a little quatitative analysis would reveal them as simple functionalism. By now I was bored. By the time they snidely state that "So many older scientists try their hand at philosophy that it can practically be regarded as a normal sign of aging" (p. 254), I was glad to finish the book and close it.
Thoughtful and readable insights 
If you are curious as to why human behavior is often described in terms of culture or nature, and felt something was missing, this is a must read book. The authors make a thoughtful and readable presentation of their compelling insights into the mechanism of evolution as it applies to humans.
Nothing About Culture Makes Sense Except in Light of Evolution
All social scientists and psychologists should read this book, or another introduction to Dual-Inheritance Theory.
