<p>"evidence of recent co-evolution between genes and large-scale culture</p>

<p>This <a href="https://journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol/article?id=10.1371/journal.pcbi.1006504" rel="nofollow noreferrer">2018 PLOS Computation Biology simulation study - The Cultural Brain Hypothesis</a> examined the data from animals and humans. It found a relationship between brain size, adaptive knowledge, social learning, group size, and lifespan across the animal kingdom.</p>

<blockquote>
  <ul>
  <li>relationships between brain size, group size, innovation, social learning, mating structures, and the length of the juvenile period that are supported by the existing empirical literature.</li>
  </ul>
</blockquote>

<p>The study found evidence of cumulative cultural evolution explaining the brain human sizes. </p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-08-17T12:04:46.233Z
2019-08-17T12:04:46.233Z
Poidah
<p>Recently, <a href="http://www2.psych.ubc.ca/~henrich/Published.html" rel="noreferrer">Joseph Henrich</a> of UBC has been <a href="http://edge.org/conversation/how-culture-drove-human-evolution" rel="noreferrer">promoting his cultural brain hypothesis</a>. The goal is to explain a selection pressure behind the development of the human brain and general intelligence. The basic premise is that our brains evolved to be better and better at accurately replicating cultural information (or memes) between generations. A secondary part of his hypothesis is that there was a tight co-evolution between culture and the genes that shape us.</p>

<p>This seems contrary to the more orthodox thinking of that genes shaped the base of humans largely without large-scale culture (when we were small hunter-gatherer tribes and thus culture was minimal), and then recently (on an evolutionary time scale) large-scale culture 'turned on' and there has not been a sufficient time for this to produce large genetic differences. In simplest terms, the co-evolution was minimal and instead we should think of the key players being gene evolution followed by cultural evolution (on different timescales).</p>

<p>To confuse things further, some scientists (like <a href="http://personal.lse.ac.uk/Kanazawa/" rel="noreferrer">Satoshi Kanazawa</a> of LSE) <a href="http://www.economist.com/blogs/prospero/2012/06/quick-study-satoshi-kanazawa-intelligence" rel="noreferrer">view</a> most of what we associated with the 'perks' of human brain (such as general intelligence) as mal-adaptive on the individual level. Thus there seems to be a large distinction between the 3 general threads, which raises the question:</p>

<p><strong>What is the key evidence for the cultural brain hypothesis and gene-culture co-evolution?</strong></p>

<p>The only evidence I know of potential recent co-evolution of culture and genes is <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1904158/" rel="noreferrer">Dediu &amp; Ladd's (2007)</a> suggestion that the split between tonal and atonal languages is related to a recent (~6k years ago) mutation in the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASPM_(gene)" rel="noreferrer">ASPM gene</a>. <strong>Is there other evidence of recent co-evolution between genes and large-scale culture?</strong></p>

<hr>

<h3>Related questions</h3>

<ul>
<li><p><a href="https://linguistics.stackexchange.com/q/2532/33">Do atonal languages have a tonal ancestor?</a></p></li>
<li><p><a href="https://cogsci.stackexchange.com/q/1595/29">Is religiousness a genetically heritable feature?</a></p></li>
</ul>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2012-09-08T21:42:57.160Z
are you interested strictly in genetics or epigenetics as well (particularly, changes in how genes are expressed)?
Keegan Keplinger
CC BY-SA 3.0
2012-09-09T15:37:40.437Z
@TimTyler your answer was converted to a comment because we're looking for long answers that provide some explanation and context. Please feel free to expand your comment into with more detail and post it as an answer again. Then you'll be able to get upvotes on your answer.
Josh
CC BY-SA 3.0
2012-09-10T02:29:13.007Z
[Milot, et al. (2011)](http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2011/09/28/1104210108.abstract?sid=95497560-b043-4ba4-bca5-6592c1cf584c) provide evidence of relatively large change in behavior linked to genetics in a Québécois community over a short period of 140 years. Thus, the genetic change affecting behavior on small timescales is definitely possible, just need to exhibit a stronger link to co-evolution with culture.
Artem Kaznatcheev
CC BY-SA 4.0
2018-08-05T19:11:38.897Z
Probably the fact that the neolithic revolution coincided with large extinctions in Y haplogroups. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4381518/ But of course it could still be a coincidence. "Evolution" and  "recent" don't go too well together, so did you really mean to ask your question like that "evidence of recent co-evolution" not "recent 
 evidence of co-evolution"?
got trolled too much this week
CC BY-SA 4.0
2018-08-05T19:19:48.720Z
The edge.org article you link says "One of the ideas I've been pursuing is that after the origins of agriculture, there was an intense period that continues today of intergroup competition"... which has actually been "proven" (if you don't find the coincidence as the likely explanation) by the Karmin paper in my previous comment.
got trolled too much this week
CC BY-SA 4.0
2018-08-05T20:17:52.410Z
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-04375-6 supposedly has some math models to in support of Karmin's result being less than a coincidence. I didn't read the details.
got trolled too much this week
CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-05-24T09:47:28.313Z
Excellently phrased question. However, as a psychologist who's published on culture and cognition, I want to note that some psychologists don't think culture is a meaningful word due to imprecision. For psychologists, it's problematic to conceptualize constructs that occur outside of individual minds. Also, in what sense would hunter gatherers not have a culture? They have norms, moral stories, narratives, hierarchies—sounds like rich culture.
Cameron Brick
<intelligence><evolution><philosophy-of-mind>
Cultural brain hypothesis and gene-culture co-evolution
Artem Kaznatcheev
# Cultural brain hypothesis and gene-culture co-evolution

(Asked by: username_0 on 2012-09-08)

Recently, [Joseph Henrich](http://www2.psych.ubc.ca/~henrich/Published.html) of UBC has been [promoting his cultural brain hypothesis](http://edge.org/conversation/how-culture-drove-human-evolution). The goal is to explain a selection pressure behind the development of the human brain and general intelligence. The basic premise is that our brains evolved to be better and better at accurately replicating cultural information (or memes) between generations. A secondary part of his hypothesis is that there was a tight co-evolution between culture and the genes that shape us.

This seems contrary to the more orthodox thinking of that genes shaped the base of humans largely without large-scale culture (when we were small hunter-gatherer tribes and thus culture was minimal), and then recently (on an evolutionary time scale) large-scale culture 'turned on' and there has not been a sufficient time for this to produce large genetic differences. In simplest terms, the co-evolution was minimal and instead we should think of the key players being gene evolution followed by cultural evolution (on different timescales).

To confuse things further, some scientists (like [Satoshi Kanazawa](http://personal.lse.ac.uk/Kanazawa/) of LSE) [view](http://www.economist.com/blogs/prospero/2012/06/quick-study-satoshi-kanazawa-intelligence) most of what we associated with the 'perks' of human brain (such as general intelligence) as mal-adaptive on the individual level. Thus there seems to be a large distinction between the 3 general threads, which raises the question:

**What is the key evidence for the cultural brain hypothesis and gene-culture co-evolution?**

The only evidence I know of potential recent co-evolution of culture and genes is [Dediu & Ladd's (2007)](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1904158/) suggestion that the split between tonal and atonal languages is related to a recent (~6k years ago) mutation in the [ASPM gene](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASPM_(gene)). **Is there other evidence of recent co-evolution between genes and large-scale culture?**

---

### Related questions

* [Do atonal languages have a tonal ancestor?](https://linguistics.stackexchange.com/q/2532/33)
* [Is religiousness a genetically heritable feature?](https://cogsci.stackexchange.com/q/1595/29)

**Tags:** intelligence, evolution, philosophy-of-mind

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: are you interested strictly in genetics or epigenetics as well (particularly, changes in how genes are expressed)?  
> **username_2**: @TimTyler your answer was converted to a comment because we're looking for long answers that provide some explanation and context. Please feel free to expand your comment into with more detail and post it as an answer again. Then you'll be able to get upvotes on your answer.  
> **username_0**: [Milot, et al. (2011)](http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2011/09/28/1104210108.abstract?sid=95497560-b043-4ba4-bca5-6592c1cf584c) provide evidence of relatively large change in behavior linked to genetics in a Québécois community over a short period of 140 years. Thus, the genetic change affecting behavior on small timescales is definitely possible, just need to exhibit a stronger link to co-evolution with culture.  
> **username_3**: Probably the fact that the neolithic revolution coincided with large extinctions in Y haplogroups. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4381518/ But of course it could still be a coincidence. "Evolution" and  "recent" don't go too well together, so did you really mean to ask your question like that "evidence of recent co-evolution" not "recent   evidence of co-evolution"?  
> **username_3**: The edge.org article you link says "One of the ideas I've been pursuing is that after the origins of agriculture, there was an intense period that continues today of intergroup competition"... which has actually been "proven" (if you don't find the coincidence as the likely explanation) by the Karmin paper in my previous comment.  
> **username_3**: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-04375-6 supposedly has some math models to in support of Karmin's result being less than a coincidence. I didn't read the details.  
> **username_4**: Excellently phrased question. However, as a psychologist who's published on culture and cognition, I want to note that some psychologists don't think culture is a meaningful word due to imprecision. For psychologists, it's problematic to conceptualize constructs that occur outside of individual minds. Also, in what sense would hunter gatherers not have a culture? They have norms, moral stories, narratives, hierarchies—sounds like rich culture.  

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## 1 answers

### Answer by username_5 on 2019-08-17. Score: 2

"evidence of recent co-evolution between genes and large-scale culture

This [2018 PLOS Computation Biology simulation study - The Cultural Brain Hypothesis](https://journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol/article?id=10.1371/journal.pcbi.1006504) examined the data from animals and humans. It found a relationship between brain size, adaptive knowledge, social learning, group size, and lifespan across the animal kingdom.

> * relationships between brain size, group size, innovation, social learning, mating structures, and the length of the juvenile period that are supported by the existing empirical literature.

The study found evidence of cumulative cultural evolution explaining the brain human sizes.


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