Ideas about genes, traits, natural and sexual selection are often explained through species interactions. Yet, these concepts also apply to humans. Here, the key interactions happen between the sexes.
This is especially true with gene-culture coevolution. Here, genes and culture interact in a feedback loop. Changes in genes can shape culture. In turn, culture can influence genetic selection, and vice versa.
The promise of a socio-ecological imagination is that once there is a People, the interplay between the altruistic gene, traits, and sexual selection will create a context and culture in which its members learn and explore the depths of prosociality.
Perhaps it is the case that four million years ago, social learning became evolutionary advantageous. But we don’t have to go that far back to highlight that this is not a new idea but a new cycle of it.
For example, roughly 14,000 years ago, at the end of the Pleistocene epoch, the right conditions were in place for a ratcheting effect to drive a cumulative cultural evolution. It was a process of accumulating increasingly complex adaptations and cultural information.
It included behaviors and technologies that were modified, improved, and passed down from generation to generation. Knowledge that exceeded the innovative ability of any single individual created a People capable of initiating human civilization.
