Human culture subject to natural selection, Stanford study shows

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Functional traits (top) for Polynesian canoes may affect whether a voyage for fishing warfare or colonization succeeds. In box A a detail of outrigger attachments on a Tahitian canoe in B a Samoan canoe sewn together with sennit (coconut fiber cord) ...
Functional traits (top) for Polynesian canoes may affect whether a voyage for fishing, warfare or colonization succeeds. In box A, a detail of outrigger attachments on a Tahitian canoe; in B, a Samoan canoe “sewn” together with sennit (coconut fiber cord); in C, a canoe from Manihiki showing a pattern of sewn washstrake pieces. Symbolic traits, bottom, for Polynesian canoes presumably have no differential effect on survival from group to group. In box A, a painted paddle from Rapanui (Easter Island) alongside a face tattoo from the Marquesas Islands; in B, a canoe from Manihiki decorated with inlaid shell; in C, a carved figurehead on Maori war canoe.
The process of natural selection can act on human culture as well as on genes, a new study finds. Scientists at Stanford University have shown for the first time that cultural traits affecting survival and reproduction evolve at a different rate than other cultural attributes. Speeded or slowed rates of evolution typically indicate the action of natural selection in analyses of the human genome.


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