Been reading about the nature vs. nurture debate, i.e. biological vs. cultural determinism. I like the proposition put forth by Richard Lewontin that says the debate is pretty much moot; yes, humans are biological creatures, but a distinctive fact of our biology–our consciousness–allows us to transcend our biology. For example: biologically speaking, humans cannot fly. However, our culture–which has created the social practice of science–comes up with airplanes. Our culture masters biology.
Another example: some may argue that biologically we are attracted to faces (blemish free, young) for sexual purposes. But our culture comes up with makeup, cosmetic surgery. Hence the issue transfers to an arena of cultural as opposed to biological discourse.
A movement in biological anthropology, represented by Richerson and Boyd (I forget their first names), argue in favor of bringing the scientific study of culture back to biology. Culture, they argue, co-evolved with humans. Humans who practiced a culturally healthy practice (like, for example, eating bitter herbs despite our biological distaste for them) would go on to pass those cultural practices on to other humans and/or their offspring.
Fair enough, I say, but there certainly is a limit to what they can say about this. I do not think you can apply the study of “cultural evolution” to modern cultures without simplification and stereotyping them. It’s not clear that Richerson and Boyd want to do this, but should their ideas translate to popular thought, that’s probably what it’s going to be. (i.e. Islam and Christianity; which is the fitter culture/religion?) On another level, it appears to me that the discussion of cultural evolution is not falsifiable, which questions its scientific nature.
I also wonder if they would be willing to accept the fact that science is a social activity. Science is deeply cultural. And if they’re saying that there is not ultimate “truth” about culture–it’s only a matter of what cultural practice endows the most fitness–then doesn’t this self-reflexive gaze destroy the credibility of what they’re doing? It’s the snake swallowing its own tail. If my culture of science tells me that culture is true only in a relative sense, then science must also be true only in a relative sense.
I’d also be curious about whether they’d attempt to apply cladistics to cultural evolution.
I haven’t thought deeply enough about these issues to produce a final opinion, but I do think that this interest in cultural evolution stems from Western culture’s obsession with competition. I’m not sure that it’s ultimately desirable or accurate to see every varying current in human existence as competitive ones. Our genes compete. Our sperm compete. Our species competes. Our race competes. Our country competes. We compete. Screaming beetches on America’s Next Top Model compete. May the best ___ win. It’s a profoundly linear, Western attitude.
I like Lewontin’s argument that humans create their own environments, like every other creature in the world. The environment does not exist; just by existing, we alter what is there. By breathing, we take in oxygen and add CO2 to the atmosphere. By eating, we change our environment. There is no static environment, and everything is changing all the time. Competition is only an activity of relativity.
Hence I refer to Leslie Marmon Silko’s statement that the earth is inviolable. By seeing everything in existence as a matter of desperate survival and competition and selfishness, we injure only ourselves. For a completely different example: If you kill someone out of greed and competition, then does that make you more successful? Success is relative. The universe goes on. Humans desecrate only themselves.
