For Robert Boyd, the evolution of our culture is as biological—and critical—as the evolution of our pelvises. (From the archive)
Robert Boyd is Origins Professor at Arizona State University’s School of Human Evolution and Social Change and the co-author of Not By Genes Alone , which sets out his case for what’s known as dual inheritance, the co-equal importance of genes and culture in shaping the human story.
A: That’s right. There’s no ghost in the machine. We’re not angels separate from the rest of creation, only a strikingly different kind of animal. From a scientific point of view, it’s a really interesting question as to why that is, how it works.A: The idea that there are distinct cultural and biological explanations is a fundamental mistake. There are genetic explanations and cultural explanations all right, but together they make human biology.
Q: You like to illustrate this with what you call the “lost European explorer’ example—smart people starving or freezing to death in an environment that has always supported locals. In this country, Arctic explorer Sir John Franklin comes immediately to mind. A: Sure, but adaptations in the tropics were in some ways equally spectacular, but more subtle. In that Fijian village where I worked, they harvest about 400 species of animals off the reef, and 20 per cent of them are toxic. And they know which ones and how to neutralize the toxins. There’s a tropical adaptation that doesn’t show up as obviously as a kayak, but is just as valuable.
Q: That means humans, whether adapting to change where they are or moving into new environments—say, the Arctic—can master what they need in tools and knowledge in a few centuries rather than a few millennia?
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