The transition from gene to meme

Genes and the environment also work closely together when we consider the interaction and mutual influence of genes and culture. The sociobiologist Edward O. Wilson understands epigenetics in a slightly different way than geneticists do: with sufficient nutrition and care for a healthy infant and toddler, it cannot be prevented that a child learns to walk and talk, that it integrates more and more competently into a community, learns to distinguish between „good“ and „bad“, reaches puberty and at this point develops an interest in a different gender or perhaps their own. Epigenetic rules control what food we eat and that we quickly develop fears and phobias of snakes and arachnids. Epigenetic rules determine that we avoid sexual contact with close relatives, smile at our mothers as babies and fear strangers when we are alone. Many of these rules are ancient, such as those for language acquisition. The fact that we learn to speak is inherent in us, but which language we acquire depends on our environment, which is usually dominated by the mother in the first few months of life. And it is even more complex, because the environment dictates what we speak and what we speak about – English people, for example, like to talk about the weather.

Developmental psychologists know a large number of developmental stages of behavior that a human child goes through, and because almost all children do it in a similar way, it can be described as „species-appropriate“ for H. sapiens. And from this follows a „species-appropriate“ human culture. Human nature consists in the inherited regularities of mental development that are typical of our species. (Wilson 2013, p. 233). Anthropologists Lionel Tiger and Joseph Shepher advocate a similar concept. In their opinion, we humans have a basic form of social life that is inscribed in our genes and predetermined by evolution. They call it the human biogram (Christakis 2019, p. 105).

Phenotypic convergence

Similar challenges lead to similar solutions. This is a widespread principle in biology. There are only a limited number of adaptations to certain environmental conditions. If you want to orientate yourself in a light-flooded environment, you should develop a sensor for light. And so, as already mentioned, the eye has evolved more than 50 times across the animal kingdom. Even the particularly efficient lenticular eye has given rise to several groups of animals, including squid, vertebrates, some jellyfish and even annelids.

When Darwin studied the different species of Darwin’s finches on the Galapagos Islands, which are now named after him, he initially believed that they represented four of the bird species he knew from home: finches, hawfinches, blackbirds and wrens (Losos 2018, p. 28). In reality, the birds all belong to the descendants of a few finches that made it to the islands from the mainland. There they split into a total of 18 very closely related finch species.

What fooled Darwin is what biologists call „convergent evolution“: Organisms arrive at similar evolutionary solutions under similar environmental conditions. Many Australian birds are similar to bird species found in the northern hemisphere, such as warblers, sparrows, flycatchers, robins, nuthatches, etc., without being related to these species. The porcupine (Hystrix cristata) has an apparent relative in North America, the New World porcupine (Erethizontidae), and a second apparent relative in South America, the Coendou porcupine. The evolution of these animal species leads from different ancestors to similar survival strategies, expressed by their spiny armor. Jellyfish, scorpions, insects, snails and some fish species hunt or defend themselves with the same weapon, the venomous sting. Australian marsupial moles (Notoryctidae) and European moles use the same shoveling technique, while the hummingbird hawk moth, a butterfly, and the hummingbird bird use the same flying technique, including standing still in the air and flying backwards. Both species can suck nectar from flowers – once with the help of quinine wings and once with feathers.

Only the disappearance of the dinosaurs made it possible for mammals, including humans, to occupy most of the ecological niches on earth. But what would have happened if the dinosaurs had not been largely swept away by an asteroid impact 65 million years ago? The Canadian palaeontologist Dale Russel imagines Troodon, a dinosaur from the geological period of the late Upper Cretaceous and probably the most highly developed dinosaur, as the possible ancestor of an intelligent branch of these animals. Troodon is thought to have an intelligence similar to that of modern birds. If the brain of the troodon grew larger in the course of the fictitious development towards intelligence, this would require a larger brain shell. Heavier heads are easier to balance if they are positioned above the body’s center of gravity and are reasonably spherical. In the case of the Troodon, this would result in the body becoming more upright. The tail would then be superfluous and fall victim to evolution. What Russel ultimately imagines, a „dinosaurid“, would look astonishingly human, precisely because evolution does not have any number of paths open to it.

Co-evolution of body and culture

The concept of „co-evolution“ in the animal kingdom is well illustrated by insects and flowering plants: Bees didn’t somehow evolve and then look to see where they could find nectar. And plants have not developed magnificent flowers in the hope that a bee will drop by at some point. Rather, this development must have taken place in small steps over millions of years, with plants and insects influencing each other, with the developments of one side representing necessary evolutionary steps for the other.

This is precisely how nature and human culture have developed in mutual dependence: To genetic evolution, natural selection has added the parallel track of cultural evolution. (Wilson 2000, p. 175). The mutual influence between genes and cultural behaviors is also called „double heredity theory“ or „biocultural evolution“ (Christakis 2019, p. 407). Man’s culture and his genetic adaptations to it influence each other; man would not have become man without his cultural achievements. „Perhaps human nature itself is essentially a product of cultural evolution influencing human genetic evolution through a systematic, large-scale Baldwin effect“ (Richerson et al. 2010).

It was an environment that probably changed from forest to tree-covered grassland as a result of climate change that initiated the human evolution. As humans evolved into humans in the course of this climate change, their physical characteristics changed. The big toes of our ancestors thicken and shorten, the legs stretch. The pelvis, hip joints and spine adapt to the upright gait. (Walter 2008, p. 41). Bipedalism is an extremely useful adaptation, especially in grasslands. Roaming is essential for hunting, hunter-gatherer peoples that still exist today, such as the Bushmen of the Kalahari, cover ten to thirteen kilometers a day in search of food. (Walter 2008, p. 45). As a result of this new way of life, the genus Homo also lost its body hair due to a number of mutations and developed sweat glands instead. This new cooling system enabled our ancestors to run for longer, hunt and flee better.

Compared to us humans, chimpanzees use a third more energy for locomotion. In addition to the advantage of needing less energy to move around, the upright gait allows a wide view of the open savannah landscape. Our ancient ancestors can now carry sharp-edged stones for carving up carcasses and have their hands free for throwing stones or spears with which they can hunt game. They learn to throw objects more powerfully and accurately, a prerequisite for starting a successful hunting career. Targeted throwing is a highly complex process that requires not only anatomical adaptations but also a high level of brain computation. In principle, chimpanzees are able to throw almost precisely, but only reach a throwing speed of approx. 30 km/h. Experienced human throwers reach a throwing speed of up to 175 km/h (Dönges 2013).

The most striking parallel development of genes and softgenes is the growth in the size of the brain and the emergence of increasingly complex cultural achievements. The brain is our biggest energy guzzler. It accounts for only two percent of body weight, but consumes around twenty percent of the energy and nutrients in the human body. With the increase in brain volume, there must also have been a switch to a more energy-rich diet. The two are mutually dependent and were achieved with the help of stone tools and hunting weapons.

The oldest known stone tools date from the time of H. rudolfensis from 2.6 to 1.6 million years ago and are assigned to the Oldowan culture. H. rudolfensis is therefore also considered to be the oldest representative of the genus „Homo“. It learned to make hammerstones – probably initially to open hard-shelled fruit, crack nuts or break open roots and tubers that it dug up with other tools. In addition to hammerstones, archaeologists from this period have also found sharp-edged flakes of larger stones. And these open up completely new resources. A chimpanzee does not disdain meat, but only smaller vertebrates and insects, which make up perhaps five to ten percent of the chimpanzee’s diet (Ewe 2009). It would starve to death in front of an elephant carcass because it would hardly be able to take a bite out of this mountain of meat. When the first hominids developed stone tools, this is exactly what became possible with the help of sharp stone chips: carcasses of large animals became an additional source of food. The switch from a low-energy plant-based diet to a higher proportion of energy-rich animal proteins allowed for a shorter digestive tract. More energy-rich food plus less laborious digestion opens up the option of a larger brain. Since then, fire has also accompanied humans. Access to cooked food initiated major changes in the human diet, which are reflected in the genome – without cooked food, modern humans can probably hardly feed themselves. Potatoes, rice, pasta and bread would not be available, nor would manioc, green beans or rhubarb, which are poisonous when eaten raw. And all in all, it would be difficult to cover even the basic calorie requirements with raw food; moreover, important trace elements such as vitamins D, B2, B12 and niacin as well as the minerals zinc, calcium and iodine would be missing (Strassner 1998). Bacteria in raw milk or salmonella in eggs or meat, which would otherwise be killed by heating, also pose a health risk. This is especially true in warm climates.

The invention of hunting weapons marks the transition from the hunted to the highly successful hunter. At the same time, the behavior of our ancestors must have changed radically. New, more innovative tools and hunting techniques were invented and more complex hunting strategies were practiced. This in turn increases hunting success. The volume of the brain can continue to increase and the spiral towards greater efficiency can continue.

Fossil finds of sharpened wooden spears suggest that H. erectus (earliest evidence approx. 1.85 million years ago) had already developed an optimized physionomy for throwing. The first hand wedges also appear with H. erectus in the Acheuléen culture 1.75 million years ago. Today’s human hands have a very special and unique anatomy, they are highly developed gripping tools. The fingers have flat nails instead of claws. Compared to all other primates, the thumb is elongated and opposable. It enables the thumb, index and middle fingers to grip a worked stone or hold it with the „basket grip“ of all five fingers and move it with all five fingers. For H. erectus, the increased dexterity of the hands enabled greater hunting success and better processing of the prey. These hands make the Hominidae masters of tool use in general. The resulting improved feeding possibilities open up options for an even larger brain. The development of the musculoskeletal system in relation to the use of stone tools and throwing weapons continues in a process of co-evolution. These advances are passed on from generation to generation through cultural transmission and also lead to evolutionary changes in the cognitive abilities and behaviors of pre-humanity.

Without the corresponding knowledge of hunting weapons and techniques, genes that enable precise and powerful throwing would be superfluous. After all, who would need genes for javelin throwing if they didn’t know how to make such a projectile? The general rule in biology is: „use it or lose it“. What is not used will eventually disappear from the gene pool.

Tool use, however, cannot be genetically inherited, or only in an extremely rudimentary way. The use of bow and arrow has not been genetically encoded in our DNA, and not every single individual can invent the manufacture and use of a hunting bow from scratch. It follows that only the constant and reliably accurate passing on of such skills via learning processes guarantees a refined use of objects or even the production of complicated tools. However, in order to be able to pass on this constantly growing knowledge precisely and reliably, pre-humans must develop an efficient form of passing on knowledge: language. This requires fine control of breathing with a corresponding change in the muscles of the diaphragm and the chest (Blackmore 2000, p. 155).

Let there be man

No chimpanzee is able to play a song by Elton John on a piano (Neuweiler 2005). Not that he lacks musicality – perhaps he does – but the real reason lies in the lack of fine motor skills in his hands. He still lacks the ability to command his fingers to perform these rapid movements. And he is also unable to perform these precise finger movements in the required quantity one after the other.

No chimpanzee could sing an Elton John song to the sound of the piano. Again, this is not primarily due to a lack of musicality, but to the fact that no chimpanzee can articulate. This is also due to the lack of fine motor skills: he cannot control the facial and laryngeal muscles as precisely and quickly as would be necessary. It is noteworthy that improved control over dexterity and facial expressions is already apparent in primates, but the ability to articulate speech is not yet.

Movement control in mammals is based on three hierarchical levels: Small neuronal networks in the spinal cord send signals as the lowest instance, e.g. to the motor neurons that extend from the spinal cord to the muscles. In principle, the spinal cord can already control the basic movements of locomotion, for example. This is the reason why decapitated chickens can still run for a short time while flapping their wings. These neuronal networks learn which movement patterns are currently required from the hierarchically superior hindbrain. In the course of evolution, this control center in turn comes under the control of the motor cortex, which runs like a ribbon over the vertex. The premotor area immediately in front of it, as part of the motor cortex, ultimately provides the commands for the temporally and spatially coordinated movements. Sensory perceptions and associations are also integrated into this process.

In the course of human evolution, an innovation is in the offing, an achievement that has already changed primate behavior in many respects. (Neuweiler 2005, p. 27). An expressway is created that bypasses control by the hindbrain via the so-called pyramidal tract and also bypasses the spinal cord center, so that the forebrain now gains direct control over the movement neurons. This direct connection between the cerebral cortex and muscle neurons is probably the basis of the special dexterity of primates, as well as humans. (Neuweiler 2005, p. 27). Monkeys and humans can move individual fingers, cats cannot. In particular, the hand and finger muscles are controlled via this highway, and in humans also the arm and shoulder muscles. This is why humans are able to throw with pinpoint accuracy, whereas a monkey can barely drive a nail with a hammer.

Area F5

What makes humans most likely to be aliens on this planet is their competence as manipulators, but above all as articulators. The rich repertoire of chimpanzee sounds is not learned by the children of apes, but is innate. The area of the brain responsible for this differs from the language regions in the human brain. And this is the crux of the matter: the brain region known as F5 controls the fine motor skills of the hands and facial expressions in primates, but not their vocalizations. In humans, however, the F5 area is congruent with the speech center, Broca’s area. In humans, this area is involved in speech and – as in primates – in controlling the fine motor skills of hand and finger activities. It is therefore not surprising that we communicate not only with sounds but also with gestures. The dual role of Broca’s area in the control of fine motor skills and human language suggests that language developed from the increasing manual dexterity of primates, which includes the rapidly differentiating facial expressions. (Neuweiler 2005, p. 31).

„Speaking skills“ and „language“ belong together. The ability to speak is genetic, but it only makes sense if there is something worth speaking. Language in humans develops from the brain region that is designed for fine motor skills. Fine motor skills, in turn, develop as a need to create and manipulate tools. In turn, being able to make tools requires learning through imitation. Imitation becomes safer and more efficient when learning is reinforced through language instruction.

We see an intimate intertwining of the use of tools, the adaptation of motor skills to the use of tools and the development of language, i.e. an overall interdependence of human nature and culture. Language was at least helpful, if not necessary, for the transmission of tool production and how tools should be used. The complexity of cultural tools evolved reciprocally with the improvement of the fine motor control of these tools and the development of language. Humans with their current genome are therefore inconceivable without the development of their culture and, conversely, the evolution of human culture is inconceivable without the genetic development of H. sapiens. The full extent of culture-driven gene-culture coevolution in the depths of human history is still largely unknown, but evidence suggests that such effects were profound (Richerson et al. 2010).

High-speed co-evolution

Evolution can progress relatively quickly, and this is no different in humans. Today, for example, we have significantly more gene copies for the production of the enzyme amylase than our hunting ancestors and this allows us to digest carbohydrates much better – obviously an adaptation to the emergence of agriculture perhaps 12,000 years ago. The mutation in favor of multiple copies of the AMY1B gene, which controls the production of amylase, can be detected in members of agricultural peoples, but not in hunter-gatherers or even in Neanderthals and Denisovans, who managed without agriculture. What is even more impressive is that this genetic change can be detected not only in humans, but even in the dogs domesticated by them! Wolves only have two copies of the AMY2B gene. Dogs, on the other hand, have more than two copies. Apparently, they are also selected in this direction in the course of the beginning agricultural economy, when starchy food is available on a larger scale (Shipman 2021).

The skin of Europeans becomes lighter in color depending on latitude, as lighter skin allows for more efficient synthesis of vitamin D. This mutation occurs in areas where agriculture is introduced, depending on the change in diet to cereals. This is because cereals contain hardly any vitamin D. Agriculture and skin lightening are therefore mutually dependent, i.e. a kind of co-evolution of genes and cultural components. Another genetic adaptation due to nutrition can be found in the far north. There, where agriculture is not possible, the Inuit of Greenland develop a more efficient fat metabolism from their animal-based, very high-fat diet.

A major genetic change that occurred less than 7,500 years ago was initiated by cattle farming. Acquired independently in some African and European populations, it favors genetically fixed lactose tolerance. Holders of this gene variant can also digest milk and dairy products as adults without any problems. The lactose persistence allele (LP allele) gives its carriers an enormous selective advantage. (Curry 2016)

(An allele corresponds to a specific DNA sequence of a gene at a specific location in the genome. For example, in pea plants there is a different allele for the expression of the flower color white or purple. Depending on this, the pea plants then flower in the respective color).

Carriers with the LP allele produce up to 19 percent more offspring in the next generation than people without the LP allele. A few hundred generations are enough to help the LP allele achieve a continent-wide breakthrough. Recent research estimates that it will take around 3,000 years for this gene variant to become widely established in Central Europe (Fischer 2020). However, only where sufficient fresh milk was available and dairy farming was practiced. We can also see this in this example: Genes and cultural techniques co-evolve, they complement and benefit from each other. (Curry 2016).

However, the LP allele not only made it possible to be a cattle breeder, but may have been decisive for war during the Mongol campaigns against China. Mongolian horsemen have the adult LP allele and can thus feed on the energy-rich milk of their mounts. As a result, they needed a much smaller cavalcade for food and were more mobile than the Chinese army – a potentially decisive advantage in war!

In fact, culture and genes are so closely linked that even sociological correlations can be proven: The transition to a world of property, hierarchy and patriarchy can also be proven genetically. (Krause 2021, p. 160).

It is possible that human nature itself has become more and more a product of our cultural evolution. The process of cultural evolution could play an active role in the evolution of genes, because human culture develops rapidly, creating new challenges that put genes under selective pressure.

Cultural convergence

Similar challenges lead to similar solutions. Thus, different human populations have achieved different solutions to the same adaptive problem. „The genes underlying the light skin adaptation to increase photosynthesis of vitamin D in cold, low-sun environments differ in eastern and western Eurasia“ (Jablonski & Chaplin 2010).

What applies to the body of organisms also applies to the same extent to human culture. The development of human cultures is predictably remarkably uniform. David Hume (1711-1776) already noticed this parallelism when he wrote: It is generally admitted that there is a great regularity in human actions among all nations and at all times. Men are so much the same in all times and places, that history offers us nothing new or strange in this respect. (Hume 1748 (1869)).

If we assume here that the development of human culture is subject to evolution, then the similarities between the various human cultures are obvious. They are based on the fundamental biological and psychological nature of man, on his environment and the universal conditions of human existence, i.e. on epigenetics as Wilson understands it. Or, as Hume puts it: The ambition, the avarice, the self-love, the vanity, the enmity, the nobility, the public spirit; all these passions, in various mixtures and cures, have formed among men from the beginning of the world, and still do, the source of all actions and enterprises among men (Hume 1748 (1869)). Our feelings of anger, fear, tension, trust, surprise, sadness, joy or disgust are part of human nature and we share them at least with our closer relatives in the animal kingdom. They are inherent in humans over a long phylogenetic development. The successes and failures of all generations before us have flowed into our emotional balance and have been stored in our genes.

While humans have colonized diverse ecological environments, from the icy steppes of the north to the hot and humid jungles around the equator, there is one outstanding constant everywhere: the most important feature of the human environment, past and present, is the presence of other humans. Humans have adapted primarily to this. This is the adaptive explanation, both for the social emotional world of H. sapiens and the reason for the many other similarities that characterize us humans across the world.

The common cultural traits are related to language, diet, housing, art, mythology, interpersonal interaction and attitudes to property, power and war (Christakis 2019, p. 30). Music fulfills similar functions in all cultures around the world: such as singing to calm children or put them to sleep, music for courtship, when working together, in war and, last but not least, in a religious context, for example to induce trance. (Willems et al. 2017).

Building blocks that we can find in almost every culture can be seen as the basic structure of our cultural DNA. According to ethnologist George Peter Murdock, these are universals: Religious rituals, soul concepts, eschatology, cosmology, superstition, dream interpretation, magic, divination, belief in faith healing, medicine, surgery, pregnancy customs, obstetrics, post-natal care, funeral rituals, hygiene, cleanliness education, dietary laws, laws, property rights, domestic law, government formation, class differences, population policy, settlement principles, communal organizations, punitive actions, expiatory sacrifices, inheritance rules, sexual prohibitions, incest taboos, puberty behaviour, courtship, marriage, meal habits, family celebrations, education, kinship groupings, kinship nomenclature, age group differentiation, labor cooperation and division of labor, trade, gardening, calendars, weather observation, tool factories, weaving, use of fire, cooking, language, ethics, etiquette, folklore, gifts, forms of greeting, gestures, visiting customs, hospitality, games, dance, sport, jokes, hairstyles, body ornaments, ornamental art, personal names.  (Wilson 2000, p. 198).

The similarities in the characteristics of the various cultures are not limited to those cultural universals that we find almost everywhere, such as clothing and huts, music, dance and body adornments. Cultural developments are context-dependent; they are not entirely independent of the environment in which they arise. The invention of nets for fishing can only be made where people discover the water as a hunting ground. Livestock farming developed in places where it was difficult to grow grain. In regions where neither agriculture nor livestock farming is possible, e.g. in polar regions, a hunting culture is logically maintained.

The emergence of advanced civilizations on the Euro-Asian continents and the American double continent did not take place at the same time, but was surprisingly analogous: With the end of the Ice Age, the main food source „big game“ dries up in Eurasia and America. As a result, the Eurasians and the nomadic inhabitants of Central America gradually changed their way of life from the 10th millennium BC. Both here and there, people began to use wild plants more intensively and to cultivate them.

On the American double continent, especially in the Andes and in Mexico, permanently inhabited villages emerged in the 5th millennium BC. At the same time, more and more plant species and some animals were domesticated. Around 4400 BC, ceramic technology emerged in ancient America and around 3,300 years BC, the first cities and hierarchically organized societies with powerful elites developed from the village communities. The foundation on which the advanced civilizations of the Olmecs, Maya and Incas, as well as the advanced civilizations of Eurasia, were built, was based on a development phase lasting thousands of years towards a productive agriculture (Gendron 2013).

The parallels are most impressive when it comes to monumental buildings: In Eurasia as on the American double continent, huge pyramids are piled up for cultic purposes. Almost all religions erect places of worship, temples, synagogues or cathedrals, depending on the size and ability of the population, no matter where in the world. Pictorial writings, number systems and a mathematics to match are created, on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean.

We therefore find good arguments for considering both the human body and its culture to have been shaped by evolution. The further question is: Is there an underlying principle between man as an organism and man as a cultural being? A link that connects us, so to speak, body and spirit, nature and culture of man? We will address these questions next.