Culture Fueling Evolution (03-02-10)

The culture we have created is now affecting our genetic evolution and influencing the ways that we interact with the world around us:  “Many genes for taste and smell show signs of selective pressure,” for example.  As humans monitor the ways that their interactions with the natural world evolve, the information collected can help us understand the place-related cultural memories (memes) that linger from our struggle for survival on the savanna.  These include the fact that we are drawn toward warm colors (think: fire), that around the world our favorite color is blue (think: sky on a pleasant day), that we enjoy experiencing dappled light, such as that found under a tree on a pleasant day, our feelings that lines or curves at particular orientations are calming or stimulating, and that we find sharp jagged shapes disturbing.  The data collected may help us understand our responses to particular smells as well as color hues, saturation levels, and brightness intensities, for example.  As Wade states, “The selective signals [have the potential] to bring to light salient events in human prehistory as modern humans dispersed from the ancestral homeland in northeast Africa and adapted to novel environments.”

Nicholas Wade.  2010. “Human Culture, an Evolutionary Force.” New York Times, March 1.