Is the Genus Ave in Organic Evolution, but Not in Cultural Evolution?

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The genus ave was meant to be replicated from the kind of association with jeans, in a way. I mean, certai, richard darkins, is in favor of thinking about meams as an important method of cultural transmission. Ad ironically, though, i think that the despite wanting to free itself from the material basis of genius, it is actually exactly those kinds of properties that makes the genus ave work so well in organic evolution,. but not in cultural evolution.

One of the brilliant achievements of Darwin’s theory of natural selection was to help explain apparently “purposeful” or “designed” aspects of biology in a purely mechanistic theory of unguided evolution. Features are good if they help organisms survive. But should we put organisms at the center of our attention, or the genetic information that governs those features? Arvid Ågren helps us understand the attraction of the “selfish gene” view of evolution, as well as its shortcomings. This biological excursion has deep connections to philosophical issues of levels and emergence.

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Arvid Ågren received his Ph.D. in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from the University of Toronto. He is currently a Wenner-Gren Fellow at the Evolutionary Biology Centre at Uppsala University. Previously he worked at Cornell and Harvard. His recent book is The Gene’s-Eye View of Evolution.

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