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Not by Genes Alone: How Culture Transformed Human Evolution First Paperback Edition

by Peter J. Richerson (Author), Robert Boyd (Author)

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Humans are a striking anomaly in the natural world. While we are similar to other mammals in many ways, our behavior sets us apart. Our unparalleled ability to adapt has allowed us to occupy virtually every habitat on earth using an incredible variety of tools and subsistence techniques. Our societies are larger, more complex, and more cooperative than any other mammal's. In this stunning exploration of human adaptation, Peter J. Richerson and Robert Boyd argue that only a Darwinian theory of cultural evolution can explain these unique characteristics.

Not by Genes Alone offers a radical interpretation of human evolution, arguing that our ecological dominance and our singular social systems stem from a psychology uniquely adapted to create complex culture. Richerson and Boyd illustrate here that culture is neither superorganic nor the handmaiden of the genes. Rather, it is essential to human adaptation, as much a part of human biology as bipedal locomotion. Drawing on work in the fields of anthropology, political science, sociology, and economics—and building their case with such fascinating examples as kayaks, corporations, clever knots, and yams that require twelve men to carry them—Richerson and Boyd convincingly demonstrate that culture and biology are inextricably linked, and they show us how to think about their interaction in a way that yields a richer understanding of human nature.

In abandoning the nature-versus-nurture debate as fundamentally misconceived, Not by Genes Alone is a truly original and groundbreaking theory of the role of culture in evolution and a book to be reckoned with for generations to come.

“I continue to be surprised by the number of educated people (many of them biologists) who think that offering explanations for human behavior in terms of culture somehow disproves the suggestion that human behavior can be explained in Darwinian evolutionary terms. Fortunately, we now have a book to which they may be directed for enlightenment . . . . It is a book full of good sense and the kinds of intellectual rigor and clarity of writing that we have come to expect from the Boyd/Richerson stable.”—Robin Dunbar, Nature

“Not by Genes Alone is a valuable and very readable synthesis of a still embryonic but very important subject straddling the sciences and humanities.”—E. O. Wilson, Harvard University

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About the Author

Peter J. Richerson is professor of environmental science at the University of California, Davis.

Robert Boyd is professor of anthropology at the University of California, Los Angeles. Prolific authors and editors, they coauthored Culture and the Evolutionary Process, published by the University of Chicago Press.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ University of Chicago Press; First Paperback Edition (June 1, 2006)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 342 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0226712125
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0226712123
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.05 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 8.88 x 6.7 x 0.83 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #205,550 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #174 in General Anthropology
- #543 in Cultural Anthropology (Books)
- #599 in History & Philosophy of Science (Books)

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Peter J. Richerson

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Peter J. Richerson Is Distinguished Professor Emeritus in the Department of Environmental Science and Policy at the University of California—Davis. His research focuses on the processes of cultural evolution. His 1985 book with Robert Boyd, Culture and the Evolutionary Process, applied the mathematical tools used by organic evolutionists to study a number of basic problems in human cultural evolution. His later books with Boyd include Not By Genes Alone: How Culture Transformed Human Evolution, an introduction to cultural evolution aimed at a broad audience and The Origins and Evolution of Cultures, a compendium of their more important papers and book chapters. He has recently co-edited a book Cultural Evolution with Morten Christiansen reporting the results of a Strüngmann Forum. His recent publications used theoretical models to try to understand some of the main events in human evolution, such as the evolution of the advanced capacity for imitation (and hence cumulative cultural evolution) in humans, the origins of tribal and larger scale cooperation, and the origins of agriculture. He and his colleagues also investigate cultural evolution in laboratory microsocieties.

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Customers find the book enlightening, with one review highlighting how it breaks down cultural evolution into traditions and values. The book receives positive feedback for its readability, with customers describing it as a very good read.

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Customers find the book enlightening and interesting, with one customer noting how it breaks down traditions and values, while another highlights its focus on the interaction between genes and culture.

"...And that is what the book does. It studies culture from an evolutionary point of view, breaking it down to traditions and values, making these the..." Read more

"Book is very interesting, but focuses on the environmental factors that shaped culture, and not really any others...." Read more

"Decent information, too densely written for my taste." Read more

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Michael Valdivielso
Genes and Culture working together.
Reviewed in the United States on March 1, 2006
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Not By Genes Alone by Peter J. Richerson and Robert Boyd explains something that should seem simple. Genes made us, we made culture, so genes shaped culture. Yet culture also helped shape us, so genes and culture interact together and work together to make us. But HOW do you do research on culture and link it to genes? Well, if culture also acts like genes, then what you want to do it treat it like genes.

And that is what the book does. It studies culture from an evolutionary point of view, breaking it down to traditions and values, making these the genes of culture. Cultures evolves, adapts and sometimes even cause problems, bringing about the extinction of the culture. One culture might work better than another and overwhelm the weaker, less fit culture.

By using the ideas and knowledge that Darwin has passed down to us the authors were able to understand how genes and culture worked together to shape US. LOTS and lots of detailed, data rich, chapters. Take your time and enjoy.

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Great thanks!
Reviewed in the United States on June 9, 2024
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Great thanks!

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M William Wykoff
Culture cannot evolve without language.
Reviewed in the United States on January 14, 2023
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Human evolution cannot be explained without culture, but culture cannot be explained without the coevolution of language. The authors provide many examples to confirm that the nature/nurture dichotomy is fiction, but they neglect the biological evolution of the means of social communication which makes large social groupings of hominids possible. Boyd and Richerson constantly refer to Darwin, but ignore what he wrote about language and birdsong. The evolution of visual and auditory displays are motivated more by aesthetics than by survival of the fittest (see Richard Prum, The Evolution of Beauty), The authors ignore the fact that all the lesser apes are vertical in posture and sing duets. They ignore the unique advantages of the vocal auditory system of communication (see Nina Kraus, Of Sound Mind, and C.F. Hockett on design features of language). They do not discuss the more significant works on human evolution, which would include: Terrance Deacon, C.S. Peirce, and Tom Sebeok on semiotics; Nina Kraus and C.F. Hockett on phonology; Isabel Peretz, R. Zatorre, Aniruddh Patel, Laurie Trainor, S. Trehub, et al. on music, language, and the brain.

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Paul Carleton
Evolution's Trajectory
Reviewed in the United States on February 15, 2005
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I purchased "Not by Genes Alone" because it promised to further develop the concept of `evolution's trajectory' explored in chapters 11 & 12 of my book, "Concepts: A ProtoTheist Quest for Science-Minded Skeptics." The concept of evolution's trajectory is an expansion of the idea that we are a `hybrid species' which I first came across in reading Merlin Donald's "A Mind So Rare." For example, just as the spider's web is an extension of, and essential to, the spider; our culture is an extension of, and essential to, us. Spiders' organisms co-evolved along with their webs, one just as important as the other, as a kind of hybrid. So too our organism co-evolved along with our culture; `culture' defined, not only as language, music &c, but as tools (clothing, shelter, weapons and other artifacts) and social institutions. So we need to view human evolution as a hybrid, not just in our organism but also in our culture, which now is `evolving' at an accelerating rate in runaway materialism. But whereas spiders and their webs evolved by random variation, we largely `invent' the variations in our culture. Thus we're now more or less in charge of our evolution; evolution is no longer `blind', we can be evolution's `eyes'. We now have the potential to direct evolution's trajectory.

Richerson & Boyd in their "Not by Genes Alone" use a narrower definition of culture: "Culture is information capable of affecting individuals' behavior that they acquire from other members of their species through teaching, imitation, and other forms of social transmission." (p.5) "Culture is ... stored and manipulated in human brains." (p.7) Eventho later they use the caption "Technology is culture, not environment" (p.29) their principal focus is on the social aspects of culture. Their thesis is that genes and culture co-evolve. "In the short run, cultural evolution, partly driven by ancient and tribal social instincts [in genes] and partly by selection among culturally variable groups, gave rise to the institutions we observe. In the longer run, cultural evolutionary processes create an environment that led to the evolution of uniquely human social instincts [in genes]." (p.235)

But Richerson & Boyd seem to largely ignore the technical aspects of our culture which today are evolving at an accelerating rate much faster than, and driving the evolution of, the social aspects. On the one hand, how do our Pleistocene instincts (genes) equip us to use artifacts such as cars, computers and cell-phones, and on the other hand, how can these artifacts lead to the evolution of new instincts (genes) in such a short evolutionary timescale? The first answer may be the plasticity of our neocortex, especially in youth. The second answer may come from future technology that will develop and install new genes in humans which equip us to better deal with our accelerating technology.

Another quibble: Richerson & Boyd, as do many authors, explain altruism by kin-selection and reciprocity, but fail to credit the desire of some individuals to improve humans' understanding and circumstances. Yet they themselves in writing this book are advancing human understanding, perhaps to some extent for selfish reasons such as prestige &c, but also for altruist reasons having little to do with kin-selection and reciprocity, nor presumably with attracting mates.

So "Not by Genes Alone" is worth reading to understand the co-evolution of genes and social culture, but doesn't provide much insight to help us direct the more crucial technical aspects of evolution's trajectory. We live in interesting times, perhaps on the cusp of a radical shift in our culture.

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Jim Heter
Cultural Evolution...
Reviewed in the United States on August 12, 2018
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I bought this Kindle book some time ago, then stopped reading it as it seemed not to be what I was expecting.
The other day I noticed it on my reader and decided I should give it another go. Glad I did. Surprised to learn that the authors feel their subject is under-appreciated. Maybe it's just too easy to think "well of course" and presume no further thought is needed. Not so simple. We have culture. We don't really know how we managed to acquire it. Or how it works.
We'd be better off if we did. It explains why we walk to the drum we hear, and why others hear different ones.

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Manuel A. Ramos
Great intro to evolution of culture(s)
Reviewed in the United States on March 7, 2014
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Greatly interested in neuroscience of the brain & said book was mentioned in
Patricia Churchland's "Touching a nerve..." I'm a Darwinist @ heart & have
wanted to have a sense of the history of human culture(s) in terms of the HOW.
Richerson's book is a great intro availing himself of the latest research in that
field.

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Raven
Five Stars
Reviewed in the United States on March 12, 2018
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Good book

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C
interesting, but focuses on only environmental influence on culture
Reviewed in the United States on December 1, 2014
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Book is very interesting, but focuses on the environmental factors that shaped culture, and not really any others. Almost every point made in this book says that because of environmental factor X, cultural effect Y. In that way, it is a very good read for looking at how cultures evolved around their environments, but not for a more holistic viewpoint.

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Jess H
Homo Sapiens 101
Reviewed in Canada on January 30, 2012
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In the concluding pages of this book, Richerson and Boyd observe that universities have introductory courses in psychology, sociology, economics and political science in which students "are encouraged to think that the study of humans can be divided into isolated chunks corresponding to these historical fields." There is, however, no Homo Sapiens 1 or 101, "a complete introduction to the whole problem of understanding human behavior." The authors note that the chief reason no such course exists is "that the key integrative fields have not yet developed in the social sciences" and that "a proper evolutionary theory of culture should make a major contribution to the unification of the social sciences. Not only does it allow a smooth integration of the human sciences with the rest of biology, it also provides a framework for linking the human sciences to one another." I believe that such an evolutionary theory can and should integrate the social sciences with each other and biology and that this book could and should serve as the foundational text for Homo Sapiens 101.

There are dozens of books available employing evolutionary thinking to humans, the large majority of which do not offer a "proper evolutionary theory" because they neglect the most obvious and unique feature of our species--our culture, information affecting behavior acquired from other humans through social transmission. This failure results from a steadfast dedication to accounting for human behavior in terms of principles applicable to the prosocial behavior of other species-- kin selection and reciprocity. In an attempt to not stray from "orthodox" neo-Darwinism, neo-Darwinians have failed to fully acknowledge, let alone explain, the most salient feature of our species--a fact that "social contructivists" use to dismiss evolutionary theory. Richerson and Boyd recognize the "ancient social instincts" of kin altruism and reciprocity but they also acknowledge and give appropriate attention to what they call the "tribal social instincts." These instincts, which probably emerged during the dramatic climate variations of the late Pleistocene, allow members of our species to identify with, dedicate themselves to, and take normative direction from, groups of people that include hundreds to thousands of people beyond kin and friends. These tribal instincts are accommodated in complex societies such as our own through "work-arounds," institutions such as religious organizations, political parties, voluntary associations and other symbolically marked groups that exploit our inclination toward particularistic community attachment. Originally, though, these instincts coevolved in a ratcheting process with our language, capacity for perspective taking, morality, religion and "culture" broadly conceived. We are a thoroughly unique groupish species and the only species on which group selection of cultural variants has played a role. As Richerson and Boyd argue, genes and culture have coevolved within our species. Culture has been primary in the environment selecting features of our genotype. Those humans incapable of cooperating in tribal settings were ostracized and were unlikely to find mates. They were less likely than cooperators to survive and reproduce. Culture has molded our genetic make-up just as our genes have directed the development of our culture.

I do not have space here to outline Richerson and Boyd's theory of cultural evolution beyond noting that population thinking plays as prominent a role as it did in Darwin's thought. I can say that unlike their landmark book, Culture and the Evolutionary Process (1985), this book is accessible to any adult with a three digit IQ. I can also note that the authors are both modest and civil toward those with whom they disagree--characteristics that portray their training in the natural sciences instead of the social sciences. They are quick to acknowledge when empirical evidence is currently lacking to substantiate claims they are making, and they are always generous to their intellectual opponents. For example, they acknowledge Richard Dawkins' contributions to evolutionary theory, while demonstrating the deficiencies of his "meme" theory of culture; they faithfully reproduce the arguments of evolutionary psychologists concerning domain-specific mental modules, while showing the dangers of overly-adaptationist accounts of our mental mechanisms; and in their discussions of various religious groups--Mormons, Catholics, the Amish, Hutterites, and the earliest Christians--Richerson and Boyd are deeply respectful of religious believers, something utterly missing in the writings of non-believers such as Richard Dawkins. This respectful attitude issues not from an impulse to pander but, rather, from an appreciation for our species-wide groupish tendencies and the accomplishments of symbolically marked groups, religious and otherwise.

Perhaps the largest contribution this book will make if it attains the number of readers it deserves is that it provides Darwinians and social constuctivists in the social sciences and the humanities grounds for common discussion and possible agreement. This is no small feat given the tendency of these symbolically marked groups to deem their in-group members angelic and those in the out-group moronic, if not demonic.
~ Written by Brad Lowell Stone

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Gregory Nixon
"The tracks of culture are all over human behavior" (p. 245)
Reviewed in Canada on May 19, 2007
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I have to admit that with a title that makes as straighforward a declaration as this one does, I anticipated an imaginative, full frontal assault against the increasing dependence on genetics, DNA, & biology to explain our human nature. Instead, Richerson & Boyd divide the pie pretty equally among genetics, culture, and environment, noting that these three factors are mutually dependent and interactive. Fair enough, but I was disappointed how far they leaned into the genetics camp and how little they credit to human creativity. In fact, they state there really is no such thing as individual creativity but only individuals who are able to carry forth mass cultural trends that have been underway for some time. "Culture usually evolves by the accumulation of small variations" (p. 50). One should note here the early emphasis on the concept of evolution because their book turns out to take Darwin's foundational principles of biological evolution and directly apply them to cultural evolution. Culture, itself, they state, is an adaptation.

Other animals have exhibited certain local behaviour patterns that others have termed cultural, but "only humans show much evidence of *cumulative* cultural evolution. By cumulative cultural evolution, we mean behaviors or artifacts that are transmitted and modified over many generations, leading to complex artifacts and behaviors" (p. 107). In this way, complex artifacts are not "invented by individuals; they evolve gradually over many generations" (p. 107). So human cultural evolution, though not inspired by "great person breakthroughs" is still unique, depending as it does on external memory storage and teaching-learning. I liked this, as I am an educator.

I also liked the point that culture and genes co-evolve. Still it seems to me, they tend to see the human species in a more mechanical manner than is necessarily the case: Everything is ultimately done for survival. Cases where cultural choices like human sacrifice or mass witch-hunts have been undertaken are seen as mistaken attempts at survival. I wonder how this accounts for the suicide cults that have appeared and, not surprisingly, rapidly disappeared? They explain altruism or kindness in the same way, as leading to survival of the group. They even seem to disparage efforts to control population growth. Such efforts, mostly in the middle & upper classes of industrialized countries, are said to be the result of "selfish cultural variants" (p. 169). "Modern low fertility does not maximize fitness" (p. 173). Surely this puts them firmly in the evolutionary biology camp.

The writing is most often turgid & uninspired, with the many examples of cultural continuity or adaptation being local, mundane, & unimpresssive. They end by pleading for the wide acceptance of "a proper evolutionary theory of culture" since that "should make a major contribution to the unification of the social sciences" (p. 246). They call for the development of a mass of quantitative detail on cultural variation to equal the detail found in the study of genetic variation, simply equating the two.

I felt let down at the easy way cultural symbolism & artistic experession were simply dismissed by suggesting a little quatitative analysis would reveal them as simple functionalism. By now I was bored. By the time they snidely state that "So many older scientists try their hand at philosophy that it can practically be regarded as a normal sign of aging" (p. 254), I was glad to finish the book and close it.

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5.0 out of 5 stars Homo Sapiens 101

3.0 out of 5 stars "The tracks of culture are all over human behavior" (p. 245)

Homo Sapiens 101

"The tracks of culture are all over human behavior" (p. 245)