{"id":221922,"date":"2025-09-16T00:13:55","date_gmt":"2025-09-16T05:13:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/09\/culture-is-overtaking-genetics-in-shaping-human-evolution-researchers-argue"},"modified":"2025-09-16T00:13:55","modified_gmt":"2025-09-16T05:13:55","slug":"culture-is-overtaking-genetics-in-shaping-human-evolution-researchers-argue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/09\/culture-is-overtaking-genetics-in-shaping-human-evolution-researchers-argue","title":{"rendered":"Culture is overtaking genetics in shaping human evolution, researchers argue"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/culture-is-overtaking-genetics-in-shaping-human-evolution-researchers-argue.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Researchers at the University of Maine are theorizing that human beings may be in the midst of a major evolutionary shift\u2014driven not by genes, but by culture.<\/p>\n<p>In <a href=\"https:\/\/academic.oup.com\/bioscience\/advance-article-abstract\/doi\/10.1093\/biosci\/biaf094\/8230384?redirectedFrom=fulltext\" target=\"_blank\">a paper<\/a> published in <i>BioScience<\/i>, Timothy M. Waring, an associate professor of economics and sustainability, and Zachary T. Wood, a researcher in ecology and environmental sciences, argue that culture is overtaking genetics as the main force shaping <a href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/tags\/human+evolution\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">human evolution<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHuman evolution seems to be changing gears,\u201d said Waring. \u201cWhen we learn useful skills, institutions or technologies from each other, we are inheriting adaptive <a href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/tags\/cultural+practices\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">cultural practices<\/a>. On reviewing the evidence, we find that culture solves problems much more rapidly than genetic evolution. This suggests our species is in the middle of a great evolutionary transition.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Researchers at the University of Maine are theorizing that human beings may be in the midst of a major evolutionary shift\u2014driven not by genes, but by culture. In a paper published in BioScience, Timothy M. Waring, an associate professor of economics and sustainability, and Zachary T. Wood, a researcher in ecology and environmental sciences, argue [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":662,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39,385,412,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-221922","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","category-evolution","category-genetics","category-sustainability"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221922","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/662"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=221922"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221922\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=221922"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=221922"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=221922"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}