Читать книгу Mechanisms of cultural evolution - Victor Efremenko - Страница 13

In populations of living organisms, in response to changes in the external conditions of existence, adaptations arise as a result of selection. These adaptations are fixed in genes and transmitted during the sexual process to the next generation, i.e. genes carry out vertical replication, link generations through inheritance.

Adaptation in biological evolution is a change in the morphology of organisms, allowing the body to better adapt to the conditions of existence. At the cellular level, adaptations consist in modifying the genome, which largely programs the morphological features of the organism.

Due to the established mechanism of transmission of adaptations through the sexual process, the restructuring of the morphology of organisms in populations occurs slowly, according to the scale of human life.

The historical process of human development (cultural evolution) demonstrates the development of culture. One culture replaces another, inheriting some of the features of the previous one. These changes occur much faster than the processes in biological evolution.

The presence of the evolution of human culture indicates that three conditions necessary for its course are fulfilled. But inheritance in culture is the inheritance of acquired properties that cannot be carried out with the help of genes. It can be concluded that the observed human cultural evolution, apparently, occurs with the help of other replicators (not genes) and a different inheritance mechanism.

Therefore, we can talk about the cultural (social) evolution of man, as evolution without genes, occurring with the help of other replicators. Over the past millennia, the appearance of new significant morphological changes in a person has not been seen, he has remained the same as he was. All changes in the conditions of existence are determined by the cultural evolution of a person.