Understanding Culture, Human Selection, and Adaptation
Culture and Its Impact
In a basic sense, culture encompasses the knowledge, beliefs, customs, and inventions of humanity. This includes:
- Tools, techniques, and technological advancements.
- Knowledge, beliefs, and creative expressions, such as language and art.
- Social customs, like greetings, dances, and systems of rewards and punishments.
While biological evolution allows living beings to adapt to their environment, cultural evolution enables humans to modify their environment to suit their needs.
This cultural adaptation serves two primary purposes:
- Compensating for our biological limitations in hostile environments, preventing extinction.
- Adapting to diverse environments, both natural and social, by actively changing them.
Human Selection vs. Natural Selection
Darwin compared human selection to natural selection, noting that both require variation in traits. Human selection focuses on external traits for human benefit, while natural selection acts on any trait, internal or external, for the benefit of the organism. Natural selection is a continuous process that favors useful variations, improving the characteristics of all living beings.
The Human Being as a “Deficient Being”
Gehlen, in his philosophical anthropology, emphasizes culture’s role in compensating for human biological deficiencies. Unlike other species, humans lack specialized organic features for environmental adaptation. We have no claws or fur, and our development is slow. Yet, humans have spread across the planet by using cultural skills and resources. Culture is fundamental to our species; there are no humans without some degree of culture. Despite our biological limitations, culture has allowed us to transform and domesticate our environment, adapting it to our needs.