Feldman and Zhivotovsky's phenogenotype work showed the possibility that culture could independently affect phenotypes. Why not study inherited culture as it relates to genetic inheritance (as a more comprehensive theory would not necessarily be missing the missing heritability, for instance)?
I just worry your ceding the important distinction (ultimate vs proximal) to all things genetic as "ultimate". Chronological order does not imply ontological priority, does it?
Why do we consider the inheritance of culture as a different process than the inheritance of genes? Do genes and ideas not both live in me, reproduce in me, and effect me and each other? Seems to me the influence of the environmentalism debate that most needs to be shoved out: culture is within us as much as it is around us in our niche.
Article On evolutionary causes and evolutionary processes
Gladly, here's the link to the Feldman and Zhivotovsky PNAS paper where they prove, in effect, that inherited culture causes disease, a conclusion they have never accepted. http://www.pnas.org/content/89/24/11935.short
http://www.pnas.org/content/89/24/11935.short
Dear Evans
One of the Major Problem of comparing genetic inheritance with cultural inheritence is are the different mechanisms and thus different characteristics of These two phenomena.
genetic inheritence is characterized (mostly) by a hierarchical structure (so ancestor - descendant Connections are 1. one way Connections and 2. are bordered by the biological mechanisms to 2:1 connections
cultural inheritence (where i am not a specialist at all) are charectirized by Networks, with Little borders. So they may be reciprocal, may be 1:many or many:1 Connections. For sure you have many effects of what would be called horizontal Transfer in genetic inheritence-Systems.
That cultural inheritence, or learning has an Impact on what is called Fitness is to my knowledge widely accepted, despite I did not read the paper you are referring to.
Best wishes
Thanks for the answer Nikolaus. Unfortunately, I think too many people dismiss vertical cultural information transfer because of the prevalence of horizontal information transfer. Do parents and children not normally exchange ideas in an indistinguishable after the fact way to which they exchange genes?
What precludes any signature of Mendelian inheritance from a cultural locus / meme?
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