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Dual Inheritance, Cultural Transmission and Niche Construction
Social sciences now provide a means through which culture and other evolutionary topics can be investigated. For a long time, certain connections between human behavior and the transmission of language and culture had not been studied by anthropologists. However, through new developments and new interest in human behavior, social sciences are currently aiding in the study of these phenomena. Dual inheritance theory asserts that some infusion of cultural traits occurs during genetic transmissions (O’Brien and R. Alexander 179). As a result, individuals’ behaviors and sociocultural modifications stem from both of these factors, making evolution much faster. The study of dual inheritance helps bring out the general exchange of genes and behaviors that affect organisms in their various environments.
On the other hand, cultural transmission forms the primary determinant of animal behavior. Thus, this phenomenon helps explain how animals and humans retain some cultural variants that are beneficial to them (O’Brien and R. Alexander 184). Since cultural traits are subject to being forgotten, copied erroneously, and continuously transmitted, there is no exact unit of transmission of these processes. However, through individual learning and social learning, organisms can quickly adapt and choose the most favorable adaptive characteristics. Finally, niche construction is the process that helps organisms to identify and modify their niche (O’Brien and R. Alexander 191). In this sense, organisms may learn and adopt various behaviors and activities. Still, through this process, they get to determine the most suitable ways for them to thrive in their environments.
The reading gave a lot of insight into the development of organisms. These three concepts of dual inheritance, cultural transmission, and niche construction are interconnected from what I learned. They help to define and explain the evolution of animals and humans in their given habitats. Although more studies are underway to understand the relationship between these three aspects fully, I believe that they all contribute to organisms’ evolution. The dual inheritance process enables organisms to transmit cultural preferences and adaptations genetically. Once such behavior gets transferred, the artistic transmission process enables these organisms to determine the characteristics that new organisms will carry. Consequently, the niche construction makes them choose how to modify these transmitted behaviors to suit them in their various capacities. This is how I understood these three concepts as being tied together in helping evolutionary functions in organisms.
Thinking about it now, I feel that these three concepts have affected my life in one way or another. When I was younger, I believed I had to, but as I grew up and shaped my personality, I dropped some habits along the way, and there are others that I modified to fit my lifestyle then. Thus, dual inheritance, cultural transmission, and niche construction all affect our lives in various ways and help us to evolve.
Instead of the same, I support that these three concepts help explain Darwinian evolution. Therefore, they help in the construction of history, describing how these organisms transmitted some behaviors and the new ones adapted to these behaviors while modifying them in a way that best suited them. Suppose further research can prove the relational dynamics between these three concepts and historical evolution, they may qualify to advance knowledge in human behavior through social sciences.
Work Cited
O’Brien, Michael J., and R. Alexander Bentley. “Dual Inheritance, Cultural Transmission, and Niche Construction.” The Handbook of Culture and Biology (2017).