Culturgen

Culturgen (culture + -gen) is a term used to denote a theoretical 'unit' of culture or cultural evolution. More specifically, analogous to a gene, it is a cultural artifact or element of behaviour whose repetition or reproduction is transmissible from one generation. It has largely been displaced by the similar term meme.[1]

The term was coined in 1980 by two American scientists—the biomathematician Charles J. Lumsden and the sociobiologist E. O. Wilson[2]—in a controversial attempt to analyse cultural evolution by using techniques borrowed from population genetics, to develop a comprehensive theory of how genes interact with cultural variation,[3] and to infer a theory of evolution of the human mind.

The fullest exposition of their theory appeared in their book Genes, Mind, and Culture: The Coevolutionary Process (1981),[4][5] which expanded upon the agenda that Wilson had laid out in his Sociobiology: The New Synthesis (1975) and On Human Nature (1978). In the book, the two assume that culturgens are stored in long-term memory or are readily observable in the external world, and are to be transmitted via socialization.[3] Genes, Mind, and Culture received many highly negative reviews in the scientific press, however;[4][5] it was re-issued in 2005 with a review of subsequent developments.[6]

It also effectively means much the same as the older term cultural trait used by anthropologists, and offers similar difficulties of identification and definition. The term has declined in popularity; the slightly older term meme—coined by Richard Dawkins in his book The Selfish Gene (1976)—is now used in its stead,[1] almost universally (even by Wilson in his later writings).

References

"Culturgen". Lexico Dictionaries. Retrieved 2021-03-15.
Lumsden, Charles J., and E. O. Wilson. 1980. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA 77(4382).
Bell, Adrian, and Peter Richerson. 2008. "Review - Charles J. Lumsden and Edward O. Wilson, Genes, Mind, and Culture: 25th Anniversary Edition." Journal of Bioeconomics 10:307–14. doi:10.307-314.10.1007/s10818-008-9041-x.
Lumsden, Charles J., and E. O. Wilson. 1982. "The ‘Culturgen’: Science or Science Fiction?" Behavioral and Brain Sciences 5(1):12–13. doi:10.1017/S0140525X00010190.
William, B. J. 1982. "Have We a Darwin of Biocultural Evolution? [PDF]." American Anthropologist 84:848–52. [Review of Genes, Mind, and Culture: The Coevolutionary Process].
Lumsden, Charles J., and E. O. Wilson. 2005. Genes, Mind, And Culture: The Coevolutionary Process (25th Anniversary ed.). Singapore: World Scientific. Google Books.

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