Long-term gene–culture coevolution and the human evolutionary transition

Genes still matter, but culture may now be the dominant driver of human adaptation.
Cultural transmission is not limited to parents and offspring; it spreads horizontally among unrelated individuals and across groups.
Culture evolves much faster than genes because cultural information can spread rapidly through learning, imitation, and communication.
The authors argue that groups organized by culture (tribes, nations, religions, companies) have become major units of evolutionary competition and adaptation.
The paper compares this process to past biological “major evolutionary transitions”, such as single cells forming multicellular organisms.
The authors suggest humanity may be undergoing a new evolutionary transition in individuality, where culturally integrated groups become more evolutionarily significant than isolated individuals.
The article concludes that human evolution is becoming increasingly collective, cultural, and socially organized rather than purely genetic.