Our bodies are built to run but not to find water. Therefore our need to exchange information about the location of water have evolved us to become more successful than apes. In his book The Secret of Our Success: How Culture Is Driving Human Evolution, Domesticating Our Species, and Making Us Smarter, Harvard Anthropology professor Joseph Henrich, with rich evidence across “archeological, linguistic, genetic, first hand-ethnographic data, behavioral economics, comparative psychology”, articulated how our learned behaviors evolved us biologically without being genetic (reader Simon Lavoie).
Interestingly, Naval Ravikant, founder of Angellist, mentioned a similar viewpoint in his recent podcast, Capitalism/free markets are intrinsic to human species. Ravikant states, “We’re the only animals who cooperate across genetic boundaries,” adding, “… one way we cooperate is by keeping track of credits and debits in voluntary exchanges.”
In short, our journey wiggling along the gene-culture coevolution is best summarized by a quote from Henrich’s book itself: “we stand on the shoulders of a very large pyramid of hobbits.”