ABSTRACT
Human beings adapt to environment in terms of a socially transmitted system of behavior and meanings called “culture.” The neurological capacity for this system apparently evolved in response to a rapidly changing ecology in which maximum behavioral flexibility won out over more stable behavioral mechanisms. Human behavioral predispositions may be constraining cultural evolution, and this constraint may be in the direction of maximizing inclusive fitness. Sociobiology must also be applied to contemporary cultures. A prime empirical question for sociobiology’s application to human behavior is the extent to which both our individual learning preferences and our cultural-level practices tend to maximize inclusive fitness. The psychologists and ethologists can concentrate on the individual; only the anthropologist is in a position to relate traditions and institutions to inclusive fitness. But sociobiology must never be applied directly to human behavior without consideration of the role of cultural evolution.
