ABSTRACT
This chapter provides many examples of how selection by consequences can operate at three levels of analysis: biological, behavioral, and cultural. It explores genetic and operant control of behavior in the marine snail, Aplysia. The chapter discusses the epigenetic modifications and the innate social behavior of carpenter ants and shows that verbal behavior contributes to the transmission of cultural practices. Evolutionary biologists distinguish between phenotype and genotype. An organism's phenotype refers to all the characteristics and behavior observed during the lifetime of an individual. There are two major sources of heritable genetic variation: sexual recombination of existing genes, and mutation. Verbal behavior evolved in the sense that particular ways of speaking were more or less effective in regulating the behavior of listeners within a verbal community. Cultural evolution presumably begins at the level of the individual where technological effects reinforce variation in individual behavior.
