{"id":23712,"date":"2021-06-17T09:20:29","date_gmt":"2021-06-17T13:20:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/mitchellcenter\/?p=23712"},"modified":"2021-06-17T09:20:29","modified_gmt":"2021-06-17T13:20:29","slug":"waring-research-finds-culture-driving-human-evolution-more-than-genetics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/mitchellcenter\/2021\/06\/17\/waring-research-finds-culture-driving-human-evolution-more-than-genetics\/","title":{"rendered":"Waring research finds culture driving human evolution more than genetics"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"153\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-153 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/mitchellcenter\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/293\/2012\/05\/Tim_Waring1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"144\" height=\"198\" srcset=\"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/mitchellcenter\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/293\/2012\/05\/Tim_Waring1.jpg 144w, https:\/\/umaine.edu\/mitchellcenter\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/293\/2012\/05\/Tim_Waring1-102x140.jpg 102w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 144px) 100vw, 144px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Tim Waring<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>In a new study, 91¸£Àû researchers <a href=\"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/mitchellcenter\/people\/tim-waring\/\">Tim Waring<\/a> and Zach Wood found that culture helps humans adapt to their environment and overcome challenges better and faster than genetics.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn the very long term, we suggest that humans are evolving from individual genetic organisms to cultural groups which function as superorganisms, similar to ant colonies and beehives,\u201d Waring says.<\/p>\n<p>Waring is an associate professor of social-ecological systems modeling in the School of Economics and the Mitchell Center. He applies cultural evolution to the study of sustainability in social-ecological systems and cooperation in organizational evolution.<\/p>\n<p>He partnered with Wood, a postdoctoral research associate in the School of Biology and Ecology \u00a0at 91¸£Àû, on this research and their findings were published in a\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/royalsocietypublishing.org\/doi\/10.1098\/rspb.2021.0538\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">literature review<\/a>\u00a0in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, the flagship biological research journal of The Royal Society in London.<\/p>\n<p>Read more at <a href=\"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/news\/blog\/2021\/06\/02\/umaine-researchers-culture-drives-human-evolution-more-than-genetics\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">91¸£Àû News<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The research was also featured in a recent episode of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.livescience.com\/culture-evolves-faster-than-genes.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Live Science<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In a new study, 91¸£Àû researchers Tim Waring and Zach Wood found that culture helps humans adapt to their environment and overcome challenges better and faster than genetics. \u201cIn the very long term, we suggest that humans are evolving from individual genetic organisms to cultural groups which function as superorganisms, similar to ant colonies and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1706,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_kad_blocks_custom_css":"","_kad_blocks_head_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_body_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_footer_custom_js":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","spc_primary_category":0},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23712","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"taxonomy_info":{"category":[{"value":3,"label":"News"}]},"featured_image_src_large":false,"author_info":{"display_name":"","author_link":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/mitchellcenter\/author\/"},"comment_info":0,"category_info":[{"term_id":3,"name":"News","slug":"news","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":3,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":609,"filter":"raw","cat_ID":3,"category_count":609,"category_description":"","cat_name":"News","category_nicename":"news","category_parent":0}],"tag_info":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/mitchellcenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23712","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/mitchellcenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/mitchellcenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/mitchellcenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1706"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/mitchellcenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23712"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/mitchellcenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23712\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23717,"href":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/mitchellcenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23712\/revisions\/23717"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/mitchellcenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23712"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/mitchellcenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23712"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/mitchellcenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23712"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}