Culturgen
Culturgen (culture + -gen) is a term used to denote a theoretical 'unit' of culture or cultural evolution. More specifically, analogous to a gene, it is a cultural artifact or element of behaviour whose repetition or reproduction is transmissible from one generation to the next. It has largely been displaced by the similar term meme.[1]
The term was coined in 1980 by two American scientists—the biomathematician Charles J. Lumsden and the sociobiologist E. O. Wilson[2]—in a controversial attempt to analyse cultural evolution by using techniques borrowed from population genetics, to develop a comprehensive theory of how genes interact with cultural variation,[3] and to infer a theory of the evolution of the human mind.
The fullest exposition of their theory appeared in their book Genes, Mind, and Culture: The Coevolutionary Process (1981),[4][5] which expanded upon the agenda that Wilson had laid out in Sociobiology: The New Synthesis (1975) and On Human Nature (1978). In the book, the two assume that culturgens are stored in long-term memory, are readily observable in the external world, and are to be transmitted via socialization.[3] Genes, Mind, and Culture received many highly negative reviews in the scientific press, however;[4][5] it was re-issued in 2005 with a review of subsequent developments.[6]
It also effectively means much the same as the older term cultural trait used by anthropologists, and offers similar difficulties of identification and definition. The term has declined in popularity; the slightly older term meme—coined by Richard Dawkins in his book The Selfish Gene (1976)—is now used in its stead,[1] almost universally (even by Wilson in his later writings).[citation needed]
References
- ^ a b "Culturgen". Lexico Dictionaries. Retrieved 2021-03-15.[dead link]
- ^ Lumsden, Charles J., and E. O. Wilson. 1980. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA 77(4382).
- ^ a b Bell, Adrian, and Peter Richerson. 2008. "Review - Charles J. Lumsden and Edward O. Wilson, Genes, Mind, and Culture: 25th Anniversary Edition." Journal of Bioeconomics 10:307–14. doi:10.307-314.10.1007/s10818-008-9041-x.
- ^ a b Lumsden, Charles J., and E. O. Wilson. 1982. "The ‘Culturgen’: Science or Science Fiction?" Behavioral and Brain Sciences 5(1):12–13. doi:10.1017/S0140525X00010190.
- ^ a b William, B. J. 1982. "Have We a Darwin of Biocultural Evolution? [PDF]." American Anthropologist 84:848–52. [Review of Genes, Mind, and Culture: The Coevolutionary Process].
- ^ Lumsden, Charles J., and E. O. Wilson. 2005. Genes, Mind, And Culture: The Coevolutionary Process (25th Anniversary ed.). Singapore: World Scientific. Google Books.
- v
- t
- e
- Bioculture
- Cross-cultural studies
- Cultural analytics
- Cultural economics
- Cultural entomology
- Cultural history
- Cultural mapping
- Cultural mediation
- Cultural psychology
- Cultural values
- Culturomics
- Intercultural learning
- Intercultural relations
- Internet culture
- Philosophy of culture
- Popular culture studies
- Postcritique
- Semiotics of culture
- Sociology of culture
- Sound culture
- Theology of culture
- Transcultural nursing
- Acculturation
- Cultural appreciation
- Cultural appropriation
- Cultural area
- Cultural artifact
- Cultural baggage
- Cultural behavior
- Cultural bias
- Cultural capital
- Cultural communication
- Cultural conflict
- Cultural cringe
- Cultural dissonance
- Cultural emphasis
- Cultural framework
- Cultural heritage
- Cultural icon
- Cultural identity
- Cultural industry
- Cultural invention
- Cultural landscape
- Cultural learning
- Cultural leveling
- Cultural memory
- Cultural pluralism
- Cultural practice
- Cultural property
- Cultural reproduction
- Cultural system
- Cultural technology
- Cultural universal
- Cultureme
- Enculturation
- High- and low-context cultures
- Interculturality
- Manuscript culture
- Material culture
- Non-material culture
- Organizational culture
- Print culture
- Protoculture
- Relational mobility
- Safety culture
- Technoculture
- Trans-cultural diffusion
- Transculturation
- Visual culture
- Colonial mentality
- Consumer capitalism
- Cross cultural sensitivity
- Cultural assimilation
- Cultural attaché
- Cultural backwardness
- Cultural Bolshevism
- Cultural conservatism
- Cultural contracts
- Cultural deprivation
- Cultural diplomacy
- Cultural environmentalism
- Cultural exception
- Cultural feminism
- Cultural genocide
- Cultural globalization
- Cultural hegemony
- Cultural imperialism
- Cultural intelligence
- Cultural liberalism
- Cultural nationalism
- Cultural pessimism
- Cultural policy
- Cultural racism
- Cultural radicalism
- Cultural retention
- Cultural Revolution
- Cultural rights
- Cultural safety
- Cultural silence
- Cultural subsidy
- Cultural Zionism
- Culture change
- Culture minister
- Culture of fear
- Culture war
- Deculturalization
- Dominator culture
- Interculturalism
- Monoculturalism
- Multiculturalism
- Multiracial democracy
- Pluriculturalism
- Polyculturalism
- Transculturism
- Animal culture
- Archaeological culture
- Bennett scale
- Cannabis culture
- Circuit of culture
- Civilization
- Coffee culture
- Cross-cultural
- Cultural center
- Cultural competence
- Cultural critic
- Cultural determinism
- Cultural diversity
- Cultural evolutionism
- Cultural homogenization
- Cultural institution
- Cultural jet lag
- Cultural lag
- Cultural literacy
- Cultural mosaic
- Cultural movement
- Cultural mulatto
- Cultural probe
- Cultural relativism
- Culture speculation
- Cultural tourism
- Cultural translation
- Cultural turn
- Cultural sensibility
- Culture and menstruation
- Culture and positive psychology
- Culture and social cognition
- Culture gap
- Culture hero
- Culture industry
- Culture shock
- Culturgen
- Children's culture
- Culturalism
- Cyberculture
- Death and culture
- Disability culture
- Drinking culture
- Drug culture
- Eastern culture
- Emotions and culture
- Intercultural communication
- Intercultural competence
- Languaculture
- Living things in culture
- Media culture
- Oppositional culture
- Participatory culture
- Permission culture
- Rape culture
- Remix culture
- Tea culture
- Transformation of culture
- Urban culture
- Welfare culture
- Western culture
- Youth culture
- Category
- Commons
- WikiProject
- Changes