Culture is overtaking genetics in shaping human evolution, some researchers argue

Research suggests that cultural evolution has become increasingly influential, sometimes even outstripping the rate and impact of genetic evolution in humans due to culture's rapid, socially learned, and adaptive nature. This is exemplified by gene-culture coevolution, where cultural adaptations like agriculture and technology have created new selective pressures, favouring specific genetic traits, such as the ability to digest milk in adults, and allowing humans to adapt to diverse environments at an unprecedented rate. 

Some Researchers are theorizing that human beings may be in the midst of a major evolutionary shift—driven not by genes, but by culture.

In a paper published in BioScience, they argue that culture is overtaking genetics as the main force shaping human evolution.

"When we learn useful skills, institutions or technologies from each other, we are inheriting adaptive cultural practices. On reviewing the evidence, we find that culture solves problems much more rapidly than genetic evolution. This suggests our species is in the middle of a great evolutionary transition", they say.

Cultural practices—from farming methods to legal codes—spread and adapt far faster than genes can, allowing human groups to adapt to new environments and solve novel problems in ways biology alone could never match. According to the research team, this long-term evolutionary transition extends deep into the past, it is accelerating, and may define our species for millennia to come.

Cultural evolution eats genetic evolution for breakfast, they argue. 

 In the modern environment cultural systems adapt so rapidly they routinely "preempt" genetic adaptation. For example, eyeglasses and surgery correct vision problems that genes once left to natural selection.

Medical technologies like cesarean sections or fertility treatments allow people to survive and reproduce in circumstances that once would have been fatal or sterile. These cultural solutions, researchers argue, reduce the role of genetic adaptation and increase our reliance on cultural systems such as hospitals, schools and governments.

Today, your well-being is determined less and less by your personal biology and more and more by the cultural systems that surround you—your community, your nation, your technologies. And the importance of culture tends to grow over the long term because culture accumulates adaptive solutions more rapidly.

Over time, this dynamic could mean that human survival and reproduction depend less on individual genetic traits and more on the health of societies and their cultural infrastructure.

But, this transition comes with a twist. Because culture is fundamentally a shared phenomenon, culture tends to generate group-based solutions.

Using evidence from anthropology, biology and history, the researchers argue that group-level cultural adaptation has been shaping human societies for millennia, from the spread of agriculture to the rise of modern states. They note that today, improvements in health, longevity and survival reliably come from group-level cultural systems like scientific medicine and hospitals, sanitation infrastructure and education systems rather than individual intelligence or genetic change.
The researchers argue that if humans are evolving to rely on cultural adaptation, we are also evolving to become more group-oriented and group-dependent, signaling a change in what it means to be human.

In the history of evolution, life sometimes undergoes transitions which change what it means to be an individual. This happened when single cells evolved to become multicellular organisms and social insects evolved into ultra-cooperative colonies. These individuality transitions transform how life is organized, adapts and reproduces. Biologists have been skeptical that such a transition is occurring in humans.

But the researchers suggest that because culture is fundamentally shared, our shift to cultural adaptation also means a fundamental reorganization of human individuality—toward the group.
Cultural organization makes groups more cooperative and effective. And larger, more capable groups adapt—via cultural change—more rapidly. It's a mutually reinforcing system, and the data suggest it is accelerating.
For example, genetic engineering is a form of cultural control of genetic material, but genetic engineering requires a large, complex society. So, in the far future, if the hypothesized transition ever comes to completion, our descendants may no longer be genetically evolving individuals, but societal "superorganisms" that evolve primarily via cultural change.
The researchers emphasize that their theory is testable and lay out a system for measuring how fast the transition is happening. The team is also developing mathematical and computer models of the process and plans to initiate a long-term data collection project in the near future. They caution, however, against treating cultural evolution as progress or inevitability.
They are not suggesting that some societies, like those with more wealth or better technology, are morally 'better' than others. Evolution can create both good solutions and brutal outcomes. They think this might help our whole species avoid the most brutal parts.
The goal of this work  is to use their understanding of deep patterns in human evolution to foster positive social change.
Still, the new research raises profound questions about humanity's future. If cultural inheritance continues to dominate, our fates as individuals, and the future of our species, may increasingly hinge on the strength and adaptability of our societies.
And if so, the next stage of human evolution may not be written in DNA, but in the shared stories, systems, and institutions we create together, the researchers conclude.

Sources: 

Timothy M Waring et al, Cultural inheritance is driving a transition in human evolution, BioScience (2025). DOI: 10.1093/biosci/biaf094. academic.oup.com/bioscience/ad … osci/biaf094/8230384

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3024025/

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https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2607340/#:~:text=In%20summ....

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-10293-y