Cultural evolution, mediated by language, has been as important for human survival as brain complexity mediated by genetic evolution has been for mammalian survival. Cultural evolution, after all, is faster and more flexible than....>>>

Cultural evolution, mediated by language, has been as important for human survival as brain complexity mediated by genetic evolution has been for mammalian survival. Cultural evolution, after all, is faster and more flexible than genetic evolution. With effective cultural communication, knowledge, accumulated over a lifetime, no longer had to die with the individual. Knowledge started to expand, and thus,analogous to compounding interest, the store of human knowledge began to increase exponentially. The capacity for cultural development gave modern humans a tremendous evolutionary advantage over the Neanderthal. It was as if the hardware of the human brain now permitted the addition of software.....