How culture can guide evolution: An inquiry into gene/meme enhancement andopposition

We study the relationship between genetic evolution, learning, and culture. We start with the simulation environment of Hinton and Nowlan in which ind ividual learning was shown to guide genetic evolution towards a difficult a daptive goal. We then consider, in lieu of individual learning, culture in the form of social learning by imitation. Our results demonstrate that when genes and culture cooperate, or enhance one another, culture too is able t o guide genetic evolution towards an adaptive goal. Further, we show that s ocial learning is superior to individual learning insofar as it with geneti c evolution converges more quickly to the goal. However, the social learnin g algorithm results in slower genetic assimilation of adaptive alleles than with individual learning. It is as if, we argue, the adaptive values are s tored in the culture rather than in the genes. Finally, we consider what ha ppens when culture and genes pursue diametrically opposed goals. Here we sh ow that culture, in the form of social learning, is no real match when oppo sed to genetic evolution with individual learning. In fact, only the most h erculean of social learning algorithms is able to keep a neutralizing toe-h old against the slow plodding force of genetic evolution. Finally, our resu lts suggest that in both cases, opposition and enhancement, transmission fo rces such as the ratio of teacher to learner are central to the success of social learning.