Why Natural Selection Allowed The Brain

In chapter five, the emergence of culture, the authors ask the question of why natural selection allowed the brain to evolve in a way where culture became more likely among humans’ hominid ancestors? While the development of culture had allowed the organization of hominoid to increase in complexity, it was faced with many obstacles. The authors argue that the development of culture is anchored in the development of spoken language. As a result, the development of culture couldn’t occur without high level of brain rewiring in the brain, as well as, the shift in speech needed to accommodate visual dominance to work with it, rather than at cross purpose to it. In addition to these biological changes that needed to occur to allow for the development of speech, the authors argue that there were six pressures against the development of culture: first, the need to control for noise and emotions in the open savanna; Second, the need to increase sociality and group solidarity through verbal communication; third, the need to increase coordination and instrumental action by group and through verbal communication; fourth, the need to expand the tool kit used by hominoids; fifth, the need to increase the capacity for symbolizing and totemizing; and finally, the need to increase the ability to see and evaluate self from the prospective of the other. In addition to all of these adaptive challenges, hominoids also dealt with general selection pressures, such as population, reproduction, distribution, regulation, and production. …show more content…
Despite these challenges, and while it took millions of years of evolution, hominids were able to survive, first be using hardwired capacities to communicate, as we saw earlier, and then by developing cultural codes, which developed into complex social structures in modern