The Darwinian Culture

In order to explain that culture came about by way of evolution. Dennett describes the Darwinian, Skinnerian, Popperian and Gregorian creature as a way to explain how language came about by evolution because language is the basis of culture. All species start off as Darwinian creatures.
The Darwinian creature is a slave to its genes because that is what determines whether or not the species will survive in its given environment. If a species has a beneficial gene that allows them to survive they can reproduce and their offspring will have that beneficial gene. However, those who have a non-beneficial gene will eventually go extinct because they will not be able to survive and reproduce. The beneficial gene becomes fixed as the non-beneficial gene disappears. The key component of the Darwinian creature is variation within a species because it brings about more opportunities for the species to have a beneficial gene.
If the species was lucky enough to have the necessary gene for survival, it can become a Skinnerian creature. …show more content…
So, in other words, they are developing a culture. Communication allows species to develop a more accurate and richer inner- environment one that better parallels the outer environment, which means they can formulate better hypotheses and better strategies to interact with the environment thus increase the chances of survival. In turn, they will learn more about the environment and develop a “higher” more culture and language. This creature is known as the Gregorian creature; the highest level a species can achieve.
So, it is possible for language to have come by way of evolution and since language is a necessity for the development of culture, it would mean that culture as well came about from evolution. This would then imply that a species has culture to the extent that it has