Culturgen - Wikipedia

Culturgen (culture + -gen) is a term used to denote a theoretical 'unit' of culture or cultural evolution. More specifically, analogous to a gene, it is a cultural artifact or element of behaviour whose repetition or reproduction is transmissible from one generation to the next. It has largely been displaced by the similar term meme.^[1]

The term was coined in 1980 by two American scientists—the biomathematician Charles J. Lumsden and the sociobiologist E. O. Wilson^[2]—in a controversial attempt to analyse cultural evolution by using techniques borrowed from population genetics, to develop a comprehensive theory of how genes interact with cultural variation,^[3] and to infer a theory of the evolution of the human mind.

The fullest exposition of their theory appeared in their book Genes, Mind, and Culture: The Coevolutionary Process (1981),^[4]^[5] which expanded upon the agenda that Wilson had laid out in Sociobiology: The New Synthesis (1975) and On Human Nature (1978). In the book, the two assume that culturgens are stored in long-term memory, are readily observable in the external world, and are to be transmitted via socialization.^[3] Genes, Mind, and Culture received many highly negative reviews in the scientific press, however;^[4]^[5] it was re-issued in 2005 with a review of subsequent developments.^[6]

It also effectively means much the same as the older term cultural trait used by anthropologists, and offers similar difficulties of identification and definition. The term has declined in popularity; the slightly older term meme—coined by Richard Dawkins in his book The Selfish Gene (1976)—is now used in its stead,^[1] almost universally (even by Wilson in his later writings).^{[citation needed]}

References

[edit]

^ ^a ^b "Culturgen". Lexico Dictionaries. Retrieved 2021-03-15.^{[dead link]}
^ Lumsden, Charles J., and E. O. Wilson. 1980. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA 77(4382).
^ ^a ^b Bell, Adrian, and Peter Richerson. 2008. "Review - Charles J. Lumsden and Edward O. Wilson, Genes, Mind, and Culture: 25th Anniversary Edition." Journal of Bioeconomics 10:307–14. doi:10.307-314.10.1007/s10818-008-9041-x.
^ ^a ^b Lumsden, Charles J., and E. O. Wilson. 1982. "The ‘Culturgen’: Science or Science Fiction?" Behavioral and Brain Sciences 5(1):12–13. doi:10.1017/S0140525X00010190.
^ ^a ^b William, B. J. 1982. "Have We a Darwin of Biocultural Evolution? [PDF]." American Anthropologist 84:848–52. [Review of Genes, Mind, and Culture: The Coevolutionary Process].
^ Lumsden, Charles J., and E. O. Wilson. 2005. Genes, Mind, And Culture: The Coevolutionary Process (25th Anniversary ed.). Singapore: World Scientific. Google Books.

v t e Culture
Outline
Sciences	Cultural anthropology Cultural astronomy Cultural ecology Cultural geography Cultural neuroscience Cultural studies Culturology Culture theory
Subfields	Bioculture Cross-cultural studies Cross-cultural communication Cross-cultural leadership Cross-cultural psychiatry Cross-cultural psychology Cultural analytics Cultural economics Cultural entomology Cultural history Cultural mapping Cultural mediation Cultural psychology Cultural values Culturomics Intercultural learning Intercultural relations Internet culture Philosophy of culture Popular culture studies Postcritique Semiotics of culture Sociology of culture Sound culture Theology of culture Transcultural nursing
Types	Constructed culture Dominant culture Folk culture High culture Individualistic culture Legal culture Low culture Microculture Official culture Political culture Civic Popular culture Urban Primitive culture Resistance through culture Subculture Alternative culture Fandom Far-right subcultures Youth subculture list Super culture Vernacular culture Culture by location
Aspects	Acculturation Cultural appreciation Cultural appropriation Cultural area Cultural artifact Cultural baggage Cultural behavior Cultural bias Cultural capital Cross-cultural Cultural communication Cultural conflict Cultural cringe Cultural dissonance Cultural emphasis Cultural framework Cultural heritage Destroyed Cultural icon Cultural identity Cultural industry Cultural invention Cultural landscape Cultural learning Cultural leveling Cultural memory Cultural pluralism Cultural practice Cultural property Cultural reproduction Cultural system Cultural technology Cultural universal Cultureme Enculturation High- and low-context cultures Interculturality Manuscript culture Material culture Non-material culture Organizational culture Print culture Protoculture Relational mobility Safety culture Technoculture Trans-cultural diffusion Transculturation Visual culture
Politics	Colonial mentality Consumer capitalism Cross cultural sensitivity Cultural assimilation Cultural attaché Cultural backwardness Cultural Bolshevism Cultural conservatism Cultural contracts Cultural deprivation Cultural diplomacy Cultural environmentalism Cultural exception Cultural feminism Cultural genocide Cultural globalization Cultural hegemony Cultural imperialism Cultural intelligence Cultural liberalism Cultural nationalism Cultural pessimism Cultural policy Cultural racism Cultural radicalism Cultural retention Cultural Revolution Cultural rights Cultural safety Cultural silence Cultural subsidy Cultural Zionism Culture change Culture minister Culture of fear Culture war Deculturalization Dominator culture Interculturalism Monoculturalism Multiculturalism Biculturalism Multiracial democracy Pluriculturalism Polyculturalism Transculturism
Religions	Buddhism Christianity Catholicism Cultural Christians Protestantism Role of Christianity in civilization Eastern Orthodoxy Mormonism Cultural Hindus Islam Cultural Muslims Judaism Sikhism
Related	Animal culture Archaeological culture Bennett scale Cannabis culture Circuit of culture Civilization Coffee culture Cross-cultural Cultural center Cultural competence Cultural critic Cultural determinism Cultural diversity Cultural evolutionism Cultural homogenization Cultural institution Cultural jet lag Cultural lag Cultural literacy Cultural mosaic Cultural movement Cultural mulatto Cultural probe Cultural relativism Culture speculation Cultural tourism Pop-culture Cultural translation Cultural turn Cultural sensibility Culture and menstruation Culture and positive psychology Culture and social cognition Culture gap Culture hero Culture industry Culture shock Culturgen Children's culture Culturalism Cyberculture Death and culture Disability culture Deaf culture Drinking culture Drug culture Eastern culture Emotions and culture Intercultural communication Intercultural competence Languaculture Living things in culture Media culture Oppositional culture Participatory culture Permission culture Rape culture Remix culture Tea culture Transformation of culture Urban culture Welfare culture Western culture Youth culture
Category Commons WikiProject Changes