Paul Ehrlich has an exciting story on the SEED magazine (which I find worthwhile to follow) detailing past and recent progresses on the field of cultural evolutionism.
It is enlightening to follow Paul's journey through the parallels which can be made on the way our culture and our genes evolve as a response to our environment. Even more interesting, however, is his discussion on the differences between these phenomenons and his experiments investigating these differences using canoe-building techniques as a case study. His final remarks do a good job in summing up it all:
We directly tested a theory of cultural evolution. Our work has helped to uncover a piece of the larger, more complex process of culture change and has shown that it is reasonable to think of that change as evolution. Natural selection can operate in cultural evolution as well as in genetic evolution. Though canoe features may not be related to the genetic attributes of people who construct and use them, nor is natural selection likely the central force in cultural evolution, a comprehensive view of cultural evolution does now seem possible. And despite the daunting complexity, I believe we will one day understand how cultures evolve, and that it will help us all to survive.
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