User:Madalinhow/new sandbox

The nature-culture divide is deeply intertwined with the social versus biological debate, since it both are implications of each other. As viewed in earlier forms of Anthropology, it is believed that genetic determinism de-emphasizes the importance of culture, making it obsolete. However, more modern views show that culture is valued more than nature because everyday aspects of culture have a wider impact on how the humans see the world, rather than just our genetic makeup. Older anthropological theories have separated the two, such as Franz Boas, who claimed that social organization and behavior is purely the transmission of social norms and not necessarily the passing of hereditable traits. Instead of using such a contrasting approach, more modern anthropologists see Neo-Darwinism as an outline for culture, therefore nature is essentially guiding how culture develops. When looking at adaptations. anthropologists such as Davide Nettles believe that behavior associated with cultural groups is a development of genetic difference between groups. Essentially, he states that animals choose their mates based on their environment, which is shaped by directly by culture. More importantly, the adaptations seen in nature are a result of evoked nature, which is defined as cultural characteristics which shape the environment and that then queue changes in phenotypes for future generations. To put simply, cultures that promote more effective resource allocation and chance for survival are more likely to be successful and produce more developed societies and cultures that feed off of each other.

On the other hand, transmitted culture can be used to bridge the gap between the two even more, for it uses a trial and error based approach that shows how humans are constantly learning, and that they use social learning to influence individual choices. This is seen best about how the more superficial aspects of culture still are intertwined with nature and generic variation. For example, there are beauty standards intertwined into culture because they are associated with better survival rates, yet they also serve personal interests which allows for individual breeding pairs to understand how they fit into society. Additionally, cultural lags dissolve because it is not sustainable for reproduction, and cultural norms that benefit biology continue to persevere. By learning from each other, nature becomes more intertwined with culture since they reinforce each other.

Since nature and culture are now viewed as more intertwined than ever before, which makes the divide between the the two seems obsolete. Similarly, the Social scientists have been reluctant to use biological explanations as explantations for cultural divisions because it is difficult to construct what what ‘biological’ explanations entail. According to social scientists like Emile Durkheim, anthropologists and especially sociologists have tended to characterize biological explanations in only a physiological and cognitive sense within individuals, not in a group setting. On the other hand, there is a heavier focus on the social determinism as seen in human behavior instead. Furthermore, even as divide between nature and culture has been narrowed there is a reluctance to define biological determinism on a large scale.