Fire, Cells, and Circuits: From Genes to Instincts to Culture

What makes humans so culturally flexible? One provocative possibility is that the story is not just about gaining new capacities, but also about loosening older instinctive ones. In this event, we will explore the idea that human evolution may have involved a partial downregulation of fixed, hormonally and pheromonally driven behaviors, creating more space for learning, experimentation, cooperation, and cultural transmission.

Starting from genes, moving through instincts, and arriving at culture, we will look at how biology may set constraints while also opening new possibilities. What happens when behavior becomes less rigid and more teachable? How might that shift help explain the emergence of flexible parenting, food practices, social organization, language, and cumulative culture? And how should we think about the relationship between inherited tendencies and the cultural worlds humans build together?

This will be a broad, exploratory event centered on gene-culture coevolution, human flexibility, and the possible tradeoff between strong instinct and open-ended cultural learning. We will also examine where this picture is compelling, where it remains speculative, and what it might mean for understanding human nature today.