From the genome’s perspective, culture is anything but free. In fact, nothing is more costly. The brain that picks up culture is big and energetically expensive to run; the process by which culture is transmitted is prone to error; and the content of human culture frequently blocks off fitness-enhancing opportunities—thou shalt not kill, steal, covet, lay with, etcetera. Anthropomorphizing the genome for a moment: If culture did not pay the genome back for its astronomical expense, the genome would have reason to be livid. Culture appears to waste time, energy, and resources that would
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