Correcting Mesoudi’s Failed Concept of Societal Culture

David R. Wood

Abstract: The natural species homo sapiens are not a cultural species. Homo sapiens instead artificially segregates itself into many artificial species (i.e., cultures) for competitive advantage in natural intraspecies competition – warfare, economics, etc. These artificial species are defined and categorized based on the distinct combination of artificial genomes, artificial structural adaptations, and artificial behavioral adaptations. Homo sapiens organize collectively as it typically affords the majority of the natural organisms enhanced access to scarce evolutionary resources in the natural struggle for existence. And the majority of homo sapiens artificial adaptations align with the two-core natural evolutionary value streams – survival and reproduction. This is the case because all artificial adaptations produced by homo sapiens are logically an extension of natural evolution itself. This is so because the mechanism of natural selection draws no practical distinction between natural and artificial adaptations at the point of selection. The failed science of cultural evolution does not frame the artificial adaptations produced by homo sapiens in this practical way. This is why cultural evolutionary science has been unable to integrate successfully with the practical patterns of natural species, to include homo sapiens, in the fields that surround it academically. This makes the field of cultural evolution fatally flawed necessitating a replacement of their theoretical framework. My discovery of The Unified Framework of Evolution – Natural & Artificial is the Kuhnsian paradigm shift that will replace their failed framework. A unified framework that has successfully shown to have both explanatory and predictive value for the patterns of human competition in warfare, politics, business, etc. And this has been demonstrated by great theorists in their field such as Sun Tzu and Machiavelli. The field of cultural evolution must now either self-disrupt or be disrupted by this paradigm shift – or risk literal intellectual extinction of all their works.