Wolves closing in to kill bison (credit: Doug Smith, via Wikimedia Commons)

In this book, wisdom is seen as being a prime virtue. For example, in the economic sector of our society, we all need to be wise enough to grasp a lesson. When there is a lesson as glaring as this one to be found in the history recorded by our forebears, refusing to learn that lesson would not just be unwise; it would be suicidal. Modern business leaders and union leaders, however much they may dislike one another, have by and large grown wise enough to see that they need one another. Dynamic balances make our society work. It is only in adjusting the balance that we argue. Over time, the wolf pack keeps the caribou herd strong, and vice versa. Management and union leaders keep each other economically strong.

And this discussion of the ways in which social evolution driven by cultural adjustments can be compared to genetic evolution driven by genetic variation can be pursued further. The discussion is worth the trouble because it reiterates a main claim of this book, namely that the analogy between memes and genes is not a mere figure of speech. Cultural adaptation is the driving force in human evolution.


   

                     Prickly pear cactus, USA (credit: mark byzewski, via Wikimedia Commons)

                                       


                                     

                       Flowering cactus, Jordan (credit: Freedom's Falcon, via Wikimedia Commons)

For example, in biology, convergence is the term describing the phenomenon seen in species that are widely separated geographically, but that, after millennia of evolution, are found using nearly identical strategies for survival. Desert plants of widely differing species, in widely separated deserts, have waxy leaves. They also put off flowering and reproducing for years until that rare desert downpour arrives.


   

                                            Native elder Agnes Pilgrim with granddaughter 
                                        (credit: José Murilo Junior, via Wikimedia Commons)

                                                      


                            

                                                           Old Man and His Grandson (Ghirlandaio) 
                                                    (credit: Domenico Ghirlandaio, via Wikimedia)

Similarly, nearly all human societies that have made it into the present age, with vastly disparate cultures and from widespread geographic areas, respect, value, and heed their elderly. In pre-literate tribes, an old person was a walking encyclopedia of the tribe’s knowledge – of hunts, crops, diseases, etc. What the old had stored in their heads can save lives, even save a whole tribe. Thus, honoring one’s father and mother being a value in so many tribes all over the world demonstrates convergence in the cultural realm.