As the importance, diversity, and complexity of cultural products ratcheted up, natural selection gradually strengthened our inclinations to rely on cultural learning over our instincts and individual experiences because the tools, protocols, and practices that we acquired from others became far superior to anything that any single individual could

Culture freed humans from the limitations of their biology; according to evolutionary biologist Mark Pagel, when humans discovered culture, they achieved a momentous shift in the balance of power “between our genes and our minds.”