BIOLOGICAL TRADITIONS 



we generally realize. Although ancestors have not consciously directed us 

 and we have not sought their guidance, we the moderns cannot escape 

 the force of the traditional influences in the actions of living from day to 

 day, from youth to old age. 



The welfare of our daily lives is broadly influenced by this social in- 

 heritance. Health measures, safety procedures, the design of our homes, 

 live by tradition. So it is that most North Americans own a toothbrush, 

 and automobiles keep to one side of the road. Many traditions are of bio- 

 logical importance to the human race, and the pattern of social life is es- 

 sentially a nongenetic inheritance passed from father to son or from elders 

 to young. We realize the strength of this force on our lives when examin- 

 ing the mating behavior of human beings in different parts of the world. 

 Monogamy is traditional for a large segment of the human race, but it is 

 by no means universal; there are numerous patterns of marriage customs 

 according to race and region. "No man ever looks at the world with pris- 

 tine eyes. He sees it edited by a definite set of customs and institutions 

 and ways of thinking. Even in his philosophical probings he cannot go be- 

 hind these stereotypes ; his very concepts of the true and the false will still 

 have reference to his particular traditional customs . . . The life history 

 of the individual is first and foremost an accommodation to the patterns 

 and standards traditionally handed down in his community. From the mo- 

 ment of his birth, the customs into which he is born shape his experience 

 and behavior. By the time he can talk, he is the little creature of his cul- 

 ture, and by the time he is grown and able to take part in its activities, 

 its habits are his habits, its beliefs his beliefs, its impossibilities his impossi- 

 bilities" (Benedict, 1946:4). These customs from the cradle onward have no 

 biological transmission; they are nongenetic; they are a part of our heritage, 

 but they are not genetically heritable. 



Any study of human behavior, any searching investigation into our 

 ethology, must give deep and careful examination to tradition. So too, in 

 the animal world, where there is learned behavior, where individuals live 

 in companionship, where there are communities and biological societies, 

 there is the nongenetic link of intelligent action between one generation 

 and the next. This being the case, it may be said that tradition is a proper 

 biological term of special reference to behavior that is delivered by ances- 

 tors to progeny nongenetically. 



When a bird learns from the behavior of its experienced companions, 

 the objects, places or actions thus learned become traditional. Cushing 



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