ArticleSustainability science2020
The genetic and cultural evolution of unsustainability.
Article in Sustainability science, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 11 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
11 citing papers in PubMed, 28 citations in OpenAlex.
- Towards Pragmatist Thermodynamics: An Essay on the Natural Philosophy of Entropy and Sustainability.Entropy (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Phase synchronization between culture and climate forcing.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2024Article
- Social-ecological niche construction for sustainability: understanding destructive processes and exploring regenerative potentials.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2024Article
- Evolution of the polycrisis: Anthropocene traps that challenge global sustainability.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2024Article
- Positive feedbacks in deep-time transitions of human populations.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2024Article
- Characteristic processes of human evolution caused the Anthropocene and may obstruct its global solutions.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2024Review
- How greedy is too greedy? A network toy model for evaluating the sustainability of biased evolutionary dynamics.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2024Article
- Evolution and sustainability: gathering the strands for an Anthropocene synthesis.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2024Review
- Neverland or Tomorrowland? Addressing (In)compatibility among the SDG Pillars in Europe.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2021Article
- Sustainability of religious communities.PloS one · 2021Article
- Sociological modeling of smart city with the implementation of UN sustainable development goals.Sustainability science · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
1 author at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Anthropogenic changes are accelerating and threaten the future of life on earth. While the proximate mechanisms of these anthropogenic changes are well studied (e.g., climate change, biodiversity loss, population growth), the evolutionary causality of these anthropogenic changes have been largely ignored. Anthroecological theory (AET) proposes that the ultimate cause of anthropogenic environmental change is multi-level selection for niche construction and ecosystem engineering. Here, we integrate this theory with Lotka's Maximum Power Principle and propose a model linking energy extraction from the environment with genetic, technological and cultural evolution to increase human ecosystem carrying capacity. Carrying capacity is partially determined by energetic factors such as the net energy a population can acquire from its environment and the efficiency of conversion from energy input to offspring output. These factors are under Darwinian genetic selection in all species, but in humans, they are also determined by technology and culture. If there is genetic or non-genetic heritable variation in the ability of an individual or social group to increase its carrying capacity, then we hypothesize that selection or cultural evolution will act to increase carrying capacity. Furthermore, if this evolution of carrying capacity occurs faster than the biotic components of the ecological system can respond via their own evolution, then we hypothesize that unsustainable ecological changes will result.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.