Chapter 11 Summary and Analysis

This final chapter is the most daring and original of all. First, he examines the question, "Is man unique?" Yes is the answer he comes up with, because humans have a true culture passed on by language. Other animals, like the saddleback bird of New Zealand, do pass along evolving songs. They listen to one another and sometimes change their song based on what they have heard, so this is not a genetic passing on. But human cultural information is far more complex and the way it is passed on is unique. Still, the author and other thinkers believe that the way culture is passed on is similar to the way evolution works. And why shouldn't it be?

Genes are replicators, but it's conceivable that on another planet replicators may have arisen in chemicals other than those on earth. DNA, life...