Cultural Evolution as Knowledge Infrastructure

Cultural evolution (the processes by which socially transmitted traits—practices, rules, heuristics—change and accumulate) functions as a form of distributed epistemic infrastructure that creates durable, low‑cost knowledge over long time horizons. It often operates invisibly and can be misjudged as 'slow' or inferior when compared to laboratory science, but it enables many practical technologies and institutions by preserving trial‑and‑error solutions across generations. — Recognizing cultural evolution as infrastructure shifts policy debates about education, innovation strategy, and crisis response toward preserving, studying, and amplifying collective learning systems rather than only funding lab-centered science.