Being Human: Language: a social history of words : Article : N... http://www.nature.com.ezproxy.library.wisc.edu/nature/journal/...
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systems, and the establishment of laws and theories over several generations. It has allowed us to construct a highly altered social and physical world, which has in turn shaped our evolution. Cultural evolution has shown us that one word can be worth a thousand genes. Language was the key evolutionary innovation because it built on important cognitive prerequisites and opened the door to so much else.
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