Culture

Culture = entire lifestyle of a group, studied via ethnography. Material culture = tangible artifacts (clothing, tools, buildings). Symbolic/nonmaterial culture = underlying ideas (mottoes, songs, values) — material items are often the tangible embodiment of symbolic ideas (flag = material, national loyalty = symbolic).
Culture lag (Ogburn): symbolic culture changes slower than material/technological culture, creating a gap between new tech/conditions and the norms/laws needed to adapt to them.
Language: most complex symbol system; written language crosses both space and time, unlike spoken language alone. Essential for transmitting culture.
Values (what matters), beliefs (what's accepted as true), norms (what's acceptable to do), rituals (formalized performances combining all three). Cultural barrier = friction when cultural differences impede interaction.
Culture conferred evolutionary benefits: transmitting practical knowledge (tools, hunting, farming), reinforcing loyalty/altruism, shaping in-group/out-group dynamics.
Gene-culture coevolution: lactase persistence (ability to digest lactose into adulthood) evolved independently in Northern Europeans and separately in Fulani, Maasai, and Arabian Bedouin — each population's own dairy-farming practice drove its own genetic selection.

Ethnography: The study of cultures.
Artifact: A material item made, possessed, and valued by a group — the unit of material culture.
Culture lag: Ogburn's term for the gap when material/technological change outpaces symbolic culture (norms, laws, values).
Norm: A societal rule defining the boundaries of acceptable behavior, speech, dress, etc.
Cultural barrier: Friction that impedes interaction between groups/individuals due to cultural differences.
Gene-culture coevolution: A cultural practice shapes which genetic traits are selected for over generations.
Lactase persistence: The trait allowing continued lactose digestion into adulthood; evolved independently in multiple dairying populations.

Concept	Question It Answers
Values	What matters to me?
Beliefs	What do I accept as true?
Norms	What is acceptable to do here?
Rituals	Formalized event performing all three together

A physical object described in a vignette = material culture; the meaning/loyalty/identity behind it = symbolic culture — they're two layers of the same thing, not unrelated categories.
Culture lag = new material/tech conditions outpacing the symbolic culture (norms/laws) that hasn't caught up yet — not simply 'culture changing.'
Don't reduce gene-culture coevolution to 'humans are uniquely cultural' — lactase persistence varies by specific population and specific dairying practice, evolved independently multiple times.
Value vs. belief vs. norm are easy to blur — sort by the question each answers (importance / truth / acceptable behavior), not by vague similarity.

A society adopts new reproductive technology faster than its laws/ethics norms can adapt to it. What concept?

A wedding ring vs. the marriage vow it represents — which is material and which is symbolic culture?

Multiple unrelated dairy-farming populations each independently evolved the ability to digest lactose as adults. What does this illustrate?

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