Biological organisms display four types of adaptation: phylogenetic, physiological, learning, and cultural. Overall, adaptation may be a combination of these types. Cultural adaptation, combining learning and the social transmission of information or practices, is typified by its rapidity, though not by its fidelity. Drawing on the experience of others enables the trial-and-error stage of learning to be reduced in duration. Thus, heat loss can be avoided by wearing clothes, the conceptual and practical work of invention having taken place in preceding generations. Socially transmitted learned behavior has been demonstrated for many species, including nonhuman primates, but in humans has become the dominant means of adaptation (particularly through symbolic culture), and recent human evolution can be seen as the evolution of the increasing capacity for complex cultural adaptation. Cultural adaptation can take place through inadvertent differential survival of populations with advantageous practices, through conscious response to perceived hazards, and by chance.