Niche construction theory (Odling-Smee, Laland, & Feldman 2003) espouses the notion of ecological inheritance through which previous generations as well as current neighbors can affect organisms by altering the external environment or niche that they experience.
His great, great grandfather, Cato, was a runaway slave and the name had been passed along through eight previous generations.
We consider the fitness of a genotype G in generation k + 1 based on its mutational and selective history through the previous generations.
The cost of a US college education has skyrocketed since previous generations went through university, increasing 1,120% from 1978 to 2010 and, with a perilous job market, they are finding it increasingly difficult to pay off their debts.
The hip-hop offers a structure and discipline not much different than those inculcated in previous generations through playing basketball or boxing after school.
If this helps adults engage with young adults about the issues surrounding death through mutually enjoyed stories, then I think this has to be positive when teenagers are so often distanced from previous generations through technology, vocabulary and life experience.
You still "see" retirement through the prism of previous generations.
The US political elite dominates through the reach of its vast store of technologically advanced weaponry and spy systems, through the world's dependence on the dollar, and through the international institutions that previous generations of American political leaders created to secure their interests -- NATO, the IMF, the World Bank, etc.
Democrats of previous generations are treated more generously.
There's a kind of social exchange – notoriety and fame are accrued through likes and comments – that previous generations of anthropologists would have examined with "pre-modern" or "tribal" societies.
