One key criticism of gene-culture co-evolutionary theory is timing.

Modern humans
have been described as 'stone agers in the fast lane' (Boyd Eaton et al. 1988).
This is based on a concept of adaptive lag between our genetics and our environment
which assumes that we are still optimally adapted to our ancestral environment of
the African savannah. Critics such as Adenzato (2000) have claimed that genetic
evolution moves too slowly to be affected by something as rapid as cultural change.

This argument can be attacked from two sides; firstly genetic mutations in humans
have increased rapidly since the advent of cultural practices. Genetic evolution
has not at all been at a standstill in Homo sapiens; in fact studies have shown a
great deal of recent mutations, (Wang et al. 2006, Voight et al. 2006) and even an
increase in the rate of evolution (Hawks et al. 2007). Genes relating to pathogen
response and neuronal function are over-represented in those that have undergone
recent changes (Wang et al. 2006).

This is highly likely to be a result of increased pathogen stresses in a larger

population with close contact with animals and a complicated social structure.
Genetic change is not therefore too slow to be affected by cultural change.

There are however, examples of cultural change being too delayed to save a
population from extinction, wiping out all the genetic information within it. The
example of Greenland Vikings failing to adapt culturally to the Ice Age in the
fifteenth century (McGovern 1981 quoted in Barrett, Dunbar & Lycett 2002) shows
that cultural change does not have a set rate any more so than genetic evolution;
both are flexible enough to interact with each other.

Another important criticism of the gene-culture co-evolutionary theory is the idea

of proximate and ultimate causes; if an organism's behaviour can be linked to its
genetics then it becomes merely the proximate cause while the ultimate cause
remains natural selection. However human niche-construction shows the failings of
this argument. There are no genes for cooking, dairying or many of the other
cultural practices that have been shown to have affected our genetic evolution.
(Laland et al. 2007) Behaviour can therefore be reasonably said to influence
genetic evolution rather than just being considered a proximate cause.