 This idea was also brought out very clearly by Wallace, who emphasized that apparently reasonable activities of man might very well have developed without an actual application of reasoning.Thus, Boas suggested that what appear to be patterns or structures in a culture were not a product of conscious design, but rather the outcome of diverse mechanisms that produce cultural variation (such as diffusion and independent invention), shaped by the social environment in which people live and act.Boas concluded his lecture by acknowledging the importance of Darwin's work