It's quite simple to explain the causality. When you break everything down it eventually comes down to physics (ok so it's not that simple to explain, but it's conceptually simple).

However I vehemently deny that we can manipulate genes to control the evolution of society. At least in any positive direction, manipulating genes would certainly have some effect on our evolution, but I would argue that our limited knowledge would make this far more likely to be detrimental. This returns to my original point, removing ego from the equation. Evolution has proceeded over the last 4 billion years to create remarkable beings, all without our guidance. This blind progression is in fact the strength of the process, since shifting selective pressures are inherently unknowable, and any attempt to consciously control genes in any direction would lead to a reduction in biodiversity and overall fitness.

This then extends to memetic evolution. When mutations are made more rare (by channeling people into stagnant status quo sustaining pathways), and selected against too strongly (by punishing heterodox positions with starvation), memetic diversity is reduced and the risk of succumbing to new selection pressures rises. Any attempt to preferentially allocate resources is in this way self-sustaining (read incestual), and commits the same egotistical error as trying to manipulate genetics. Absent the knowledge (and the hope of ever attaining the knowledge) of what genes and memes will be long-term beneficial, the only reasonable course of action to my mind is the sort of universal support and equality of economic "opportunity" that I mention.