What Role Does Population Play In Regard To Altruism. How Does Language Evolve?

Decent Essays
I find everything about humans intriguing. From the cognitive to the evolutionary, to the behavioral, to the cultural, to language itself, Sapiens are incredibly complex and I yearn for greater understanding of them. How do they think? Why are they bipedal and what caused their predecessors to leave the trees? What role does population play in regards to altruism? How does language evolve?
Notice I speak of my own species as though they were not my own, mostly because I find myself, and others indubitably, to be so odd that we ( I was, once again, tempted to say “they”) seem ineffable. I would think myself foolish had I not chosen my declared major, but it would have been an even greater folly to enroll in any university other than the local

Related Documents

  • Superior Essays

    Edmond Hamilton’s story “The Man Who Evolved” is an exploration of what might occur in the chain of human evolution in the distant future. Despite a lack of actual science, or even actual scientific possibilities to back up the experiment presented, the story is considered an example of Science Fiction. The reasoning for this classification is that the story explores more than just evolutional possibilities. Hamilton presents a look at the reactions of un-evolved humans to the newly evolved Dr. John Pollard. Their horror and awe at each stage of his evolutionary transformation gives readers a reflection of their own aversion to different types of people, or the proverbial “other”.…

    • 1627 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Part two discusses adaptations, hybrids, and what actually makes us human. An interesting story from this part discusses Ilya Ivanov’s obsession with creating a human-chimpanzee hybrid. Part three details how we as a species were once endangered, in addition to how our intelligence, and creativity evolved. Stories here, such as the autopsy of Einstein’s brain, are fascinating.…

    • 907 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Evolution is a natural process that occurs throughout the history of time; this process allows the Earth and it’s inhabitants to adapt to current environments to survive. Humans are physically and mentally subjected to evolution, although humans have ceased from major physical evolutionary changes since the dawn of Homo Sapiens, their minds are ever-changing to further progress the human race. Throughout the course of human history, every generation had a different sense of purpose, beliefs, and ideologies. Every era is unique to it’s own, people from each era learned from the previous generations’ successes and failures to build the most ideal society for themselves.…

    • 751 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Humans. An interesting creature. Humans have been living on this planet for a while now, and they still don’t know everything there is to know. They have developed miraculously, starting out with little to nothing, then coming up to be a dominant species.…

    • 369 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    What is it to be human? One would think that humans would be experts on the subject, but instead the question seems without answer. The Wisdom of the Bones by Alan Walker and Pat Shipman explores this question by defining the physical and behavioral characteristics of humans and their ancestors. Despite our ability to create clean categories for other animals to fit in, Walker and Shipman reveal that there seems to be something harder for humans to define about ourselves. As is done with any other animal, the logical place to start is with humans’ unique physical traits.…

    • 1486 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Altruism is a wonder characterized by French scholar Auguste Comte as conduct by a person that expands the wellness of another individual while diminishing the wellness of the performing artist. The coinage of this term suggested a troublesome conversation starter to the field of transformative science, as it negated with Charles Darwin's meaning of the system of natural selection. In The Origin of Species, Darwin clarifies the instrument of regular determination by expressing that "individuals having any advantage, however slight, over others, would have the best chance of surviving and procreating their kind" and "On the other hand, we may feel sure that any variation in the least degree injurious would be rigidly destroyed" (83). The presence…

    • 1382 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Radiolab Research Paper

    • 1202 Words
    • 5 Pages

    In this time of Radiolab, levels of cross-species announcement. When we look into the eyes of a rough animal, or smooth a beloved pet, can we forever really distinguish what they might be rational? This time of Radiolab centers around a frightening question: in what way well can you ever really distinguish the folks about you? We conversation to neuroscientists, primatologists, actors, zookeepers, and ancestors who are all annoying to get inside another’s mind--from in what way a new sees his dad, to a rare complaint that turns domestic members into deceivers. Throughout the annual Consecration of the Faunae at St. John the Divine Cathedral, the audience might comprise any animal from Noah's ark.…

    • 1202 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In an article on Columbia College Today, Herbert Terrace Studies Evolution of Language, his conclusion was that these primates were only “brilliant beggars.” They had only learned responses to things that were wanted, or were cued to sign something by their trainer just before they did it, that it was not spontaneous or conversational. He makes me feel like I’m choosing to believe with my heart rather than my brain. But after watching Koko demonstrate many of the attributes that humans do, such as communicate, feel lonely, love, mourn, demonstrate linguistic displacement, I feel that Dr. Patterson’s research may have been more successful than Dr.…

    • 824 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Source 5: Wynn, T., & Coolidge, F. L. (2012). How to Think Like a Neandertal. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Synopsis of Book (so far): Currently, I am about a third of my way through the book, and I believe that I a firm grasp about the book. The book analyzes the potential similarities and difference in the cognitive developments of the Neanderthals from anatomically modern humans (AMHs).…

    • 352 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Among accounts of what it is that defines a person, two positions stand as rivals. There are arguments that assert that personal identity is purely biological, while other philosophers push that there is something more than the mere body that makes a person who they are. In this paper, I will argue that Eric Olson’s thinking-animal problem does not entail a leap from psychological to biological accounts of personal identity, on the grounds that Lynne Rudder-Baker’s Not-So-Simple Simple view of personal identity evades his objection. In attempting to refute psychological accounts of personal identity, Eric Olson offers “The Thinking-Animal Problem.” Olson begins his argument by asserting that for each human person there would appear to…

    • 1019 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    “Herzog, Hal. ‘Some We Love, Some We Hate, Some We Eat: Why it’s so hard to think Straight about Animals”. New York, NY, Harper Perennial, 2010. Hal Herzog focuses on the ethically inconsistent views that prevail in commonly held attitudes toward animals. The author suggests that moral incoherence is hardwired into the thinking of our species as a random by-product of evolution.…

    • 1119 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    One of the most puzzling questions is “what does it mean to be human?” The definition of human is “ A member of the primate genus Homo, especially a member of the species Homo sapiens, distinguished from other apes by a large brain and the capacity for speech”("human"). The definition should also include “thoughts, intelligentes, are self-aware and have emotions”, because humans are complex and unique animals. All though Humans are very similar to chimps, “sharing 98 percent of our genes and many behaviors”, humans stand out due to their level of complex thoughts (Hsu). Some animals share characteristics with humans, such as social groups and communication, but humans take things to an unmatched level.…

    • 756 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Homo sapiens is the name of the species that rules today 's Earth. It means in Latin man (Homo) that is wise (Sapiens), but who are these "wise men" that have made their way to the top of the food chain you may ask? Well, they are we, like you and me, humans that have out competed our fellow homos into extinction. How do we know this though? Well, around 3.3 million years ago people started to become curious about how we Homo Sapiens came to be and human evolution in a whole.…

    • 1112 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In February of 2002 primatologist Jane Goodall delivered a speech titled “What Separates us From Chimpanzees.” Her purpose is to address the topic as a question, providing specific evidence, and call us to action. Goodall’s primary audience are those who were viewing the TED Talk at the time it occurred. This included people who are both very intelligent in the field of zoology, and those who are naive. Goodall taps the interests of those well educated in a field like hers, but at the same time is able to simplify complex matters so that even children can thoroughly understand her message.…

    • 974 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Human is the most complex creature. Scientist Throughout the ages seek to know more about the human nature. They made lots of theories and hypotheses to know more about Human soul. In the human there are lots of conflicts, feelings, dreams, thoughts and moralities. One of the most famous scientists that cared about the human soul is Freud.…

    • 995 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays