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138 Cards in this Set
- Front
- Back
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Fixed action pattern
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- innate learning mechanism
- no learning required - form is the same : same actions / muscles used - cannot be unleartn - released by a stimulus - species specific |
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Tinbergen's 4 whys
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Animal
Behaviour Causation or proximate cue Development or ontogeny Evolution or phylogeny Function or adaptation (ultimate cue) |
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Sociobiology
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Wilson, entymologist.
(a) biodiversity (b) distribution of populations |
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Criticisms of sociobiology
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(a) reductionism
(b) genetic determinism |
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Sociobiology
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the study of the biological basis for social behaviour.
"gene's eye of evolution". Extension of "EP". |
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Three foci of sciobiology
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(a) altruism
(b) game theory (c) behavioural ecology |
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behavioural ecology
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the study of adaptive significance of animal behaviours in the wild.
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Plato
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-Each species has a fixed eidos (essence), and each individual is an approximation of that essence
- Knowledge is innate - Our bodies are encumbrances: our true selves are our souls. |
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Aristotle
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- Scala Naturae Great chain of being
- animate vs inanimate - human vs animal - sensation and perception are a way of knowing - there is an ultimate goal : perfection exists. |
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Scala Naturae
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Forms of intelligence
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Carl Linnaeus
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Founder of taxonomy
- Systema naturae - an alternative to the great chain of being |
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Jean Baptiste de Lamarck
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- New species arise by spontaneous generation
-Each species evolves up the Scala Naturae -Species may evolve adaptations due to the inheritance of acquired characteristics - physical changes are attributable to the law of use and disuse. |
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Herbert Spencer
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- 1855 principles of psytchology
- an evolutionary associationist: "functionaly produced modifications" - introduced the term "survival of the fittest" - Larmarkian "our mind structures our experiences, but the structures have been laid down during the process of evolution" |
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Cutting the Gordian Knot
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when someone solves a complicated problem by bold and decisive action
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Spencer
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Cutting the gordian knot of nature (kant) vs. nurture (locke)
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Charles Darwin
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- Natural selection
- Sexual selection - tree of life - psychoneural monism -emotions in man and animals |
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Natural Selection
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1. Variation
2. Differential survival and reproduction 3. high rate of population growth 4. Inheritance |
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What did Darwin not know about?
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1) Continental drift
2) genetics 3) fossil evidence yet to be discovered |
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Darwin's evidence
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- the enormous diversity of life
- geological and fossil discoveries - selective breeding of animals |
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Recent knowledge that supports Darwin
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Knowledge of the geographic distribution
continental dirft genetics |
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Mendel and Genetics
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inheritance mechanisms are unknown.
lived at same time as Darwin Called the father of genetics 1866 plant of hybridization. before mendel was blending inheritance. 1) Inheritance had to be particulates called elementes 2) each elemente had two possible expressions in the same individual, one dominant and one recessive. |
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Romanes
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Anecdotalist (non scientific)
- rated continuity between animals and humans on a numerical scale - Anthropomorphism - attributing human characteristics to animals. |
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Conway lloyd Morgan
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Morgan developed a theory that complex behaviour can result from
a) minimal innate traits b) a general learning process c) reliable species typical developmental environment. - was an influential compartive psychology but was lamarckian at first. |
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Galton
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Good ideas
- quantitative measurement - statistics bad ideas - eugenics (coined term) - selective breeding - state intervention to modify human mating choices - boiled everything down to genetics |
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Franz Boas
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Concluded that our commonality is shaped by history and culture not biology
Cranial measurements were used at the time to determine intelligence. Environment could change shape. |
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William James
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- human instincts (30 classes of them) which could be elicited by environmental stimuli
- specialised neural circuits common to eevery member of a species and a product of that species' history - circuits defined as "human nature" - "instinct blindness" - on a psychological level :pathological conditions could be remnants of animal instincts resurfacing after injury or disease. on a philosophical level: pragmatism: truth is the idea that works, the one that survive (evolutionary epistemology) |
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August Weismann
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- used empirical evidence to disprove lamarck's inheritance of acquired characteristics
- launched proper science of inheritance with his concept of germ and somatic cells. |
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Baldwin Effect
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- phenotypic plasticity can give rise to genetic adaptability
- only psychologist to influence evolution since darwin. - organic selection - developmental psychology |
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Environmental Change
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phenotype -> behaviour -> adaptive advantage -> fitness -> genotype.
Feedback loop from environment and individual. |
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baldwin
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- environment of thought (nemetics)
- organic selection - behavioural sieve |
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Two movements that suppressed rise of EP in the 20th C?
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1) Behaviourism : study of observable facts rather than subjective processes were studied. Watson transferred the studying of animals to humans
2) Cognitive revolution. Reaction to behaviourism. Psycholinguistics (chomsky). Influence of Piaget's developmental research. Growth in IT. New findings in Ethology. |
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Standard science model - Franz Boas
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1) people at birth are the same everywhere; there are no intergroup variations
2) only culture shapes the behaviour of adults ( this is not an EP concept). |
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Einstein and Darwin
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Partners in a revolution that taught us that the world is nothing but an ever evolving network of relationships
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Lee smolin
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a) before darwin, species = eternal categories
after darwin, species = relational categories b) before darwin, no process After darwin, natural selection c) Before darwin, things were absolute and defined a priori After darwin, methods of science changed to understand how things evovle by process. |
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Einstein and Darwin
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Partners in a revolution that tuaght us that the world is nothing but an ever evolving network of relationships.
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Difference between lamarckism and natural selection
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- law of use and disuse ( the more used a body part is, the greater its growth and transformation)
- inheritance of acquired characteristics (structural changes passed on immediately to next generation) - the phenotype can be passed on to the genotype. Naturla selection is the reverse. The genotype is passed on to the phenotype. The physiological potential is available to the next generation, but the phenotype's behaviour doesn't affect the genotype directly. |
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Difference between lamarckism and natural selection
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1) larmarck was focused on physical changes. Baldwin included cognitive and personality changes.
2) Baldwin wasm ore interested in how learned behaviour eventually becomes instinct over time through interaction with the environment, a much more sophisticated process. |
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Just so story
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a metaphor for an evolutionary account that is easily constructed to explain the evidence but make few predictions that are open for testing.
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Panglossian
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characterized by or given to extreme optimism. The attempt to find adaptive reason for everything
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Adaptation
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is a characteristics that has arisen through and been shaped by either natural and or sexual selection. not always a logical reason for every adaptation. Avoiding archaeological error. An adaptiation arised in memebrs of the same species to help solve problems of survival and reproduction.
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An adaptation must be
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- Reliable
- Economical (morgan's cannon) - efficient |
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Adaptive feature
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A feature or caharacteristics is adaptive if it confers some reproductive advantage however not all features, characteristics or behaviours are adaptive
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Other explanations for feature and behaviours
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- phylogenetic inertia e.g. skeletal frame
- genetic drift - random fluctuation in the frenquency of a gene - phenotypic plasticity (epigenetics) - learning |
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Why aren't we optimally designed?
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Constraints include
- evolutionary time lags (stone age brain) - costs to adaptations - by products - noise or random effects |
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Kluge
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clumsy or inelegant solution to a problem.
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Vestigial or atavistic
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Structures which little or no function in current species but was an adaptive function in previous species throughout evolution. Appendix processed cellulose in olden days in EEA.
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Spandrel
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leftover. Any phenotypic characteristic that is the y product of the main phenotypic characteristic
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Evidence for evolution
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1) relation to other living primates
- forward facing eyes - grasping hands - proportionately larger brains & neoteny - dentition (provides valuable transition feature evidence) 2123 2) Vestigial structures - appendix -wisdom teeth -tailbone, body hair - goose bumps, thirteenth rib 3) Fossil records -especially valuable are transitional features - > not linear but progression is tree like. 4) genetics - humans and chimps share 98% of DNA. The timing of measured DNA differences between chimps and humans coincides with the hominids first appearing in th fossil record. More similar than zebras and horses. |
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Ethology
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A branch of biology dealing with the natural behaviour of animals.
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Eugenics
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A largely discredited set of beliefs that advocates selective breeding among humans to remove undesirable qualities and enchance the frequency of desirable genes.
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Enviromentalism
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In the science of behaviour, environmentalism is the belief that social and cultural factors are paramount in determining human behaviour.
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Naturalism
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The belief that all phenomena can be explained by scientific laws and principles without recourse to the supernatural or entities outside the remit of science.
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Fitness
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Fitness can be measured by the numebr of offspring that an individual leaves relative to other individuals of the same species.
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Positivism
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The belief that science represents the positve and more advanced state of knowledge. Also the supposition that only objects that can be experienced directly form part of the proper process of the scientific enquiry. Positivism seeks to repudiate metaphysics.
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Phenotypic Plasticity
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A debated term. the average value for a phenotypic character between two individuals with identical genomes or two populations with similar gene ferequencies may be difeferent because of differetn environmental influences. Phenotypic plasticity is often used to refer to ireeversible change and phenotypic felxibility to refer to flexible change.
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Selection
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The differential survival of oragnisms or genes in a population as a result of some selective force. Selectionist thinking is the approach that looks for how features of organisms can be interpreted as the result of years of selection acting upon ancestral populations.
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Paradigm
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A cluster of ideas and theories that are consistent and form part of a distinct way of understanding the world. Evolutionary psytchology can be regarded as a paradigm.
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Ultimate Causation
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The explanation for the behaviour of an organism that reveals its adaptive value.
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Directional selection
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tends to favour an extreme measure of the natural variability in a population and the average measure will gradually move in this direction
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disruptive selection
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tends to favour more than one phenotype.
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Stabilising selection
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tends to favour the mean values currently found and ensures that variation is reduced.
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Proximate cause
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in behavioural terms, the immediate mechanism or stimuli that initiates or triggers a pattern of behaviour.
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Direct fitness or Darwinian Fitness
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can be thought of as being proportional to the number of genes contributed to the next generation by production of direct offspring.
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Indirect fitness
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proportional to the number of genes appearing in the next generation by an individual helping kin that also carry those genes.
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Founder effect
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If a new group of organisms is formed from a few in a larger population, the new group is likely to have less genetic variation and have an average genotype that may be shifted in some direction even though the shift was not the result of natural selection,
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Genetic Drift
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A change in the frequency of alleles in a population due to chance alone as opposed to selection
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Adaptation
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A feature of an organism that has been shaped by natural selectio nsuch that it enhances the fitness of its possessor. Adaptation can also refer to the process by which the differential survival of genes moulds a particular trait so that it now appears designed for some particular survival-related purpose.
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Optimality
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The idea that the beahviour of animals will be that which is ideally suited to bring maximum gain for minimum cost or more precisely where gain minus cost is maximised. The assumption that all behaviour must be optimal can be misleading.
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Reverse engineering
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A way of thinkign baout the consequences of evolution. It starts with a contemporary understanding of the function of adaptive behavioural or physiological attributes and tries to infer what problems our ancestors faced to give rise to these adaptive solutions.
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Strategy
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A pattern of behaviour or rules guiding behaviour shaped by natural selection to increase the fitness of an animal. a strategy is not taken to be a set of conscious decisions in non human animals. A strategy may also be flexible, in that different biotic and abiotic factors may trigger different forms of optimising behaviour.
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Speciation
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the creation of a new species through the splitting of an existing species into two or more new species.
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Altruism
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self sacrificing behaviour, whereby one individual sacrifices some component of its reproductive value for another individual. Self sacrifice for a relative is termed kin altruism. What may appear as help or self sacrifice may be enlightened self interest, as in mutualism, or reciprocal altruism, where a vour is given in the expectation of some return eventually. Sacrifice at the level of the phenotype can be interpreted in terms of the self interest of the genes involved.
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Eusocial
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a term used to describe highly socialised societies, such as ants and bees, where some individuals forego reproduction to assist the reproductive efforts of other members of the social group/
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Extrapair copulation
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mating by a member of one sex with another outside what appears to be the stable pair bond in a supposed monogamous relationship.
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Game theory
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a mathematical approach to establishing what behaviour is fitness maximising by taking into account the payoffs of particular strategies in the light of how other members of the group behave.
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Homology
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a feature present in several species and present in their common ancestor.
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Hamilton's rule
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a formula which predicts that individuals will perform altruistic acts to their relatives so long as the genetic benefit exceeds the costs (taking into the account the degree of relatedness between the donor and the recipient)
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Phylogeny
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the branching history of a species showing its relationship to ancestral species. A phylogenetic tree can be used to infer relationships between existing species and their evolutionary history.
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Reductionism
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the attempt to explain a wide range of phenomena by employing a smaller range of concepts and principles that are more basic.
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Exogamy
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The practive of mating with someone outside the natal group, usually by a migration to the group of the other partner. Exogamy facilitates outbreeding. The opposite to exogamy is endogamy.
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Out of africa hypothesis
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The idea that the species homo sapiens arose once in Africa and that members of this species migrated out of Africa about 150,000 years ago to eventually populate the globe.
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multiregional model
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A theory that proposes that Homo sapiens arose in various parts of the world from preexisting ancient stock that had already reached there (such as Homo erectus)
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mitochondrial eve
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The name given to the woman who is the most recent martilineal common ancestor to all humans. The mitochondrial DNA is all humans can be traced back to her.
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Mitochondrial DNA
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a short section of DNA found only in the mitochondria of cells and in humans only inherited from the mother.
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Morphological or development characters of primary interest in human evolution
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- relative limb length
- cranial size and shape - body and thorax shape - relative brain size |
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Morphological or development characters of primary interest in human evolution
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- elongated thumb and shortened finders
- small canine teeth - reduced masticatory structures - long gestation period and lifespan - skull in upright positions on vertical column |
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Morphological or development characters of primary interest in human evolution
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- reduced body hair
- dimensions of the plevis - presence of a chin - S - shaped spine - brain topology |
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increased body size, causes and consequences
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- increased predation
- increased metabolic rate and needs - home range increases to access more food - smaller surface area to volume ratio, creating overheating - body fur loss for temperature regulation - standing upright exposes less surface area to sun - take longer to mature sexually - higher parental investment required - kin and social groups become important for care and protection. |
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Increased brain size
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Cause - switch from vegetarian to meat diet
Consequences - how to get enough nourishment -how to give birth through small pelvises to large headed babies - altriciality (prolonged care of helpless human infants) - Female exogamy ( female leaves home and moves in with male partner's clans) |
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Reduced sexual dimorphism
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cause - a brain size grew, females needed more help from males
consequences - new social system required -> monogamy - concealed ovulation - altriciality - female exogamy |
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What did the greatest scientists of Darwin's day call the myster of mysteries
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the arrival or emergence of new species.
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4 processes of natural selection
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1) genetic variation
2) overproduction of offspring 3) struggle for existence 4) differential survival and reproduction |
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VIST
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variation
inheritance selection time |
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Wallace
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- descent with modification
- drew line between animals and humans - humans have too many abilities to account for natural selection - relied on supernatural to explain human superiority |
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Teleology
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there is an ultimate goal. Purpose.
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Descartes
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thinking is proof that we exist and separate use from animals.
- Cartesian dualism (mind / body ) |
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Empiricists
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Locke and Hume
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Erasmus Darwin
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Sensationalistic or Empiricist
"transformation" - species are not fixed they can chance - Evolutionist |
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Standard social science model
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the contents of the human minds are priamrily free from social constructions and that the social sciences are autonomous and disconnected from any evolutionary or psychological foundation.
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Empiricists
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content indpendent or domain general thinking.
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Aquinas and Empiricists
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a common view for philosophers and scientists that the mind resembles a tabula rasa.
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Distal
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Ultimate
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For any observable behaviour
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A) it is the product of general purpose programs
b) it is the product of cogntiive programs that are specialised for producing that behaviour c) it is the by product of specialised cognitive programs that evolved to solve a different problem. |
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Two major social conditionals
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social exchange and threat (conditional helping or hurting)
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Reductionism
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the attempt to explain a wide range of phenomena by employing a smaller range of concepts and principles that are more basic.
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Exogamy
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The practive of mating with someone outside the natal group, usually by a migration to the group of the other partner. Exogamy facilitates outbreeding. The opposite to exogamy is endogamy.
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Out of africa hypothesis
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The idea that the species homo sapiens arose once in Africa and that members of this species migrated out of Africa about 150,000 years ago to eventually populate the globe.
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multiregional model
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A theory that proposes that Homo sapiens arose in various parts of the world from preexisting ancient stock that had already reached there (such as Homo erectus)
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mitochondrial eve
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The name given to the woman who is the most recent martilineal common ancestor to all humans. The mitochondrial DNA is all humans can be traced back to her.
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Mitochondrial DNA
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a short section of DNA found only in the mitochondria of cells and in humans only inherited from the mother.
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Reductionism
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the attempt to explain a wide range of phenomena by employing a smaller range of concepts and principles that are more basic.
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Exogamy
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The practive of mating with someone outside the natal group, usually by a migration to the group of the other partner. Exogamy facilitates outbreeding. The opposite to exogamy is endogamy.
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Out of africa hypothesis
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The idea that the species homo sapiens arose once in Africa and that members of this species migrated out of Africa about 150,000 years ago to eventually populate the globe.
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multiregional model
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A theory that proposes that Homo sapiens arose in various parts of the world from preexisting ancient stock that had already reached there (such as Homo erectus)
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mitochondrial eve
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The name given to the woman who is the most recent martilineal common ancestor to all humans. The mitochondrial DNA is all humans can be traced back to her.
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Mitochondrial DNA
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a short section of DNA found only in the mitochondria of cells and in humans only inherited from the mother.
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Watson three basic emotions
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fear rage and joy
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EEA
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period known as pleistocene
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Homo sapiens
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200,000
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Neolithic revolution (origins of agriculture )
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10,000
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Palaeolithic period
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old stone age.
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Critical realism
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our mind structure our experiences but the structures used have been laid down during the eovlution of the species.
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Baldwin
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3 stages that children pass through
a) differentation of people and objects b) differentation of self and others c) "ejective consciousness" (child appreciate that others have mental states different to its own) |
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Organic selection or baldwin effect
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describes how a learnt adaptation could become fixed in the genome
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Comparative psychology
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the study of behaviour and mental life in animals
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warfare model
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conflict between religion and science.
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Nash equilibrium
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a state where no player can do any better by changing his strategy unilaterally
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Evolutionary psychology
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- design of human mind
- human nature is a collection of adaptive traits |
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How did the mind solve problems in the EEA
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mind is a set of informational processing machines (modules)
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natural selection
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random mutation and selective
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Adaptive problems
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Directly and indirectly aid in natural selection
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Adaptation paradigm / darwinism
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- natural selection biotic environment.
-sexual selection - social environment. |
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social contract algorithms
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computational units that are domain specific and functionally distinct.
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Evolutionary theory of social exchange
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a) cooperation
b) reciprocal altruism c) reciprocation |
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Social exchange requirements
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Social exchange cannot evovle in a species unless the cognitive machinery of participants allow a potential cooperator to detect individuals who cheat so that they can be excluded from future interactions in which they would exploit co-operators.
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Design evidence
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used to show that there is a fit between form and function
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For any observable behaviour
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a) it is a product of general purpose programs.
b) it is the product of cognitive programs that are specialised for producing that behaviour c) it is the by product of specialised cognitive programs that evolved to solve a different problem |
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Two major social conditionals
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social exchange and threat
(conditional helping or hurting) |
