Evolutionary medicine

by Dario Maestripieri in Psychology Today, where it explains the differences between male and female characteristics, such as different emotional stabilities. The variance between different genders is a definite concern that is a result of the evolutionary process and surprisingly affects the personality traits of individuals (Maestripieri). What these sources equally state is that gender is just another factor that can be impressionable upon a person’s personality, which overall may be a minor…

Nature vs. Nurture: Personality Nurture The development of personality has led to much debate. Scientists have argued about what determines it or what affects it more – nature or nurture. There is a case to be made for both. Many believe that personality is determined by nature or, in other words, heredity and genetics. There is also a nurture theory to personality. First of all, nurture will be examined. Proponents of nurture argue that environmental factors influence a particular behavior and…

Evolutionary psychology has been criticized by many, and before I took this class I was not sure which side of the debate I was on. I felt like evolutionary psychology suggested behavior is caused by nature alone, and to some extent it does, but it depends on interpretation. It searches for biological and physiological causes for human behavior, emotions, and motivation. In my other psychology classes I was hearing different views about evolutionary theory from my professors. One professor…

The evolutionary story suggests that our moral beliefs evolved organically to select for what would keep a community alive. That our morals do not approach an objective truth, but are merely adaptively fit. This lends to an argument that since we are not evolved to know the truth, our morals may be totally invalid, and so we cannot rationally believe them. This argument that we cannot trust our morals is flawed. The debunker claims that since evolution selects for fitness rather than moral truth…

2b. The critique presented by Gould and Lewontin in the Spandrels paper describes the shortcomings of the adaptationist program that had been the predominant path of evolutionary thought for decades. Adaptationists see natural selection as the only and all-powerful force that can overcome any constraint to species' traits, and that evolution in turn relies exclusively on natural selection. In challenging this concept of adaptation, Gould and Lewontin are not denying the existence evolution by…

Molecule-To-Man evolution has been taught as fact in public schools for as long as many can remember but why? There are many theories of how humans came to be, although widely accepted evolution is only another theory. Evolution is “where changes occur in the gene pool of a population from generation to generation by such processes as mutation, natural selection, and genetic drift” (dictionary.com, Evolution)). Although evolution has some scientific background, it should only be taught in…

Charles Darwin, associated with Cambridge University, revolutionized science with his theories of evolution. His ideas birthed new ways of understanding how species came to be. According to Darwin , the key driving force behind evolution is natural selection, which occurs under environmental pressures leading to speciation or changes within species. It favours the traits most adept to surviving in an environment’s conditions and weeds out those that are not through the four aspects of natural…

it is often envisioned as individuals competing against individuals, where the fittest species collectively sends the other species to extinction. In ‘The Origin of Species’, Charles Darwin uses the term ‘Natural Selection’ to describe the key evolutionary process. The phrase ‘Survival of the Fittest’, although typically attributed to Darwin, was introduced by Herbert Spencer and then adopted by Darwin in a later book. Darwin wrote: “This preservation, during the battle for life, of…

One misconception of Darwinian evolutionary theory is that evolution is at a random chance. Natural selection is actually the stated opposite of random chance (Ryan p. 50). Although genetic drift and mutation play roles in evolution as causing chance events that result in a change in population, that does not mean that evolution as a whole is due to randomness. Natural selection is the greatest force of modern evolution, and is completed by the passing on of successful genes, not by random…

adaptationist programme is a narrow view of evolution and should be expanded to incorporate other explanations. They claim that one of the key adaptationist arguments is “if one adaptive program fails, try another” (Gould & Lewontin 586). In this way, evolutionary biology focuses exclusively on researching and publishing material on adaptation. They propose that scientists should instead explore other avenues of discovery that may lead to alternative explanations, explanations that they…