they perform them with no aim of reward or gain. This is the question of altruism. Altruism is defined as an act that an individual engages in, that presents a benefit to the recipient but comes at a cost to the individual presenting the act. In evolutionary terms the costs and rewards are based on reproductive success and fitness, and this is measured by the number of copies of a gene that is passed on to generations. The existence of altruism is an issue for Darwin’s theory of evolution by…
In Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species, Darwin identifies two different methods of adaptation that take place amongst organic species: natural and artificial selection. Instinctually, one may declare something as “natural” when it has not been tampered by direct human interference, and “artificial” when human intervention has changed the physical condition of that original characteristic. When comparing the two, many tend to favor the ease of efficiency that artificial selection has to…
The nurture vs. nature debate is debated by many psychologist and sociologist. The nurture side of the debate is that a person’s traits are formed by the way one is raised. The nature aspect of the debate is that a person is born with and biologically given the traits that determine one’s perspective and personality. The authors of Psychology states that “Research reveals that nature and nurture together shape our development-every step of the way” (Myers 133). In Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein,…
The first was that organisms develop characteristics that are useful in a particular environment or lose traits that are not. He called this concept use and disuse, which is referred to as the “First Law”. Evolutionary improvements also happened by inheritance of acquired traits. Lamarck’s “Second Law” stated that adaptations to an environment could be passed on to the next generation to allow the entire population to benefit. This would therefore create new…
evolved the way they did (p. 411). Evolutionary questions typically fall into the why group as they address the ultimate levels of inference. Conversely, questions of ontology seek developmental answers for observable changes. Psychology is primarily concerned with the individual level of analysis, but in the case evolutionary psychology the theoretical and practical lines are much more blurred. This paper will provide a roadmap for the main positions held by evolutionary psychology while…
The theories presented in Darwin’s book the origins of species changed the path of science to what we know today. Darwin presented an elegant idea that explained the history of life up to the current time. His four postulates stated that individuals in a population have variability, those variations are hereditable and result in an increase in reproduction success. Finally, survival and reproduction are not random. Natural selection acts only on the individual not the species. These…
For Darwin’s theory of evolution there are where the questions of the diversity of life by evolution occurring, what was Darwin’s evidence of evolution and what Darwin didn't know about it. When did the the theory of evolution occur? What Darwin found out is about different type of living beings being able to survive and reproduce based on how well the species fits or don’t fit in the environment is by natural selection. For the species that survive and reproduce would be apart of survival of…
This poem’s main focus is to discuss the topic of natural selection. The author of this poem goes on to discuss how everything in this world is created by randomness, and biological need to change at the same time. That evolving is something that starts from simplicity, and ends in utter complexity. This poem also says that natural selection is something that happens out of necessity, yet it is a process that takes place without being able to control it. Everything in life begins as a simple…
An individual within a population with an advantageous trait is more likely to survive than the individual without that trait. This means the species without the advantageous trait have a higher chance of dying and will most likely reduce in number. If the trait is heritable, the individual with the trait will produce offspring with that trait and actively grow in number since the trait allows them to better survive in their environment. This is natural selection. Natural selection is the force…
The lecture this week discussed evolution and development. While Darwin believed that natural selection worked with individuals, the synthetic theory states that genes determine all traits that heritable. While the synthetic theory of evolution combined Darwinian evolution and genetics, it chose genes as the only focus of natural selection, hence an organism can be seen as the “vehicle” for genes because they are what create these individuals to deal with the environment to make more genes. So,…