ANTHROP 2U03 Lecture Notes - Sperm Competition, Twin Study, Genetic Drift
14 Dec 2019
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Document Summary
Strategies for creating and testing evolutionary hypothesis. Top down: theory-driven, hypothesis comes from existing theories. Bottom up: observation driven, hypothesis is based on a known observations. The defense mechanisms of the skunk and porcupine. A set of processes inside an organism with the following features: Solved a specific problem of survival (spines on a porcupine to avoid predators) or reproduction over evolutionary history. Designed to take in only a narrow slice of information, example: human eye function, fear of snakes. Input tells an organism about the adaptive problem it is facing, happens outside consciousness input decision (if then) output. Input is transformed through decision rules into output. Output can be physiological activity, information to other psychological mechanisms or manifest behaviour. Output is directed toward the solution to a specific adaptive problem. These mechanisms evolved because, on average they led to the solution of a problem.
