PSYC 354 Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: August Weismann, Somatic Cell, Gamete

• School: Concordia University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYC 354
• Professor: Mihaela Iordanova

Document Summary

Individuals are grouped together into species on the basis f characteristics. Individuals are not identical within a species. Differences can be inherited and may be passed on. Variation due to spontaneous but random novelty. While they can be absolute terms, they can also be a matter of degree. Present vs absent, there can also be a degree. Competition for scarce resources generates natural environmental pressures which leads to selection of some individuals over others. Some individuals have more fitness than others. Fitness dictates what we end us seeing in future generations. If the fitter individuals pass on the information, then advantageous traits need to be passed down. Of course, they will not be the only things that are passed down. Anything that ends up being an advantage should be passed down to the next generation. The variants that leave more offspring tend to be preserved and become the norm.