BIOL 2400 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Genetic Drift, Ontogeny, Natural Selection
Document Summary
Nothing in life makes sense without evolution. A theory unites the facts and helps them to make sense. Every aspect of psychology should be influenced by evolution. Proximate or immediate cause questions (how: mechanisms (physiological, cognitive, developmental processes (ontogeny) Ultimate or long term cause questions (why: effects on fitness (function, evolutionary origins (phylogeny) Niko tinbergan proposed four complementary types of answers. Smiling benefits you: reproduce more often with happy people, get more affection when smiling. Use of evolutionary theory as a foundation for studying brains and behaviour. Draws from biology, zoology, psych, anthropology and econ. Not a subdiscipline of psych, it"s a paradigm for all psych. Evolutionary theory unites the old psychological findings and helps predict new ones. Evolution and natural selection re not the same thing. Tree isn"t great way to depict concept (phylogenetic tree) Every organism is equally evolved, aren"t higher leveled organism. All living forms are on same level in terms of evolution.
