BIOL 3010 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Pleistocene, Statistical Significance, Natural Selection
Document Summary
Need criteria to distinguish which traits are adaptation. If environment changes you"d end up with phenotypes that would be adaptive in previous environment. Entire set of environment regularities that were relevant to human evolution. Pleistocene is shortcut answer, this is the period where humans actively evolved. A lot of human traits such as eyesight and movement were there before pleistocene. Example: eea for vision in fish: statistical significance of physical features: light moving through water vs. through air. Our present social adaptations assume social conditions of past. The good definition of eea is specific to adaptation. Have to evaluate decision role rather than the outcome. How to evaluate whether decision was adaptive or not: Rabbit could go in open or brush. More food in the open but also more predators, safer in brush but less food. Rabbit has to decide to act whether predator is there or absent. False alarm (avoided getting eaten) (misses out on food)
