PSYC 3100 Lecture Notes - Lecture 23: Fallacy, Cultural Evolution, Morphine

• School: University of Guelph
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYC 3100
• Professor: Pat Barclay

Document Summary

Evolution= change, (not for better or for worse) Not all cultural expectations are circular, need to go beyond this nominal fallacy. A valid cultural explanation must describe: how/why people absorb that culture, what developmental processes maintain it, why it"s that way (& not some other way) Need to go beyond simple description and look at causation. Start examining units of culture: breaking into component parts. Breaking chromosomes into component parts and looking at, for example, genes. Change in meme frequency over time (change in cultural variance) Historical example of cultural selection: nuer vs dinka. Nuer man with his dinka slave: nuer man on shoulders of dinka being carried around. That political system, evolved and replaced the water based system. The culture creates a selection pressure which changes the gene frequency. Everyone produces lactase when infants, must lose this ability later. Milk consumption is a major source of nutrients for those who can consume it.