PSYC 3100 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Phineas Gage, Benadryl, Toxoplasma Gondii

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

Document Summary

Adaptation: a trait or set of traits that evolved because they serve a particular function (more efficient feeding, promoting mate choice, increased reproductive success) Reverse engineering: inferring function from the form = being able to look at a trait and trying to estimate what it could do, and test your hypothesis. Beak shape and sizes have evolved for different things; larger beaks can break open larger seeds and so on. Specificity hunger is associated with the idea of acquiring nutrients we need. Adaptation to protect us from things that will make us sick, reduce the risk of. Eventually co-opted into moral disgust, sexual disgust, as well as physical: by-products (spandrels): some traits have no function unto themselves, but are a side effect of some other adaptation. Birds having hollow bones results in them being brittle; this is a necessary consequence (by-product) in exchange for their ability to fly.