ANT211H5 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Trophoblast, Preformationism, Egg Cell
Document Summary
Importance of ontogeny: life history strategy is a developmental chronology, sociobiologists cannot ignore analyses of the learning process. Focus on ultimate causation: evolution must be understood as a modification of developmental processes over generations. Random changes in the environment can have huge effects on reproductive success: must defuse the nature vs nurture controversy. The debate is dead, environment and genetics play a role together for the determination of reproduction and fitness. Differentiation: the emergence of structural organization whereby cell types and structures differ from one another. A multiplicity of cell types all arise from a single cell zygote. It is the cellular environment that determines which chromosomes are turned on to specify action, which allow them to have diff fuctions. Development: an organism"s structure changes over time as an interactive function of the pre-existing structure, and the environment which the structure is in. Preformationism: each structural element in an organism is considered to have its separate precursors, outdated.
