ANT211H5 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: The Selfish Gene, Inclusive Fitness, Proximate And Ultimate Causation
Document Summary
Where animals vary, and where those variations are at least partly inherited, the less successful varieties will be eliminated, and the more successful will become relatively numerous. A successful organisms traits must be passed on to descendents. The study of behavior based on darwinian paradigm. Natural selection allows us to answer to why questions of human behavior. 4 explanations to answer why in biology: proximate causation. Concerns the direct mechanisms that bring something about. Causation on a generational time scale: ontogeny, development within an individual"s life span, phylogeny. Evolutionary progression by which the behavior has been formed out of the pre-existing organization. Survival is relevant only in the service of reproduction. Can be estimated numerically to predict the rate at which genes are eliminated or spread over generations. Is specific to a particular population at a particular time. Is a function of the environment and even of the particular set of other genes at other loci within the same.
