PSYC 1100 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Selective Breeding, Tinkerer, Prefrontal Cortex

• School: Fordham University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYC 1100
• Professor: Elissa Aminoff

Document Summary

Nature: we are a product of what we inherited. Nurture: we are a product of our environment and experiences. Dichotomies tend to never be one-sided it always is a blend somewhere in between. Evolution: a gradual* change in the structure and physiology of plant and animal species as a result of natural selection. * origin of species evolve when organisms develop novel characteristics that take advantage of opportunities in the environment * Darwin"s observations and evidence: evolution of fossil records through progressively more recent geological layers, structural similarities among living species. Functionalism the best way to understand a biological phenomenon is to try and understand the function to the organism. These observations led to theories of natural selection. Survival of the fittest: those species and biological characteristics that are better adapted to the environment are more likely to survive and pass on their genes. Evolution is a tinkerer not an architect!