01:830:338 Lecture Notes - Lecture 8: Inclusive Fitness, Human Nature, Inductive Reasoning
Document Summary
All humans today come from an unbroken line of ancestors who accomplished two tasks: they survived to reproductive age, and they reproduced. We carry adaptations that led to our ancestors" success. Human nature and human personality are made up of a collection of evolved adaptations. Before darwin, two features of evolution were recognized: change over time and apparent adaptation to environment. Darwin revolutionized biology by proposing a theory of the process by which adaptations are created and changes take place over time natural selection. More offspring produced than can survive and reproduce. Changes or variants that better enabled an organism to survive and reproduce lead to more descendants. Descendants inherit variants that led to their ancestors" success. Thus, successful variants are selected and unsuccessful variants are weeded out. Over time, successful variants come to characterize entire species. Adaptations; inherited solutions to survival and reproductive problems posed by hostile forces of nature.