ANTH 1010 Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: Carl Linnaeus, Scopes Trial, Big Bang
9 May 2016
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Document Summary
Philosophical questions and epistemological limits: all human epistemologies have limits; no one can understand the world entirely. Theory making and remaking: theory- a set of ideas formulated by reasoning from known facts. Are valuable because they suggest patterns, connections, and relationships that may be confirmed by new research: uniformitarianism- the present is the key to the past, epistemological community. Key figures, arguments, and ideas: carolus linnaeus- creationist; taxonomy of plants and animals, homology vs. analogy. Analogy- different creatures with similar behaviors/traits; adapted to similar environments. Natural selection- individuals have particular traits that make them more likely to survive in a particular context or more likely to have reproductive success; different from spencer"s idea of survival of the fittest. Mutation- genes do not always reproduce themselves as perfect copies of themselves; they accumulate errors over time and when these reach a certain threshold the gene changes completely.
