Beginnings of Evolutionary Psychology - History of Psychology - Lecture Slides, Slides of History of Psychology

Download Beginnings of Evolutionary Psychology - History of Psychology - Lecture Slides and more Slides History of Psychology in PDF only on Docsity! The Beginnings of Evolutionary Psychology: Darwin’s Important Idea Milestones in 10 Million Years of Human Evolution 10 million Bipedalism 5 million 4 million Australopithecus 3 million . FPtemntterenrt First stone tools rain size = 800 cm3 one 2 million tow forehead ~/ Homo habilis bromnoge “NL Lo ; say: Homo e is *" 1 million ome eecoe Signs of camps & meat cating 700,000 Use of fire Environment of Evolutionary Adaption 200,000 Homo sapiens Advanced tools 100,000 Homo sapiens sapiens humans Cave painting about 20,000 years old Industrial revolution Technological revolution Everything flows and nothing stands still. Panta rhei - everything flows "one cannot step twice into the same river." Whereas the Pythagoreans and Plato had emphasized harmony, Heraclitus suggested that life was maintained by a tension of opposites Wisdom comes from understanding this eternal dynamic Heraclitus (pre-Socratic) “The Weeping Philosopher” His philosophy is recognized as similar to Taoism Heraclitus (circa 535–475 BC) Docsity.com Jean-Baptiste Lamarck (1744-1829) • French Naturalist and early proponent of evolution • He classified animal collections in the Paris Museum of Natural History • He believed that evolution occurred because of a tendency for organisms to become more complex • Teleology: a doctrine that holds there is a final cause or purpose inherent in all beings. • E.g., we have eyes in order to see vs modern naturalist view: a person has sight because of his eyes (function follows form) Docsity.com Consistent with Lamarck, the tree of human evolution according to Ernst Haeckel, 1891 At the top of Haeckel's tree are Menschen - men, and Haeckel meant white European males Haeckel's tree explicitly embeds the notion of progress - things nearer the top are 'more evolved' or 'higher.‘ Lamarck is remembered primarily for a theory of "inheritance of acquired characters" or Lamarckism Lamarck’s idea was the inheritable changes are brought by the internal needs and efforts of the organism - "use and disuse" of characteristics Docsity.com Charles Robert Darwin (1809 – 1882) • Young Cambridge graduate in 1831 but not inspired by his university education • Applies for the post of Naturalist on the H.M.S Beagle captained by Robert FitzRoy Docsity.com The Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection • Darwin was aware that other naturalists like Jean- Baptiste Lamarck has a rival theory of evolution. • Lamarck’s theory could not explain non-voluntary characteristics. • However, Darwin was convinced of the idea that evolution needed to be taken seriously in opposition to the idea that species were created as perfect fully-formed entities. Docsity.com Thomas Malthus’ Essay on the Principle of Population as It Affects the Future Improvement of Society (1798) inspired Darwin to discover the role of natural selection in the development of species. The Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection Darwin suddenly thought of a plausible mechanism for the gradual evolution of countless stable species in a state of nature – inspired indirectly by Thomas Malthus:- Docsity.com • Darwin honed in on this idea of a natural check on population growth • Those who do survive will disproportionately tend to be the ones best adapted to overcoming the particular dangers of their own particular environment. • And if their adaptive characteristics are inheritable we have a mechanism for natural selection! The Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection Docsity.com Darwin argued that human emotional expression are inherited and evolved characteristics, best understood as the direct or indirect consequences of reactions that had adaptive or survival value Docsity.com Human expressions, some posed and some candid, appeared in Darwin's “Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals” (1872). If people all over the world, no matter how isolated, showed the same facial expression of emotion, those expression must be inherited instead of learned Docsity.com The English Philosopher Herbert Spencer (1820 - 1903) coined the phrase “survival of the fittest” Spencer applied evolutionary thought to society and laissez-faire economics and helped create the ideology known much later as “social Darwinism,” an ideology which Darwin himself never endorsed. Docsity.com