How Natural Selection Has Shaped The Modern Mind

Throughout the history of human existence, there have always been many questions that have plagued man for centuries. Some of these questions are “what is the meaning of life” or “which came first, the chicken or the egg.” Within the last 400 years a new question has surfaced and has caused an enormous controversy which takes our minds to much further levels. The controversy is whether inherited genes or the environment influences and affects our personality, intelligence, behavior, development and abilities. This controversy is most often recognized as the “Nature vs. Nurture” conflict. Some people believe that it is strictly genes that affect our ways of live and how we are, while others believe that it is the environment that affects

As of the making of the new science “psychology,” the ancient Greeks created psychology’s biggest question in history; “Are our human traits present at birth, or do they develop through experience?” That specific question developed the “nature-nurture issue.” The nature-nurture issue is what the behavior goes to heredity or experience. As the issue began, Greek philosopher, Plato, assumed that we inherit character, intelligence, and certain ideas are developed inborn, on the contrary, Greek philosopher, Aristotle debated that nothing comes in the mind through the senses of the external world. Later in the 1600’s, there were new rivals for the nature-nurture issue which were John Locke and Rene Descartes. Locke didn’t follow through Plato’s whole “inborn” hypothesis, however, Locke suggests that the mind starts off undeveloped and figures out on it own by experience. Descartes on the other hand, disagreed to Locke’s concept. Unlike John Locke’s disagreement to Plato, Descartes obviously favorites Plato’s hypothesis because due to Descartes remark, he declares that some ideas are inborn. As Descartes laid down Plato’s remark, two centuries later, a naturalist named Charles Darwin came to dissolve more of the issue.

Natural selection is the process in which heritable traits that make it more likely for organisms to survive and successfully reproduce become more common in a population over successive generations. Each of us individuals is specifically shaped and formed by our own genetic pattern. We inherit this pattern half from are mother and half from are father. The cause of this is the proximate cause that led it’s phenotype to ultimate causes. Much of we know today about evolution derives from the late great pioneer, Charles Darwin. Charles Darwin was an english naturalist that even from an early age was very interested in outdoor pursuits. Early in his prep career his father tried sending him to the University of Edinburg to pursue his medical

For more than 150 years, a revolutionary idea has been spreading all over the world. It helped us discover our origins and revealed our place in nature. It led to the unification of once independent fields of scientific inquiry. And it is being used today to tackle some of the most pressing problems facing modern civilization. But its implications go far beyond science. It has shaped our culture, politics, philosophy and religion, and it has been used to justify war and genocide. That idea is Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection.

They provide a background to our native history, present a real-life problem, which connects back to the history they supply, and offer a solution. They constantly refer to the theory of evolution and natural selection. Questions about how the human mind evolved have been around ever since Charles Darwin presented his of natural selection in 1859 with The Origin of Species. He hypothesized about where human thought and emotion came from, but his data concerned the bodies (not the minds) of distant human relatives. At around the same time, Gregor Mendel discovered that characteristics were passed from parents to offspring through genes. In 1953, their discoveries were combined with the James Watson and Francis Crick’s discovery of the structure of DNA: genes were shown to be patterns of DNA that serve as blueprints for the organism’s physical traits. A few decades later, evolutionary biologists began to connect how genes translate not only to physical traits but also into human behavior. However, few actually use the results of evolutionary psychology to improve

Although natural selection was responsible for a change in genes to occur, struggle and a need to adapt were ultimately the instigators of natural selection. As a result, many species faced hardships and were forced to evolve in order to survive. From a scientific standpoint, such hardships are reflected in historical sequences of genes, which reveal imperfections and flaws that align with Darwin’s principle of “descent with modification”. This principle is fundamental to the process of evolution in nature as it describes how genes are passed from generation to generation. With this in mind, evolution occurred naturally and on it’s own. If God did play a hand in designing nature, how could he have done so in such a careless fashion? The God talked about by intelligent design theorists and creationists is one of importance, of intricacy and purpose. As Francis Crick put it, “if God is responsible for these designs, then His intelligence looks disturbingly like human obtuseness and

Although Charles Darwin is usually just looked at in the light of purely biology, his work that impacted other fields such as psychology or his work that lead to the rapid expansion of certain fields such as ethology, is often looked over. Darwin’s work impacted these fields both directly and indirectly at such a level of influence that some people believe that psychology should be looked at as pre- and post-Darwin. On the Origin of Species, while being primarily about biological phenomena and theories, was one of these works that impacted psychology indirectly. Other than giving a new perspective for psychologists to possess when contemplating different ideas, Darwin’s work on natural selection lead to the creation of evolutionary psychology.

Rachel Woznicki Short Paper 1 01/27/15 What Does Plantinga’s Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism Say? Plantinga’s argument against naturalism is very engaging. He begins to state that a lot of people believing Darwin’s theory of evolution have misguided beliefs about naturalism. Comprehensively, he argues that the contingency of humans having stable “cognitive faculties” is extremely inferior.

Evolution or trade over the years takes place through the methods of natural and sexual selection. In response to troubles in our environment, we adapt each physically and psychologically to ensure our survival and replica. Sexual selection principle describes how evolution has shaped us to provide a mating advantage rather than just a survival advantage and happens via two wonderful pathways: intrasexual competition and intersexual choice. Gene choice concept, the modern rationalization behind evolutionary biology, takes place thru the desire for gene replication. Evolutionary psychology connects evolutionary ideas with present day psychology and focuses in general on mental variations: adjustments within the manner we think with the intention to enhance our survival.

There’s no way a new idea or a technique simply occurs if it’s destined to become something very important or sustainable in our society. Great ideas stem from hard work and trial and error. And in order to develop new, concise, and acceptable knowledge, the information has to reach the people who will use it. Novel ideas are met with contemporary resistance because ideas cause change, which requires effort, challenges social norms, and acts as a catalyst for even more change. There is a certain amount of comfort in familiarity, but excellent ideas create breakthroughs and will mostly end up improving a situation.

We first discussed the correspondence between Gray and Darwin and their gracious manner of debate, despite their fundamental disagreements on chance in natural selection. This led us to discuss chance’s disturbing nature and its relation to cause and effect. Most agreed that our fear lies in chance’s unknowingness. However, we use chance to assign meaning to our lives and the world. Moreover, we concluded that cause and effect is theological and reassuring. This guided our discussion to Poincaré’s statement that small changes cause great effects. We realized that isolated systems converge by fortuitous chance. Additionally, we compared cause and effect to Darwin’s architect metaphor. Darwin supporters believe that these systems were not designed,

In 1859, a biologist named Charles Darwin postulated a scientific theory, which stated that all living organisms evolved through a process of natural selection. According to Stephen Hawking, Charles Darwin claimed that the offspring of a particular species gradually evolved themselves genetically to resist the changes in the environment (573). The theory contended that the organisms could adapt to the changes in the environment through the survival of the fittest. Though this theory is regarded as a breakthrough in the field of biological evolution, it is interesting to explore how this seemingly scientific theory has been suitably modified, and intellectually applied to both negative and positive aspects of life.

Evolution is a topic that has been thoroughly discussed between religion (creationism) and science ever since Charles Darwin proposed its early theories in 1858 (O’neil, 1998), and to this day these theories are still controversial to some, and never completely agreed upon; moreover, we’ll discover that even though there are many true factors that prove time and again that the theories of adaptation are happening right before our eyes, and research over the last 158 years back the evolutionary scientific theories; there are still some folks that refute science’s evidence as conceivable, and will deem evolution as hogwash arguing their value that God is the world’s sole creator. Throughout this assignment we will discuss where two of the subfields

Although some evidence is indisputable, such as women becoming pregnant, evolutionary psychologists need to update their theories to align with recent findings.

Some scientific theories are widely accepted for great expanses of time, while others eventually fade from the scientific community. One of the most influential members of this community is Charles Darwin. His novel, On the Origin of Species, explains the theory of natural selection, which is based on naturally occurring competition among all forms of life. Like all theories, some people disagree with this idea. Nevertheless, there are many people who support the theory of natural selection. Logically, natural selection makes sense. In all areas of life, those individuals who are built to withstand the nature of their environment have a better chance at survival compared to those who are unfit for the environment. Although natural selection was first proposed over a hundred years ago, it still applies the modern world.