...Social Darwinism, which was prominent during the late 1800s, was a source of both controversy and conflict in Victorian Society and other nations, where imperialists, capitalists and colonialists manipulated Social Darwinism to justify horrific acts of genocide and cultural destruction. Upon the publication of Darwin’s revolutionary theory of evolution, The Origin of Species, uproar was caused in Victorian Society at the notion that humans were related to apes, to animals, which was unthinkable at the time largely because it contravened prevailing religious beliefs. This upheaval was the very beginning of a new age of political thinking and sociological ideas. Society was very quickly divided into those who applied Darwin’s theory of Natural Selection to society and philosophy, and those who opposed the idea, maintaining that Darwin’s theories should not be applied to Homo sapiens…us and that these theories contradicted the most fundamental of moral beliefs and principles. Hence, Social Darwinism was born in all its controversy. However, despite the controversial nature of Darwin’s theories, science and its trends were held in high esteem in Victorian England. Through this, fraudulent governments and individuals motivated by greed for wealth and power were able to justify their actions by manipulating Social Darwinism to fit their purpose, claiming that if science said so, then it must be so. However, Social Darwinism was not confined to Victorian Society, for it soon became widespread...
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...THESE IMPLY: * 1. Common Ancestry * 2. Changes through time *Natural selection occurs when 3 conditions are met; results in evolution * 1. There is variation in a trait * (Ex. Beetle color) * 2. The trait is heritable * (Ex. Brown beetles tends to have brown babies) * 3. There is differential reproductive success, and not all individuals reproduce to their full potential * (Ex. Green beetles are selected against by natural and Brown beetles are selected for- so they reproduce more) *Adaption: A trait that increases the ability of an individual to survive and reproduce compared with individuals without the trait Adaption in an evolutionary context: An inherited trait that makes an organism more fit in its abiotic and biotic environment, and that has arisen as a result of the direct action of natural selection for its primary function. Ex. Mimicry of the non-toxic king snake to evade predators Natural selection leads to Adaptions * Adjustments or changes In behavior, physiology, or structure of an individual organism to become more suited to an environment * Vestigial Structure: * Feature that was an adaption for the organism’s ancestor, but that evolved to be non-functional because the organism’s environment changed *Exaptation * Traits that serves one purpose today, but evolved under different selection conditions and served a different function...
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...The Evolution of Menopause and the Grandmother Hypothesis Throughout the natural world trade-offs between reproductive success and longevity have been noted by scientists for many years. Most wild animals remain fertile until death, as do human males, and although human males do become less fertile with age, they in general experience no complete shutdown of fertility. Men as old as the age of 94 have been noted to father children (Diamond, 1996). The situation for human women is strikingly different. They undergo menopause, the permanent cessation of menstruation, by the time they are in their mid fifties (Lahdenpera et al., 2004). In fact, natural conception after the age of 50 is extremely rare. Menopause has become quite the evolutionary puzzle for modern scientists because natural selection favors increased reproduction, therefore increasing one’s own fitness. The essence of natural selection is that it promotes genes for traits that increase an animal’s number of descendents bearing those genes. Thus, the great question is: How could natural selection result in every female member of a species carrying genes that destroy her ability to leave more descendents? Many theories on the evolution of menopause have arisen in the past 50 years in an attempt to answer this question but they all also have key assumptions and limitations. Proponents of the Grandmother Hypothesis believe that their theory holds the greatest promise to answer this question. The Grandmother Hypothesis...
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... 1. Further observation often reveals that an organism’s features show some relationship to where the organism lives and what it does in its environment. 2. The blue-footed booby has enormous webbed feet, an oil producing gland that keeps the booby afloat, a nostril that can close under water that prevents water from entering the lungs, a gland that secrets salt from consumed sea water, and a torpedo-like body—all adaptations that make life on the sea feasible. I. Darwin’s Theory of Evolution Module 13.1 A sea voyage helped Darwin frame his theory of evolution. A. Awareness of each organism’s adaptations and how they fit the particular conditions of its environment helps us appreciate the natural world (Figure 13.1A). B. Early Greek philosophers held various views. Anaximander (about 2,500 years ago) suggested that life arose in water and that simpler forms preceded more complex forms of life. On the other hand, Aristotle, who strongly influenced later thinkers, believed that species were fixed and did not evolve. C. This latter view was advanced by the Judeo-Christian tradition that all species were created in a single act of creation about 6,000 years ago. D. From his study with fossils, Buffon (mid-1700s) suggested...
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...the cause of a lot of controversy. In his second theory that inheritance of acquired traits, he believed that changes in an organism could be due by an environmental event in the organism’s habitat. He also believed that these traits could be passed down to the next generation of organisms, which would of benefit the population and creating new kinds of species. Some of this is possibly not true and would require years of constant gene changes for the species to adapt to their environment and could not instantly be passed down from one specie to another. This was his idea of continuous progress; he believed that each day in some way we would be improving. His theory proposes that the positive evolutionary changes result from changing needs or changes to the...
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...survive the environment we are in our daily lives and reproduce offspring. This is called natural selection, which is now considered as the main process that brings about evolution. Now, the real question is, are the natural selection process still existing today and are we still evolving into another species? First of all, humans did not evolve from monkeys. Humans share a common ancestor with modern African apes (similar gorillas and chimpanzees). Scientists believe that this human related ancestor existed 5 to 8 million years ago. There after, these ancestor species were separated into two separate ancestries. One of these ancestries evolved into gorillas and chimpanzees and the other evolved into early human ancestors called Hominids. In other words, these common ancestors that separated over time, formed a number of distinctive species of hominid. Only one of the hominid species survived to become modern humans that we are today. Natural selection led the surviving species (hominids) into evolutionary change. The surviving species had certain characteristics to have greater survival than other species in a population and pass these transferrable genetic characteristic to their off spring. The rest of the hominids, including early humans, became extinct. They became extinct because they were...
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...approved, and thought ethical varies widely across human cultures in time and space: whether one may marry more than one person at a time; who chooses marriage partners; whether abortion and infanticide are approved or forbidden; whether one may eat all meats, some meats, or none; what kinds of killings are forbidden or encouraged. How are we to make sense of all this variety? Human behavior has traditionally been the province of anthropology, sociology, and psychology. Within each of these fields there exist diverse approaches. Recently, behavioral ecology, an evolutionary approach to why we behave as we do, has joined other fields in trying to explain some of the diversity in human behavior. With its roots in Charles Darwin’s work 1 on natural selection, it examines how environmental conditions influence living things. Human behavioral ecology is one of a variety of quite similar evolutionary approaches to human behavior, with a variety of names: evolutionary ecology, biosocial science, human ethology, sociobiology, socioecology, evolutionary biological anthropology, and others.2 Depending on who is reporting, these may vary subtly, or be different names for the same thing....
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...with information suggesting that a person is born with certain abilities as it relates to the make-up of the brain, nerves, hormones and other physical factors. These items collectively create our psychological core of which sets limits as to how much information we can process. In other words, when we are born we’re “hard-wired” with a certain capacity to process and interpret information at some level. According to Nicolson (1998), humans are hard-wired due our drive for survival which stems from Darwin’s theory of evolution. This theory suggests that human nature, or life for that matter, all stems from the human ability to naturally evolve for survival and efficiency over the span of our existence. Aligned is the theory of natural selection which specifies that nature will automatically work to eliminate weak or mutant genes which in turn leads to the stronger, healthier and smarter...
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...In Charles Darwin's essay "Natural Selection" he defines natural selection as the "preservation of favorable variations and the rejections of injurious variations" (191). In other words, natural selection is the process by which nature, over the course of several generations, manipulates the physical characteristics and/or behavior of animals by carefully selecting and passing on the modifications that would allow the individual animal to thrive in their natural habitat; however small the modification, this trait variation in the species would enable the animal to better adapt to its surroundings and increase the chances of survival of the species. Those without the variation would be at a disadvantage and would, eventually, die out. Opposite natural selection is man-made selection in which humans select which traits get passed on to the next generation for their own good and/or purposes. The lottery in "The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson is an example of man-made selection by which a select few control the society of the village. Man-made selections are limited and biased. "Man can act only on external and visible characters" (192) when selecting for his own good (193). Man-made selections are limited and biased because we lack the knowledge and capability to because we are selfish, creatures of habit. They are easily influenced by outside factors.The decisions and selections that man makes are man-made limited and biased because. It was more convenient for the people (in...
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...lengthy research and important demonstrations Hamilton became one of the most important evolutionary theorists of the twentieth century through his concepts of kin selection and altruist behavior in nature. As he realized that the simplicity of natural selection could only be seen in an objective viewpoint, he began to search for further evidence of selection and evolution more subjectively until coming to the conclusion that evolution works through genes. Hamilton unveiled the behavioral pattern of altruism (sacrificing one’s life for the survival of others) in animals and came to the conclusion that such behavior in their species was, for the most part, due to gene propagation and it happened within members of a group that were closely related to one another. According to Hamilton, these genes that are passed on help determine altruistic behavior in future generations also. This type of natural behavior is known as kin selection “(acts of altruism performed by an individual that, while of no survival nor reproductive benefit to that individual, results in the passing on of the genes that caused the altruistic behavior.)” Altruistic behavior in nature takes part in processes such as evolutionary fitness (determines how good organisms are at getting their genes into future generations) and individual or group selection (some individuals or groups specifically survive to reproduce certain genes that will increase in frequency in the next generations.) Its evolution can happen through...
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...ION * PART A. Examine the mechanisms of evolution. * Evolution is the process by which modern organisms have descended from ancient ancestors (Evolution, N.D.) The four mechanisms that allow evolution to take place are genetic drift, gene flow, mutations, and natural selection. All of these mechanisms happen naturally and are necessary for evolution to take place. Genetic drift is the random change in gene or allele frequency with which an allele variation occurs in a small population. Genetic drift is simple change. Two different genetic drifts that can change the size of a population are the bottleneck effect and the founder effect (Campbell, Reece and Simon, 2004). The bottleneck effect occurs during drastic changes in an alleles population causing the population to have some alleles that may be underrepresented or eliminated completely (Campbell, Reece and Simon, 2004). Chance may affect the alleles population for generations until the population will become large enough to allow sampling errors to be considered insignificant (Campbell, Reece and Simon, 2004). Genetic drift in a new colony is called the founder effect (Campbell, Reece and Simon, 2004). It is likely to occur when a few individuals colonize an isolated area (Campbell, Reece and Simon, 2004). When a colony migrates away from a larger population its gene pool becomes least representative of the larger colony it migrated from (Campbell, Reece and Simon, 2004). Gene flow is the genetic exchange of another...
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...“Evolution by natural selection is now replaced by evolution through human intervention.” Evolution has been one of the big topics on the science part of the world. Through years, there has been many debates on not the idea of evolution but by which process(es) it undergoes. There is the natural and artificial selections. I take I have enough knowledge to distinguish both sides of the argument and to take my stand which would be somewhere right in the middle, leaning more on the natural selection side. It is quite easy for me to choose between artificial and natural. Although I am aware that in this generation, we are exposed to such artificial choices which prove to be of much more convenience to the majority, I still believe that natural is always the best way. Natural is more real and original. In a much more abstract sense, natural provides more meaning. It is pretty much a fight between ‘what things can be but not necessarily should be’ and ‘what things are really in the first place’. On the talk of evolution, natural selection gives the same general sense and feeling. It’s basically how the cycle goes, without intentions and preferences. Human intervention, with the military sense included, has force. The choice is created, not given, to a man. Cloning has been disliked by so many simply because it is against the ideals of humanity. It is considered a shortcut or even cheating life. It is too easy therefore it gives fear and prejudice amongst the majority, especially the...
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...races are subject to the same laws of natural selection as Charles Darwin had perceived in plants and animals in nature. According to the theory, which was popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the weak were diminished and their cultures delimited, while the strong grew in power and in cultural influence over the weak. Social Darwinists held that the life of humans in society was a struggle for existence ruled by “survival of the fittest,” a phrase proposed by the British philosopher and scientist Herbert Spencer. The social Darwinists—notably Spencer and Walter Bagehot in England and William Graham Sumner in the United States—believed that the process of natural selection acting on variations in the population would result in the survival of the best competitors and in continuing improvement in the population. Societies, like individuals, were viewed as organisms that evolve in this manner. The theory was used to support laissez-faire capitalism and political conservatism. Class stratification was justified on the basis of “natural” inequalities among individuals, for the control of property was said to be a correlate of superior and inherent moral attributes such as industriousness, temperance, and frugality. Attempts to reform society through state intervention or other means would, therefore, interfere with natural processes; unrestricted competition and defense of the status quo were in accord with biological selection. The poor were the “unfit” and should...
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...Malea Neese UF ID 5969-0906 Issues in Evolution Paper One: Topic Four Daegling Discussions on evolution have been invaded with the concepts of “adaptation” and “fitness” since the introduction of the Darwin-Wallace natural selection theory. However, pinning down exactly what these concepts mean serves to be more difficult than anticipated. The terms are indisputably related, and they are often conflated to have the same meaning. (Campbell 1) This is unfortunate for those who wish to explain these terms as conceptually separate ideas, as Campbell (1983) attempts to do in her paper. In this paper, I will attempt to communicate my own thoughts on the meaning of fitness and adaptation as separate (yet associated) ideals. I will...
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...‘principle of sufficient reason’. Like Tennant’s Anthropic Principle, Swinburne presents a cumulative argument observing that the universe is fit for human life and moral choices and he identifies seven features of the universe which he argues increases the probability of the universe being designed e.g. order, miracles and religious experience. However, one could object to some of Swinburne’s seven features, namely religious experience and miracles, because they are subject to the problem of verification. Even Swinburne acknowledges that most general regularities in the universe can be explained by science and the famous antitheist Richard Dawkins argues that Big Bang theory and Darwinian Natural Selection explain the existence and nature of the universe. Dawkins convincingly argues that Natural Selection is the ‘blind watchmaker’ with no foresight or conscious plan as it’s all about the survival of the ‘selfish gene’. He...
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