Download WHY DARWIN IS IMPORTANT

WHY DARWIN IS IMPORTANT
1) Emphasis on individual differences
2) Emphasis on evolution through natural/sexual selection
3) Consequence of evolutionary perspective: humans can be thought
of as “animals” ... naturally occurring creatures that can be studied
using the same scientific methods that can be used to study anything
else in the natural world.
4) Emphasis on the Function of behavior
HISTORICAL REVIEW
A) Classic Greek thought struggled with problem of change:
1. Change was an illusion (Plato)
2. Change (process) was a fundamental feature of reality
(Thales; Anaximander)
3. Aristotle ... what produces change?
B) Early Christian Era ... rejected notion of change ... God
created a perfect world etc.
C) With rediscovery of Aristotle, problem of change reemerges
D) Scientific thinking develops where process (change) is once
again fundamental issue... Newton; Lyell ...but not
concerning humans
E) The notion of “evolution” had been around since the early
Greeks (Anaximander) but Christian Theology prevented
people from thinking about:
1) the idea that humans might have evolved
2) evolution is not purposive
F) Good example of problem: Linnaeus (1707-1778) ... screwed
up biology for 200 years
G) Russel Wallace ... developed the idea of evolution along with
and at the same time as Darwin but clung to the idea that
there is some type of “human” essence that is divine
H) Darwinian Revolution
1) Books: “On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural
Selection or the Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for
Life” ; “The Decent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex”; “The
Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals”
2) Brings process of non-teleological change to biology
3) Allows the development of the science of psychology
I) Modern Synthesis
1) Genetic Drift … founder effect/bottlenecks
2) Gene Flow
3) Mutations
4) Understanding of cellular – molecular mechanisms of
evolution