Human Evolution & Natural Selection Flashcards
What does Nativism supports
Knowledge of the world is mostly innate, and determines certain abilities
Nativism supports Nature or Nurture
Nature (genes, etc) determines behaviour according to nativism
True or False, empiricism supports that at birth, the mind is tabula rasa (empty state), nothing in terms of behaviour and knowledge is inherited, ALL IS LEARNED
True!
Empiricism supports Nature or Nurture
Nurture aka the environment determines behaviour
What does interactionism supports
Basic abilities and knowledge is innate, but can be influence by experience
→strong evidence of that statement
What is the Out of Africa Migration
Migration of the homo sapiens out of Africa and crossbreeding between different homo then occured
What is the cognitive revolution and its cause
It is the massive increase of the brain size caused by mutation in the gene ARHGAP11B
What is the consequence of the mutation in the ARHGAP11B gene
It lead to the developpment of typical “folded” structure of human brain
What are the consequences of the increase of brain size for humans (5)
- spend more time looking for food
- muscle atrophy
- human premature birth
- cooking
- very special language
What are the 2 consequences of cooking for humans
- increase nutritional density of food
2. improve digestion speed
What is particular to human communication (4)
- ability to communicate knowledge about the world
- planning
- communication about social structure
- ability to communicate about things that do not exists
What did the ability to communicate non-physical concepts allows us to do
- Increase size of functional human societies according to laws, rules, concepts
- create cooperation of strangers
- rapid innovation of social behaviour
What is the main impact of the Agricultural Revolution
Animals and plants were domesticated (or did they domesticate us)
What are the 5 consequences of the agricultural revolution
- concept of ownership
- by accumulation - Villages, cities and nations became default social structures
- Diet change : wholesome and varied → monocultural
- nutrion-related diseases occured - Reduced knowledge about wider surroundings
- More time working or food than for hunting
- work related disease emerged
True or false, accroding to Evolutionary Psychologist, our mind remained hunter-gathered minds and our behaviour reflect this?
True, we are not yet adapted to the settled lifestyle
Why did we become sedentarist according to evolutionary psychology
To have more kids, genetic survival
What is the main focus of the scientific revolution
Galileo, Bacon, Descartes and others shifted the aim to understand human nature instead of controlling it
What characterizes the Anthropocene
Present period characterized by human ability to modify our environment
How does the perception of cuteness that elicit caretaking is called
Kindchenschema
What is piloerection and why does it happen
The phenomenon of hair that stand up as a reaction to fright, cold, etc
It happens to insulate us from cold, but evolution speaking to make us appear bigger and scarier
What does the fact that children love to build caves. littles forts and hideaway infere
that we have an unconscious use of environmental features to provide cover