Lecture 2 - Mental Evolution

Question 1

Lamarck

Answer 1

First person ever to propose a mechanism for evolutionary change.
Giraffes - Lamarck claims that from the habit of browsing the leaves in trees they have lengthened their fore-legs and neck to a certain degree.
His ideas were dismissed and criticized.

Question 2

Lamarckian Inheritance

Answer 2

1. Environmental changes can produce new habits
2. New habits produce physical changes
3. Physical changes are heritable: inheritance of acquired characteristics
   * * example of new habit: cooking has transformed the evolution of hominids - smaller jaw and jaw muscles

Question 3

Theory of Natural Selection

Answer 3

Individuals with adaptive characteristics are likely to produce more offspring than others.

Question 4

Huxley

Answer 4

Human evolution - Darwin ignored the topic, but Huxley confronted it directly.
Huxley’s argument for human evolution was based on similarities between the brains of the great apes and the human brain

Question 5

Wallace

Answer 5

Co-discoverer of the principle of Natural Selection. Independently from Darwin.
Wallace believed that human evolution must have involved supernatural intervention, since he believed that mental faculties emerge in advance to any usefulness.
Believed the idea of sexual selection was also unnecessary

Question 6

What was Wallace first to propose?

Answer 6

1. Human selection shifts from physical to psychological

2. Social instincts attenuate natural selection process and prevent further intellectual evolution

Question 7

What was Darwin’s reply to Wallace?

Answer 7

Sexual selection; sexual selection as factor of human evolution; human intellect not unique (mental continuity with other species).

Question 8

Romanes

Answer 8

“Darwin’s heir”

Mental evolution - the capacity for a particular skill becomes stronger and stronger through the next generations

Question 9

Romanes’ Hierarchies for Emotions and Cognitive Processes

Answer 9

The lower down cognitive processes are seen in many species (e.g. pain, pleasure, fear, memory).
The middle are seen in some species (e.g. sympathy, jealousy, communication ideas)
The top abilities are specific to only a few species (e.g. shame, revenge and use of tools which is specific to the human species).