Social Evolution

Question 1

Confirmation Bias

Answer 1

Only perceiving information which supports your current opinion of an issue

Question 2

Modern Misuse: What are the most common misconceptions of evolution in popular culture

Answer 2

• increasing complexity: species are becoming more complex over time
• improvement: species are improving over time
• evolution can happen in a single individual during its lifetime
• there is an evolutionary basis for race
• humans are somehow separate from, or better than, animals

Question 3

Zeitgeist

Answer 3

The character or spirit of society during a particular era
from confirmation bias: the character of a society influences how it interprets and responds to new information
-victorian zeitgeist: might = right, white man = superiour, survival of the fittest

Question 4

The White Man’s Burden

Answer 4

• poem
• The white man is “civilized” and it is his job to bring the “less civilized” races into civilization
• european view of the rest of the world (we are better and doing this for good)

Question 5

Scientific Racism

Answer 5

• def: the search for empirical scientific evidence justifying racism
• White scientists used this to justify white supremacy

Question 6

Malthusian Theory

Answer 6

• populations cannot expand exponentially

- resources(food, space) limit growth

Question 7

Biometrics

Answer 7

• def: measurement range of biological features

- skull shape differences were used to justify white supremacy

Question 8

Pater Family

Answer 8

• expected family norm (gender roles)
• oldest male was the head of the house and made ALL decisions
• Widespread toxic masculinity

Question 9

Muscular Christianity

Answer 9

-christians must be paragons of physical prowess

Question 10

Epigamic selection in the context of Victorian England

Answer 10

-Academics loved intrasexual selection : males competing over females, the strongest males being the most successful.
-Epigamic selection was scorned (how could females have the most important impact of sexual success in the male??)
Epigamic: the female didn’t choose the male, he won her over with his beautiful phenotype

Question 11

Darwinism

Answer 11

Darwin: Only the fittest survive, resources are limiting

• Maine concepts
  1. males compete for the right to mate with females (intrasexual selection)
  2. Females can choose her mate in some species.

Question 12

Survival of the Fittest

Answer 12

the fittest individuals survive

nothing about reproduction

Question 13

Social Darwinism

Answer 13

• The application of natural selection to human society

- class warfare, applied to the concept of race

Question 14

Eugenics

Answer 14

• the genetic approach to social darwinism
• def: to improve the genetic quality of the human race by excluding certain groups of people from passing on their genes
• animal domestication processes should be applied to humans
• duh all the eugenicists thought they were people with desirable traits
• biometrics can be linked to behaviour
• we could breed “better” people
• forced sterilizations

Question 15

Better Baby Contests

Answer 15

def: government run contests to find the visually superior baby to display
- parents win a prize

Question 16

Criminal Profiling

Answer 16

def: biometrics could be used to predict the likelihood of future criminal behaviour
- this is where the idea of a mug shot was created

Question 17

Butler Act

Answer 17

prohibited the teaching of the evolution theor in all universities and public schools in TN

Question 18

Scopes MonkeyTrial

Answer 18

• Scopes violated the Butler Act.

- Scopes was found guilty

Question 19

Teach the Controversy

Answer 19

-promote the idea that creationism is on the same level of support as evolutionary theory, and both should be presented for the student to decide for themselves

Question 20

Creation science

Answer 20

-supposedly scientific support for the christian creation

Question 21

Young Earth

Answer 21

• god created everything

- but dinos and evolution occurred to

Question 22

Victorian England: what were the themes?

Answer 22

• white man’s burden
• scientific racism
• rapid technological improvement: general perception that mankind was at the peak of civilization
• malthusian theory
• gender roles
• christianity and the bible were interpreted literally

Question 23

Gender roles

Answer 23

• women were considered underdeveloped men

- education in women was linked to a loss of fertility