In George Mivart’s ‘Genesis of Species’, Mivart thoroughly reviews Darwin’s theory of natural selection. Mivart concludes that Darwin’s theory of natural selection is flawed because it cannot account for all of the mechanics of inheritance, specifically the initial developments of useful characteristics. He disputes that natural selection can account for the passing of negative or unnecessary traits, or for individualized traits occurring in only one species. He also asks how certain developments could occur without saltations, an idea absent in Darwin’s theories, but prominent in many of his contemporaries’. To illustrate these issues with natural selection, Mivart uses giraffes, insects that mimic other things in nature, fish, kangaroos, and whales as examples, which I will summarize below.…
'Humans have evolved to be fundamentally distinct from other animals'. Critically evaluate this claim drawing on evidence from Chapter 2 and 3 in Book 2.…
Thus I verified and established each step of my course in its turn before advancing to the next. These experiments were made painstakingly in the London Zoological Gardens, and covered many months of painstaking and fatiguing work.” (Twain, The Damned Human Race) The experiments were mind blowing and cruel. Twain stated, “In truth, man is incurably foolish. Simple things which the other animals easily learn, he is incapable of learning. Among my experiments was this. In an hour I taught a cat and a dog to be friends. I put them in a cage. In another hour I taught them to be friends with a rabbit. In the course of two days I was able to add a fox, a goose, a squirrel and some doves. Finally a monkey. They lived together in peace; even affectionately. Next, in another cage I confined an Irish Catholic from Tipperary, and as soon as he seemed tame I added a Scotch Presbyterian from Aberdeen. Next a Turk from Constantinople; a Greek Christian from Crete; an Armenian; a Methodist from the wilds of Arkansas; a Buddhist from China; a Brahman from Benares. Finally, a Salvation Army Colonel from Wapping. Then I stayed away two whole days. When I came back to note results, the cage…
As the evolutionary approach is a biological one, it suggests that aspects of human behaviour have been coded by our genes because they were or are adaptive. However, a debate of this approach is the nature vs. nurture approach, nature supporting the evolutionary approach being that we have evolved through survival value and its ability to increase an individuals opportunities to pass on their genes, an example showing this was Bowlby’s theory of attachment – concerning the role of evolution is the explanation of stress as an adaptive response to environmental pressures. Animals born without such responses die quickly. Nurture, on the other hand, is a view proposed by the social approach suggesting behaviour is affected by experience and environment.…
Mash pointed out that black-headed gulls would consider a black wooden model as a real gulls, yet it is only a wooden rod without any body, legs, wings or tail. Dawkins’s teacher, Tinbergen found out that stickleback fish mistakenly thought a red mail van and a silvery dummy were their same species! By citing these two experiments, Dawkins gives adequate evidence to prove that limited intelligence and eyesight suggest that organisms do not have to be “perfect” to work and that they can be easily fooled. Instead, most of the animals judge whether an object is their same kind by only one or few characteristics.…
To answer your question regarding why Patrick had a sudden change of heart; I believe that Patrick realized he did not need to kill Zachary to seek justice. The fact that he was successful in abducting Zachary showed him how easy it would be to kill him if he wanted. He showed Zachary how he should be grateful for being alive and indeed a Mulvaney could have hurt him for raping Marianne. As Patrick stated “He knows who I am, sure”, “I have executed justice”, “What an awful way to die” (Oates 302). After Patrick had this revelation in an instant, he realizes he did not need to kill Zachary to seek justice. He already got justice for Marianne as he showed Zachary how could of let him die, but let him live. As I stated in my post this week, I…
Behaviorism had many shortfalls with its primary one being that it excluded the effect of genetics entirely. It only accounted for what had been learned through reward and punishment only. Questions were raised and answers were missing when examining the question through the lens of behaviorism only. One area where ethologists observed discrepancies were in fixed-action patterns and critical periods in animals. Fixed-action patterns were behaviors that received little to no reward or punishment in which the animals engaged in and critical period referred to a specific period of time in which if a…
Learned behavior has become more advantages in the primate group because of several factors. First, learned behavior allows them for better access to food, such as the skill of cracking a nut with the use of two rocks. Alongside with that it also gives them social skills that are not instinctively, rather learned by the parent. With the social skills learned they can thus live in a group in which they are socially accepted and they have the benefits of protection and food. Alongside with that they also have the advantage of learning parenting skills which would increase the fitness of their offspring such as it did with…
16. According to Dr Koenig, what cognitive and social capacities are shared with other species? What sets humans apart from other species? What is symbolic representation? When does it…
The human mind is designed with the innate ability to achieve anything. The interesting part of this paper is how we all use different triggers and motivations to goad us into gear. Motivation is an area of psychology that has gotten a great deal of attention, especially in the recent years. There are several distinct theories of motivation we will discuss in this section. Some include basic biological forces, while others seem to transcend concrete explanation. All creatures are born with specific innate knowledge about how to survive. Animals are born with the capacity and often times knowledge of how to survive by spinning webs, building nests, avoiding danger, and reproducing. These innate tendencies are preprogrammed at birth, they are in our genes, and even if the spider never saw a web before, never witnessed its creation, it would still know how to create one.…
Q: In your own words, details the ‘for’ and ‘against’ arguments with regard to innate and learned behaviour.…
not very convincing when we consider the theory of nurture. Human beings learn new things everyday, as soon as we come in to the world,…
The major difficulty in training animals is that they operate either by instinct or by rote. The shortcut of intelligence to make new associations that are not instinctive in minimally available. Therefore, imprinting in an animal’s mind the artificial connection…say, roll over, it will get a treat can be achieved by only mind-numbing repetition. I shouted Hep! Hep! Thousands of times, I tossed meerkats morsels at him that I would have gladly eaten myself. (Martel, 303)…
humans start out in life with some amount of knowledge. Nature provides us with abilities and…
In his examination of the theories developed in the studies of learning (humans and animals) Prof McConaghy looks at their position in relation to:…