Top-Rated Free Essay
Preview

Human Evolution

Satisfactory Essays
603 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Human Evolution
Psy. 101
Oct 01, 2014
Human Evolution
The Evolutionary History of Life on earth traces the process by which living and fossil organisms have evolved since life on the planet first originated until the present day. According to research earth formed about 4.5 Ga (billion years) ago and life appeared on its surface within 1 billion years. The similarities between all present day organizes indicate the presence of a common ancestor from which all known species have diverged through the process of evolution.
Every organism has an evolved life history pattern. A life history pattern in which the way time and energy are allocated between growth, maintenance and reproduction. The Evolution of Human Behavior promotes there have been three major life history transactions toward later sexual maturation and longer lifespan. Such as; Prosimians to Monkeys, Monkeys to Apes and Apes to Humans, these patterns of life history characteristics resulting in parental care over long developing periods of human life’s expendency.
In my opinion, in order for one must first find out what their genes have been up to in their past history and what they want in their present type of environment plays a big part as to where their future lifespan reaches. We have to consider both the successes and problems causing failures of attempts to use natural instincts to understand fully human behavior and reproduction. Human sexual selection is also an explanation for human social differences in which the human race evolves. Another behavioral perspective is the conclusion concerning the evolutionary base for differences in behavioral between men and woman. In addition, using survival skills such as; behavior in planning, consciousness, emotions, awareness and moral sense that often accompany what we do plays a big part in our destiny.
According to anthropologist George Armelagos, ancient teeth tell us secrets that may relate to modern-day health: Some stressful events that occurred early in development are linked to shorter life spans. Prehistoric remains are providing strong, physical evidence that people who acquired tooth enamel defects while in the womb or early childhood tended to die earlier, even if they survived to adulthood. The idea that many adult diseases originated during the fetal development and early childhood. Teeth are like a snapshot into the past, the evidence is there and it is indisputable.
Over half of the baby boomers here in America are going to see their hundredth birthday come to an excellent health. There will also be the other percent that will get to experience a shortened lifespan due to the lack of health effects in evolution ending in aging without children. Insurance companies are trying to promote and incorporate- The Die Younger plan so they can save millions of dollars on social security since they are running out.
Not only are insurance companies promoting this plan but the child’s parent or guardian is also the cause of their shorter lifespan. The plan is pushing to encouraging Baby Boomers to smoke, eat fatty food, drink excessively, not exercise, and to generally burn the candle at both ends. In addition, the retirement age to be raised so Boomers have to keep working and live under a lot of stress causing them to have a shortened lifespan. The parents are not taking care of their healthy lifestyles but promoting bad eating and lack of exercise habits. In conclusion, health is an important role and affects one’s lifespan in evolution. So, unless we start taking better care of our health and habits we will not be able to elongate our life’s but shorten it instead. As the saying goes, what you do now reflects on your future.

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Key innovation in human evolution is the development of bipedalism and gradual increase in size of brains. The evolution might have occurred due to change in climate and environment which lead to reduction and replacement of trees with grasslands. Due to presence of large numbers of trees, it was easier for our ancestors to have quadrupedalism instead of bipedalism, so that they can climb on trees and move from one place to another. But with the decrease in number of trees, requirement for bipedalism increased. In an article by Wayman E. (2012), it has been mentioned that Lucy had the anatomy of bipead. Lucy belongs to Australopithecus afarensis. It is estimated that Lucy lived 3.2 mya. Her pelvis was broad and she has thigh bones which were…

    • 347 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Lifespan development also has five characteristics useful for understanding any age of human development (Berger, 2008). Multidirectional characteristics accounts for change in every direction, as change does not have to be in a straight line. Embedding in lives of human’s context can include constraints, family patterns, and historical conditions this characteristic refers to multi-contextual characteristics. The last of the five developmental characteristics is plasticity, which states that every person has traits that can be altered at any point in life, and change is ongoing (Berger,…

    • 989 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Exam 1 Study Guide

    • 317 Words
    • 2 Pages

    a. Developmental issues in the study of lifespan development (nature/nurture, stability/change, and continuity/discontinuity) and their application to developmental theories.…

    • 317 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    In this paper, readers will learn about the life span perspective and some areas of human development. To begin, some readers are wondering, “What is the life span perspective?” According to Boyd & Bee (2009, p.4), the life span perspective is the current view of developmentalists regarding important changes throughout the entire human…

    • 1099 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The life span perspective of development provides interesting information about the development of individuals throughout their lifetime, such as who different individuals are, how individuals developed into who they are, and who or what individuals will end up becoming. The psychoanalytic perspective of psychology offers a deeper look into life span development and helps explain the stages of development that people go through in their life. The life span perspective of development also provides significant facts in regard to how the effects of heredity, and the environment may come together in order to produce individual differences in life span development.…

    • 961 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Life span is the time of conception till the day a person takes their last breathe. So many situations take place in a person’s life like reaching other developmental periods within life. A child grows from an infant and becomes of age to go to school for the first time or simply graduating from high school and entering the next phase of life when responsibility becomes everything. Each phase of life means that a person is developing whether they are transitioning from a young adult to being a middle aged adult there are developmental stages that take place until the final transition which is death. In order to better understand human development the process of studying takes place which in turn means moving from one stage to the next within a lifespan. Through the years observation, predictions and evolving technologies have opened up doors to the way individuals develop and reach stages by pinpointing differences and predictions that prove to be inaccurate or simply that have not risen to the occasion over the years of change.…

    • 829 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Lifestyle and behaviours of early humans would have been considerably different to that of modern day humans; however this is not an aspect that happened overnight but something that has taken thousands of years to develop. This aim of this essay therefore will be to explain, with examples, how human behaviour has evolved over time through the aspect of natural and sexual selection and how this has contributed to modern-day human behaviour.…

    • 1774 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Lifespan Perspective Paper

    • 1413 Words
    • 6 Pages

    This paper will discuss lifespan development and the theories associated with the study. Humans develop according to phases throughout their lives and this paper will address these phases and what to expect and when. People learn from mistakes made in the past and apply these lessons in order to improve their quality of life. The psychodynamic and evolutionary theories will be examined in detail. Also, the significant role of nature and nurture will be addressed.…

    • 1413 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Understanding Check One

    • 904 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Santrock, J. W. (2011). Biological Beginnings. Life-span development (13th ed., pp. 72-73). Boston, Mass.: McGraw-Hill.…

    • 904 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Life as not evolve suddenly from its primitive form to complex organism like it is observed today, changes have operated over large timescales. For example Homo sapiens is the result of 4 million years of evolution from the Australopithecus afarensis. Homo sapiens as seen on diagram 1.1 as evolved through many evolutionary stages before becoming what he is today. This scale of time shows us how life has evolved gradually over great amount of time and through different stages. From this fact of gradual evolution, each organism today has evolved, each one over great timescales. This has given them the chances to be exposed to possible changes in environment and population. These changes than have given life the possibility to have substantial changes in its biodiversity. Therefore it can be seen that life diversity before and today is influence by gradual changes over large timescales. This principle is called gradualism, it was used by Darwin to explain biological evolution and the principle was influence by Charles Lyell (1797-1875) uniformitarianism and James Hutton (1721-1797).…

    • 1552 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Primate Evolution

    • 1569 Words
    • 7 Pages

    The human being consists of two aspects - of an immortal spirit and of a mortal body. The flesh comes like a gift of the mother Earth and the spirit of the father God. We dedicate excessively big attention to the first one, but nearly nothing to the latter one; and sometimes we even forget that it exists. However, there is a saying that a shirt is always closer to the body than a coat.…

    • 1569 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Best Essays

    Developmental Analysis

    • 2755 Words
    • 8 Pages

    The field of study that examines patterns of growth, change, and stability in behavior that occur throughout the entire lifespan is called lifespan development. Lifespan development takes a scientific approach in its study of growth, change, and stability. This development emphases on human development. Developmentalists study the course of development in nonhuman species, the most popular examine growth and change in people. In contrast I will focus on the ways people and myself change and grow during our lives, with the consideration of stability in our live span. Together, these findings suggest that we will go through different developments and stages from Infancy, through childhood and adolescence, and to marriage and parenthood.…

    • 2755 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Best Essays
  • Good Essays

    Evolution

    • 1290 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Ethan Frome is set in turn-of-the-century New England in the fictitious town of Starkfield, Massachusetts. A time when women were still dependent on men and the goal of attainment for men was survival. Survival meant whether that goal was achieved through the male as the designated bread winner or as a female via the means of securing a proper marriage. In the story of Ethan Frome, by Edith Wharton, the theme involved the challenges of the conflict between passion and social convention, and the constricting effects that a harsh winter climate can have on the human spirit, it takes place in the cold, bleak winter farmlands of Massachusetts. Ethan Frome, a poor farmer, has a hard life tending to his land, trying to make a meager living, and taking care of his ungrateful, demanding, sickly wife, Zeena. The theme of this story almost seems to conspire to make Ethan a passive, unhappy victim of circumstance, weighed down by his duty to his wife, his bitter existence as a poor farmer, and the strain that Starkfield’s frozen landscape places on his soul. Edith wharton portrays the theme of failure in Ethan Frome throuh the main character's inability to escape moral and social struggles…

    • 1290 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    I chose to read and evaluate an article called 'Human Evolution: New Playgrounds for Natural Selection'. This article was published on May 20th 2013, by Emmanuel Milot and Fanie Pelletier. This article was published in the 'current biology' journal volume 23, issue 10. I chose this article because it deals with natural selection, which was talked a lot about in Chapter one in our learning and behavior book. Over time a lot of change took place, and a lot of it was due to natural selection and how our bodies and traits changed over time to deal with the new challenges faced everyday. According to the New World Encyclopedia "Natural selection is the process by which biological organisms with favorable traits survive and reproduce more successfully…

    • 773 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Natural Selection

    • 497 Words
    • 2 Pages

    1. The evidence that shows that organisms have evolved throughout Earth’s history is the fossil record. The fossil record manifests that that there was change during the course of Earth’s history.…

    • 497 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays

Related Topics