BIO 358 1 Flashcards
(151 cards)
entire human story
1.8 million years
are humans unique among all animals on earth
- we are objectively unique
- ecological dominant- extent and individual animal controls on environment
- we use a lot more energy
- ex. utilizing the earths landscapes to produce food, entertainment for us
- we “own the place”
- we live in every ecosystem
- evolved rapidly, explosively
rapid and explosive evolution
- chimps and humans diverge at the same time
- humans become different in an explosive hurry in comparison
reductionist pyramid
- each level of the pyramid emerges from the last
- not all parts of the level below are relevant to the one above
- each level is just as simple as another
- all the complexity has a simple explanation
non-human animal society
- individual conflicts of interest determine animal social behavior toward non-family members (non-kin)
- all animals have conflict of interest
- social cooperation is limited by conflict of interest -> bc cooperation is restricted to kin (family)
human animal society
- we control conflict of interest
- this allows us to cooperative
- dramatic change from non-human animal society
- social coercion theory
- humans are first to evolve control of individual conflicts of interest
- we ostracize people who against people who dont cooperate
- use the mutual threat of violence to avoid violence
social coercion theory
use coercive threat in order to manage conflict of interest in order to cooperate
- inexpensive social coercive threat emerged with humans
- emerge explosively after law enforcement
non-human animal restricted by conflict of interest example
- rogue males on the loose ready to take control of other kins
- invading male will kill any cubs not in his kin
- invading male will mate with the female of the group he invaded and start a new kin
- non-kin- conflict
- kin- cooperation
“private” domain
- same for non-humans and humans
- lion pride is controlled by kin ship like how we value our families
“public” domain
- non-kin
- for non-humans there is extreme violence
- for humans we cooperate still
how are humans different
- systematically suppress competitive behavior
- allows evolution of non-kin cooperative behavior
- revolutionary new management of the conflict of interest problem -> coercive suppression of conflict of interest- law enforcement
- elite throwing
- social coercion theory
the history of human knowledge enterprise tells use that the only viable explanations are scientific theories
- newtons laws
- all the complexity has a simple explanation
- test of falsifiable theories will tell you if its true
- theory should be able to be written on the front of the t-shirt
- does it make testable predictions
phylogenetic analysis
- allows us to study species
- how does it change overtime
- when a geographical barrier is introduced it creates two populations that no longer mate -> new species evolves to their environment through natural selection
- two populations accumulate genetic difference
- if a geographical barrier is removed -> two populations reunited
- test falsifiable predictions
- obtain information from common ancestors -> ancestral cat and ancestral ape -> look into their common ancestor
speciation
- two populations diverge from a common ancestor
- they evolve so differently that they can no longer mate
- ex. humans and apes
spread of cultural information
- control of conflicts of interest allows for exchange of cultural information
- creating the speaking, pedagogical, cultural, ethical, and economic animal (trading)
- we are able to trade stuff by suppressing theft and unfair trade
- this communication is allowed bc we have non-kin cooperation and we are able to *punish liars -> truthful cultural spread
- we have a much larger cultural stream than non-human culture
ecological dominance
- extent to which a species controls the resources of an ecosystem for its own uses,
- generally at the expense of members of other species within the same ecosystem
language
- highly evolved capacity of humans to exchange information using spoken and gestural symbols
- extensive semantic content
- elaborate compositional rules
- phonology- meaningless short sound segments
- morphology- combining phonological elements to make meaningful words
- syntax- combining words into complex sentences
- capable of producing effectively infinite number of sentences expressing a nearly infinite number of thoughts, ideas, and pictures
- generative
chimps
- one of two african great ape species that are our closest surviving relatives
- Pan troglodytes
- the other ape most closely related to us is bonobo or pygmy chimp
social coercion theory
States that unique access to inexpensive conjoint coercive threat
allowed humans to enforce and evolve vastly expanded social cooperation leading to our unique biological properties (language, cognitive virtuosity, ethical psychology)
and the details of our 2 million year history.
phylogenetic analysis
- assessment of the likely behavior, morphology or other property of an extinct ancestry based on the corresponding properties in currently surviving descendants of that ancestor
- ex. use the properties of the 4 surviving great ape species to infer the properties of the last common ancestor
- contributes to our understanding of what happened to our more recent ancestors after the last common ancestor
phylogenetic trees
- convenient way of graphically representing the results of phylogenetic analysis
- depicts relationships of organisms at any one time by explicitly representing their descent from older species
primate
- group of related mammalian species which includes humans, apes, and monkeys
- all share a set of adaptations they originally inherited from a common ancestor:
- grasping, five-fingered hands and feet (grasping feet have been lost in humans since we diverged from the other apes.)
- high quality color binocular vision
great apes
- group of living animals descended from relatively recent common ancestor
- there are 4 african great apes: gorilla, chimps, bonobos, and humans
- gorilla lineage diverged from chimp, bonobos and human lineage about 10 to 12 million years ago
- hominid lineage gave rise to us when it diverged from chimps and bonobos 6 million years ago
gorillas
- one of three african great ape species that are our closest surviving relatives
- Gorilla gorilla
- more distant related than other two african apes (chimps and bonobos)