PSYC 2600 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Inclusive Fitness, Domain Specificity, Human Nature
11 Apr 2018
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Natural selection: naturally occurring variation leads to differences in the ability to survive and reproduce (reproductive success, changes or variants that better enable an organism to survive and reproduce would lead to more descendants. The next generation contains more of the successful variant. Thus, successful variants are selected and unsuccessful variants are weeded out. Over time, successful variants come to characterize entire species. Adaptations: inherited solutions to survival and reproductive problems posed by hostile forces of nature the fittest is the strongest the one who will pass on their variation. The evolution of characteristics because of their mating benefits, rather than because of their survival benefits . Many mechanisms seemed to threaten survival: e. g. , peacock"s elaborate plumage. Genes are packets of dna that are inherited by children from their parents in distinct chunks. Discovery of the gene as a unit of inheritance led to key discovery, that natural selection and sexual selection are different forms of the same process.
