CAS AN 102 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Great Chain Of Being, James Ussher, Georges Cuvier
21 Feb 2017
School
Department
Course
Professor
Constanza Peña
AN102
Exam 1 Study Guide
● Primatology: biology & behavior of nonhuman primates
● Paleoanthropology: the fossil record for humanity
● Human biology: genetics, physiology, behavior, & human adaptation
● Forensic anthropology: practical applications of human biology
● Morphology: the way the body & bones are shaped/have changed
What can DNA tell us about human evolution?
● Which living primate species share common ancestry
● Divergence times & population histories of different primate & human groups
● Modern human adaptation to their environments
What is Science?
● Process of understanding phenomena via observation, generalization, & falsification
● General goal = to produce knowledge about observable world
● A current or best guess
● A process
● A method/set of methods
● It’s empirical: relies on experimentation/observation to test hypotheses
● Scientific data are evidence from which interpretations can be made
● The word ‘fact’ isn’t used very much
○ Data are more or less reliable
○ Ideas are more or less well-established
● The Scientific Method (6 steps – RHOAIR):
○ Research question
○ Hypothesis formation
■ Valid if:
● Testable
● Falsifiable: able to be rejected
■ Should be simple because:
● There is an infinite # of potential explanations
● Simpler explanations are easier to test
● Occam’s Razor: one should not increase, beyond what is
necessary, the # of entities required to explain anything
● Parsimony: choose the explanation that requires the fewest leaps
of logic
■ Should be consistent because:
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● So they can form a theory:
○ A guess or tentative suggestion
○ A collection of mutually consistent hypotheses that have
withstood repeated attempts at rejection (i.e. theory of
gravity)
○ A scientific law is not a theory; it is an observation (not
explanation) valid under specific circumstances
● New hypothesis that is not consistent with what is already known
must be well-tested before it is accepted. Often starts new area of
research
○ Observation/experiment
■ To try and falsify a hypothesis
■ If falsified, it is rejected in its present form (can be altered & tested in
again)
■ What makes data scientific:
● Observable
● Measurable
■ Types of data:
● Quantitative
● Qualitative – more comparative (relative differences)
○ Analysis
○ Interpretation of results
■ Can hypothesis be rejected?
■ What inferences can be made from this?
■ Conclusions summarize how well data fits the original hypothesis
○ Report results
■ Presentations
■ Publications – critiques
● Peer review
○ Validation of research
○ Funding…
● Science is NOT teleological: explains the existence or occurrence of something by citing
a goal or purpose that is serving…
○ Organisms do not purposefully evolve in order to do something
○ Evolution does not have a direction/guiding purpose
Early Ideas about Natural History
● The Great Chain of Being (scala naturae)
● Aristotle
● The idea that all organisms exist in a hierarchical order with humans on top
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● Fixity of species:
○ Every species was created in the past exactly as it appears today
○ No new species can be created or become extinct
○ Species diversity (variation) is just ‘noise’ in the system around an ‘ideal type’
○ Middle Ages…
● Archbishop Ussher:
○ Natural theologian
○ Counted up descendants of Adam & Eve in the Bible & determined the world
began in 4004BC
● William Paley:
○ Natural Theology
○ The ‘watchmaker analogy’
○ Design implies a designer
○ Precursor to contemporary ‘intelligent design’
The Renaissance
● Reason, science, rationality
● Colonization of new lands – new species
● New tech
● Advances in anatomy & bio
● Paleontology, geology, & astronomy – ”universe is ever changing”
○ Astronomy: Copernican Revolution – Earth not center of universe
○ Paleontology: how structures could change over time
○ Geology: determined that Earth was much older
● Social change – no more stagnation that marked the Middle Ages
● Capitalism – society not as rigid
● World view equally not as fixed
● HUMANITY NOT STATIC
● John Ray:
○ Precursor to theory of evolution
○ Distinguished groups of plants & animals by their ability to mate with one another
= species
○ First to use the labels genus & species in this way
○ Still believed in the fixity of species (God)
● Carl Linnaeus:
○ Systema Naturae
○ Classification of plants & animals; binomial nomenclature
○ Placed humans for the first time within animal kingdom
○ Still believed in the fixity of species (God)
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Document Summary
Primatology: biology & behavior of nonhuman primates. Human biology: genetics, physiology, behavior, & human adaptation. Forensic anthropology: practical applications of human biology. Morphology: the way the body & bones are shaped/have changed. Which living primate species share common ancestry. Divergence times & population histories of different primate & human groups. Process of understanding phenomena via observation, generalization, & falsification. General goal = to produce knowledge about observable world. It"s empirical: relies on experimentation/observation to test hypotheses. Scientific data are evidence from which interpretations can be made. The word fact" isn"t used very much. The scientific method (6 steps rhoair): There is an infinite # of potential explanations. Occam"s razor: one should not increase, beyond what is necessary, the # of entities required to explain anything. Parsimony: choose the explanation that requires the fewest leaps of logic. A collection of mutually consistent hypotheses that have withstood repeated attempts at rejection (i. e. theory of gravity)
