BIOLOGY 1M03 Chapter Notes - Chapter 16: Inbreeding Avoidance, Universal Grammar, Auditory Illusion
17 Sep 2013
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Document Summary
The application of evolutionary principles to understanding human behaviour is controversial. All phenotypic traits, including behavioural traits, reflect the interactions between genes and the environment. Natural selection can shape developmental processes so that organisms develop different adaptive behaviours in different environment: people believe that natural selection cannot create adaptations unless behavioural differences between individuals are caused by genetic differences. Evidence against foraging strategies, marriage practices, values not genetic factors; product of learning and culture. Evolutionary analyses provide important insights about how our brains are designed: humans have large complex brains, natural selection have made our brains bit and has shaped our cognitive abilities and modified the way we think. Even the most flexible strategies are based on special-purpose psychological mechanisms: animals are predisposed to learn some things and not others. Rats learn to avoid food that makes them ill base don the taste; not on the size, shape, color or other attributes of the food.
