PSYCH 3F03 Chapter Notes - Chapter 2: Inheritance Of Acquired Characteristics, Anthropomorphism, Intentionality
17 Sep 2016
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Understanding natural selection: essential concepts and common misconceptions http://www. gregorylab. org/reprints/understandingselection. pdf: ryan gregory. According to mayr, darwin"s extensive discussion of natural selection can be distilled to. Likelihood of occurrence is not influenced by whether it will turn out to be detrimental, beneficial or most commonly neutral: variation among individuals exist at the physical, psychological and behavioural levels. Two-step process: first, origin of variation by random mutation, second, non-random sorting of variation due to its effects on survival and reproduction. The meaning of fitness in evolutionary biology: darwinian fitness is defined as a measure of the total (or relative) reproductive output of an organism with a particular genotype, the more offspring an individual produces, the higher its fitness. Survival of the fittest is misleading: in darwin"s context, fittest implied best suited to a particular environment rather than most physically fit . This crucial distinction is often overlooked in non-technical usage: places undue emphasis on survival.
