Subject: Evolution & Darwin
Date: 27 March 2008
Presented by: Pasha Javadi
Charles Darwin's theory of evolution generated scientific debate and discussion not only in Darwin's own time, but for decades afterward. Biological evolution is not simply a matter of change over time. Lots of things change over time: trees lose their leaves, mountain ranges rise and erode, but they aren't examples of biological evolution because they don't involve descent through genetic inheritance. The central idea of biological evolution is that all life on Earth shares a common ancestor, just as you and your cousins share a common grandmother.Through the process of descent with modification, the common ancestor of life on Earth gave rise to the fantastic diversity that we see documented in the fossil record and around us today. Evolution means that we're all distant cousins: humans and oak trees, hummingbirds and whales.
5 comments:
I would like to come up with a question! In your idea, Can we extend natural selection rules to social and cultural behaviors? and if yes, How?
Hi Pasha!
1)I do not think so. According to me, social and cultural behaviors are classified in "conventional matters", but "Science" tries to reveal "cause and effect" and clarify the relationships exist in natural phenomena. So, logically we are not able to conclude moral and social "must" from scientific "is".
2)We should not forget the calamities and disasters that human being has experienced due to extending natural selection rules to social and cultural behaviors, (like what happened in WWII and any genocide in the history)
But dont you think that this conventions are the result of several trial and error in behavioral labs which are the societies and then give rise several rules which we called them Constitutional , religions or what ever? SO isn't it kind of a natural selection in behavioral ,cultural,social life?
I think the WWII mistake was an artificial selection which "human" tried to select "the best spicies" himself bilogicaly and not socially!
Hi Pasha!
1) It seems natural selection is a scientific term and it should have specified definition. If you spread its domain of definition and try to refer it to every event, you empty it from its selective scientific concept and change it to tautology. As you know tautology has no space in science. (If something changes you can explain it due to natural selection and vice versa)
2) Based on first paragraph, I should not ask you this question, but if and I emphasize, if you can extend natural selection rules to social and cultural behaviors:
What is the time scale for trial and error in behavioral labs which leads to natural selection? I mean how can you identify that social or cultural changes at historical eras happened by natural selection?
3) Why did you call genocide as artificial selection? What is a society? Is it an abstract concept? Can we precisely segregate "society" and the activities which have done by the members of the society?
Cultural evolutionism is an anthropological perspective seeking to describe and explain long-term changes in human ways of life. To do this it draws on all branches of general anthropology--biological, cultural, archaeological, and linguistic.
the time scale for Biologic evolution is very vast from few ears in Bacterial evolution to million years for speciation. But in cultural events of course the scale (usually and not always) change to human scale. The concept of time in evolutionary biology is important but variant.The use of "Natural selection" in human culture does not mean that it can be use exactly the same as biologic one, of course we have different rules and bases in cultural issues. Although by the means of Meme you can define many genetic concepts in culture bu t still it is not purely biological. The cultural evolution and social evolution, describing how cultures and societies have developed over time, with trial and error, adaptation and recently by estimation of adaptations called " decisions" which make the classic "cultural evolution" less useful. although the Neurobiologists always try to find and proof biological roots of Culture.
A society is a grouping of individuals which is characterized by common interests and may have distinctive culture and institutions.one critical novelty in human society, in contrast to humanity's closest biological relatives (chimpanzees and bonobos), is the parental role assumed by the males, which were unaware of their "father" connection.Over time, some cultures have progressed toward more-complex forms of organization and control. This cultural evolution has a profound effect on patterns of community. Hunter-gatherer tribes settled around seasonal foodstocks to become agrarian villages. Villages grew to become towns and cities. Cities turned into city-states and nation-states. Although these days in contrast to Biological evolution there are many critic on cultural evolution, because it is difficult for social scientist to accept biological roots of social behavior and of course because of many other "because of".
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