Please read chapter 5. After reading chapter 5, please respond to the following questions:
What were two things from the chapter that you found interesting? Why were they interesting to you? Which two things did you find the least interesting? Why? What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology? Finally indicate two topics or concepts that you would like me to cover in more depth in class.
Include a list of the terms and concepts you used in your post. (example - Terms: positive reinforcer, extinction, reinforcer, discriminative stimulus...)
Let me know if you have any questions,
--Dr. M
The first thing I found interesting in chapter five was the fact that Darwin was not JUST about evolution. He also had different insights about other things, in relation to evolution, like how humans develop and what not. When I think of Darwin all I used to think was evolution, finches, and the Galapagos Islands. Now after reading the chapter I realize that he had a lot in interesting insights about development of all kinds of things and did not necessarily want to imply or force his beliefs on people, as much as he just wanted them to consider something different.
Secondly I found Morgan’s theories (Lloyd Morgan's canon) to be interesting as well as amusing as he went along disproving the things in which Romanes had published. The fact that Romanes published what were basically stories that had been passed down to him, is pretty naïve in my mind, and I pretty much discredited him in my own mind after reading that part of the chapter. However, I think Morgan went about studying the things that Romanes thought he was studying quite well. He actually observed theories and ideas rather than just assuming things were or were not true.
As far as things I found uninteresting, I really thought Romanes was a bit of joke, based on the information presented in the textbook. Also, I did not particularly care for the section on Galton’s ideas of eugenics. The whole idea that certain people should breed with people of their kind and that some should not breed at all is stupid. I agree, jokingly, that some people should not be allowed to bear children, but it is not up to some scientist to tell people what they can and cannot do when it comes to their relationship and reproduction decisions; I actually laughed out loud when I read the part about him developing a Eugenics Society.
As I was reading the chapter I was wondering to myself how Darwin contributed to psychology, and why there was almost an entire chapter dedicated to him. After reading the section titled: Darwin and Psychology’s History, I was better able to understand his impact in the science. His work aided in the development of functionalism, a major form of studies in psychology. He also helped to develop later theories on comparative psychology and individual differences. So I think Darwin was the most important in the chapter of helping to understand the history of psychology. He allowed for people to start thinking more critically and wanting to observe more things than just at the surface of human personality and traits.
I would like to go over Galton’s investigation of Imagery and Association. I was confused in that section of the book when it was referring to the Galton’s investigations, compared with other investigations of scientists and imagery, as well as definition and coloring.
Terms: Darwin, evolution, Morgan, Lloyd Morgan's canon, Romanes, eugenics, Galton, functionalism, comparattive psychology, individual differences, imagery, definition, coloring
I found Darwin’s theory of evolution to be interesting. He introduced a new way of thinking for psychologists called functionalism. Functionalism was interested in studying human behaviors and mental processes and how they help us adapt and evolve. I’m in Psychology of Human Differences right now and we have spent the last couple weeks talking about evolutionary psychology, which got its start from Darwin. Comparative psychology studies the individual differences of species and individual differences led to important findings. Another thing I found interesting was Darwin’s first principle of serviceable associated habits. This principle explains why we make some of the emotional expressions we do. Darwin believed that at some point in our history these reactions were useful, and eventually just became habit in certain types of situations.
I thought this chapter was pretty interesting, but one of the parts I didn’t really like reading was about Galton’s imagery and association. From what I understood, he was interested in how vividly individuals could see color. He performed his study on many of his scientist friends and some school children. He found that his friends couldn’t see color, but when his experiment was retried they found that scientists could see color. Galton also created a word association test. He created a list of 75 words and measured his amount of association with them. He then assigned percents on the origin of his associations. He then discovered that most of his associations came from his adult life and his boyhood. Few came from recent events.
Two things that I found hard to understand were Galton’s study of imagery and association and the anecdotal method.
Terms: functionalism, comparative psychology, individual differences, serviceable associated habits, imagery and association, word association test
One thing that I thought was interesting in chapter 5 was Darwin’s work. Darwin to me was a very interesting man for many reasons. He was the one to stand up to the church and present the idea of natural selection. He rejected biblical account that God had created each species separately. The majority of his research came from studying winches and domesticated pigeons. Darwin’s work said for any species, the time will come when unchecked population growth will result in food shortages and because of this, only those best suited to survive will do so. He also said that from generation to generation, species produce offspring that vary slightly and that is the main idea behind natural selection. He also produced many works of literature including: Origin of Species, journals of his voyage, and books on geology of coral reefs and volcanic islands.
Another topic that I found interesting was the section on studying individual differences. To me, this is the most interesting aspect of psychology and being able to distinguish two people based on intelligence and personality is a big breakthrough in the scientific world. The scientist who initiated the study of individual differences was Francis Galton, the cousin of Darwin. Galton was also the first to use the survey method in collecting data and was the forerunner in twin studies,
Two things that I found uninteresting were the sections on George Romanes and Conway Lloyd Morgan. I didn’t find how animal behavior and intelligence fit into the chapter on the theory of evolution.
Two things that I would like you to cover in class would be anecdotal evidence and anthropomorphism.
Terms: Natural Selection, Darwin, Study of Individual Differences, Galton, Romanes, Morgan, Anecdotal Evidence, and Anthropomorphism.
The first thing I found interesting in Chapter 5 was how dedicated Charles Darwin was to his research. I found the section on him being a zoologist very interesting because it gives some statistics of the number of pages he took notes on and how large his diary was. I found it interesting because the zoologist part of Darwin sparked his interest in observing species in more depth and forcing him to ponder more about what he would later discover on the Galapagos Islands. I found it interesting that Darwin didn't set out to prove the bible wrong at first, he was just very interested and intrigued in his work.
The second thing I found interesting in this chapter was the section about the Galapagos Islands. I found it interesting because I knew that he went to the islands, but never really knew what actually happened there during Darwin's stay. I never knew that he was only there for 5 weeks and in that 5 weeks he found some of the most crucial information for evolotion in those 5 weeks. Although he did not note his information as precisely as he could have, he still made important finds by looking at birds, plants, turtle shells, and beaks.
Two things I did not find interesting in the chapter were the sections on Romanes' anecdotal method and Morgan's principle of parsimony. I didn't really get into the other fellows after reading about Darwin because I was more interested in Darwin. I found myself losing interest because I was still thinking about the information on Darwin and all the interesting things I learned new about him and his research.
I thought the Darwin section was the most important and essential part to the history of psychology because he played a big role and has made one of the biggest questions in how we think about evolution today vs religion.
I would like to learn more about some of the things Darwin did with his theory of evolution and more of what the impact of what he did and how it affects us today.
One thing that I found interesting in Chapter 5 was the information about the Galapagos Islands and Darwin. I thought this was interesting because the finches he looked at helped contribute to his knowledge, and the world’s, about evolutionary theory. It’s also interesting how he started out as becoming an Anglican priest, but after his voyage and all of his discoveries he decided that the world of science would be a better fit for him. Something I didn’t find as interesting was most of the information dealing with Francis Galton, but one aspect that helped contribute to psychology even now was his information about twin studies. Something that I feel is helpful for psychology now is obviously Darwin, not only does he help in the natural sciences, or “hard” sciences, but also, he helped to contribute to our knowledge in psychology as well. Also, evolutionary psychology is quite helpful for psychologists now, it is amazing how many behaviors can be explained through this! I’d like to hear more about Galton, because since I didn’t find it very interesting I didn’t read it as well as I read other parts of the chapter, which means in turn I didn’t understand it fully. I’d also, like to hear more about anecdotal evidence.
Terms: Darwin, Galton, evolution, evolutionary theory, twin studies, evolutionary psychology, anecdotal evidence
Something that I found was important to the history of psychology was Galton and all of his studies on individual differences, with a strong focus on intelligence. His main theory was that intelligence was human nature and the product of evolutionary forces. He did many studies by observing family members and family trees and discovered that people who were intelligent were often very similar and that it tended to run in families. He was also one of the firsts to use survey’s as a form of research, as well as twin studies where he found an overwhelming degree of similar hereditary traits between them.
The things I didn’t find quite as interesting was a lot of the stuff about Darwin, mostly because I have heard it and read about it a million times in the past. Things like the struggle for existence and natural selection are things I know a lot about. However, they touched on catastrophism (the notion that geographical changes occurred obruptly as a result of catastrophic natural happenings like volcanos or earthquakes that were controlled by God) and uniformitarianism which meant that the uniformed laws of nature operated to produce natural change. I had sort of heard about these before but it’s nice to have a name for them.
I found the idea of galvanization interesting, which was the stimulation of muscles by electrodes which resulted in contractions to understand which muscles were involved in each emotional expression.
I also found the notion of anthropomorphism interesting, which is giving animals human-like traits, such as a scorpion committing suicide when it’s near fire.
Some things that I would like to learn more about would be functionalism and serviceable associated habits.
I found most of this chapter to be interesting. I love that Charles Darwin stood up to the church and rejected the idea that god created each species separately. As we've talked about, it was a big deal to be disowned by the church. However, he still maintained his belief in God by believing that a set of laws guided evolution.
Darwin's research came from finches, determining that finches had arrived from the mainland as a single species and had dispersed through the island (Galapagos). Over the generations the offspring of the finches varied slightly, enabling certain finches to survive based on the food that was available.
Darwin was also a functionalist, which studied human behaviors and mental processes and how they help us adapt as well as evolve. Comparative psychology was also interesting to Darwin which is the systematic study of similarities and differences among all animal species.
Natural selection is a term that you will almost always hear if you are talking about Darwin. The book uses the example of the finches, saying that the finches who were on the island with the seeds that were incased in a harder shell, the finches with stronger/thicker beaks would be able to break them open and survive while the finches with smaller beaks would have a more difficult time and likely to die.
He believed that evolution by natural selection explained extinction and the reason why modern species resemble fossils.
The least interesting part of this chapter to me was Romanes. He basically took Darwins research and combined it with his own. Apparently he is the "founder" of comparative psychology because he made an effort to "define the new field in a systematic fashion"- drawing parallel between comparative psych and comparative anatomy. Boring.
Understanding Darwin's work is extremely important I believe in understanding the history of psychology because he had such a profound impact on how we've come to study development and species as a whole. The chapter was mostly about him, which is a huge indicator that he was important, especially to psychology's history.
Two topics that I would like to cover in class more: Galton's theories (I know about the twin studies, but I'd like to re-cover his whistle and all that). I'd alos like to cover comparative psychology in depth a little more. I get the basic concept.
terms used:
natural selection, comparative psychology, functionalism, Darwin, Romanes, evolution, twin studies
One of the things I found most interesting about the chapter was the part about Charles Darwin. I learned a lot about how he became a part of history. I had no idea he started as just an average student. I also learned about his voyage on “The Beatle” that lasted for five years. I liked reading about his theories and how he came about them.
The one I found most interesting was the one about human reactions to certain emotions. I never thought about why the hair stands up on the back of your neck or arm at certain times. Serviceable associated habits he called it. This is why, he thought, that across all the cultures a smile or a snarly face generally means the same thing. I do know that today in some cultures different facial expression mean different things. Overall though, facial expressions generally mean the same thing across cultures. That is interesting to me.
I did not find George romanes as interesting in this chapter. He studied Anecdotal evidence and anthropomorphism. He used these to compare animals to humans. He studied everything from dogs to birds to beavers. I didn’t find as interesting as other things in the chapter.
The part in the chapter about Galton’s investigation of Imagery ad association was hard to me to read through. This is surprising to me because I like thinking about imagery.
I think the most important part of the chapter was the part about Darwin. Just because his ideas were so influential and new at the time.
Two things I would like to hear more about in class are Darwin and Galton’s twin studies and eugenics
Serviceable associated habits, Anecdotal evidence
What I enjoyed about the reading for this week was that Darwin actually separated God from evolution or existence. That was a huge step for someone who was doing research in his era. He also maintained his belief by "allowing for the divine creation of a set of laws to guide evolution." He still believed that God did have some well, I guess say in evolution. I also liked Darwin's theory on struggle for existence and natural selection. I have always been interested in natural selection so to see something else go along with it was interesting because you got to see how it all worked together. Almost a sort of domino effect, the struggle for existence is followed by natural selection or survival of the fittest, your genes will move on and the weaker wont.
I didn't really enjoy reading about Darwin's beginning history, but I can understand since it is necessary to getting to the related topic of Darwin's discoveries. Overall that was about the only thing that I didn't like in this chapter. I thought it was a very interesting chapter and had some really good information in it.
There wasn't anything specific that would help me understand psychology more, but the chapter kind of put a few pieces together and how something work.
In class I think you should cover more about Darwin and his work on evolution and emotional expressions and imagery and association. I thought they were interesting so maybe you could go more in depth about them!
2 things I was interested in were Darwin's theory of natural selection and how it fits with the concept of struggle for existence. Charles Darwin came up with hit theory of natural selection when he visted the Galapagos Islands and saw a bunch of unusual animals there. One thing he noticed was that there were several different variations of finches, all with different beaks. These beaks matched the type of seed on each island and provided a clue that a species will gradually develop traits to match their environment and that those that do not develop these traits will eventually die out. This is the basis behind the theory of natural selection.
This fits into the struggle for existence in that we are constantly trying to pass our genes on to the next generation. When there are limited resources, it is then that natural selection occurs. The organisms with the traits that are best fit to survive will eventually pass their genes on and they will continue to exist. Those without the beneficial genes will die out do to inability to adapt.
I did not find Darwin's theory on the evolution of emotional expressions very interesting. Emotions are very powerful things and they are easy to fake an expression with them. Knowing that everyone all across the world smiles the same supports evolution, but isn't very interesting when it comes to psychology, to me at least.
I also found the bit about anecdotal evidence fairly boring. It tends to exaggerate the accomplishments of animals and gives them too human like characteristics, when they are most likely just acting on instinct.
I think learning about Darwin will be most helpful in learning the history of psychology, at least evolutionary psychology. He came up with some great concepts that revolutionized the scientific world in many ways, including psychology.
I would like to learn more about comparative and evolutionary psychology.
terms: Darwin, Natural selection, struggle for existence, evolution of emotional expressions, anecdotal evidence,
One interesting thing I read about was Francis Galton. He just seemed to get a lot done in his time. The first was that he is the first credited with using the survey method. He knew that in order to have a survey the questions would have to be easily understood, easy to reply to and accurately cover the ground of inquiry.
Another research method that he was involved with at the beginning was twin studies. He reported this data antecdotally and discovered that natural abilities are derived by inheritance. Which we now typically believe that it is both inheritance (nature) and nurture that shows natural abilities.
He also came up with the idea of eugenics which was society taking an active step to improving genetic material. I was a little confused as to if he felt we should basically only reproduce if we can create children with better arm spans, weight, breathing capacity and sensorimotor capacities or if that was something else entirely. This is something I’d like to go over in class if we could.
The last thing that Galton did was invent correlation. On the other hand, George Romanes came up with anecdotal evidence, the problem with this is that it is very susceptible to bias
What I did find interesting about Darwin was how he contributed more directly to psychology. I think that the information about Darwin and how he started functionalism, galvanization and his work with the evolution of emotion and expressions are the most important in helping me learn the history of psychology because it’s held up throughout the years. At his time there were people who believed in catastrophism, which was the attempt to maintain that there’s a God while accounting for new scientific discoveries. Meanwhile there was uniformitarianism: which meant that uniform laws of nature operated to produce geological change.
Darwin got functionalism started. This was the study of human behaviors and mental processes and how they adapt to the ever changing environment. This is obviously a big part of psychology because it is a major topic that is still studied today.
Galvanization was a little weird for me, because it involves attaching electrodes to someone’s head to determine what muscles are associated with which expressions. This seemed a little weird although I can understand that at the time this was a basic question that should be answered.
Darwin felt that emotions and expressions were evolved. There are some basic characteristics that lend themselves to having been evolved from ape. Darwin had three basic principals about expressions and evolution:
1. Serviceable associated habits: some emotional expressions are initially useful, helped with existence.
2. Antithesis: Emotions opposite of each other are expressed in similarly opposite ways
3. Direct action of the nervous system: side effects of the psychological arousal that accompanies strongly felt emotions.
The least interesting thing in this chapter was hearing about Darwin’s beginning, if only because I have already learned about his voyage and his work throughout South America. The other thing that was not very interesting was nabout Lloyd Morgan and his cannon I mostly just don’t understand why they called his Law of Parsimony a cannon? His Law of Parsimony was that explainations for animal behavior should be in the simplest terms possible.
Terms used: Functionalization, galvanization, Law Of Parsimony, Lloyd Morgan’s Cannon, Antecdotal evidence, Survey Method, Twin Studies, eugenics, catastrophism, uniformitarianism
The first topic from chapter five that I found interesting is Jean Baptiste de Lamarck’s idea of chain of being. Chain of being is the thought that all species on the earth could be placed on a linear scale with reference to their level of complexity. Each species constantly evolves into a more complex version of the species, and that new life is continuously being created from inorganic life. Also, he believed that an important aspect of evolution was the fact that changes occurring during the lifetime of an organism could be passed on to their offspring. For example, if over the course of a monkey’s life it learned to use simple tools, this new ability would be inherited by the next generation. This concept was labeled the inheritance of acquired characteristics. This thought was strongly believed by many throughout the nineteenth century and was part of Darwin’s original theory. Eventually the concept was thrown out. I found this to be interesting because even though it was thrown out it made a contribution to the theory of evolution. It was so strongly believed that even Darwin used it as a starter for his theory. The whole idea of evolution is very interesting to me because it will always be a debate. Will we ever fully know the truth about how the world came to be?
The next topic I found interesting was Charles Darwin and the Galapagos Islands. Darwin visited the Galapagos for five weeks where he hiked and collected specimens to help give him clues about evolution. He noticed there was a difference in the bird populations from island to island especially in what he thought resembled mockingbirds. Later on, he discovered that the beak shapes differed which helped contribute to his theory. He failed to notice this information on the beaks while actually on the islands because he mislabeled some of the finches and was more interested in their coloring. He concluded that at some point the finches had arrived at the island and spread throughout the islands. The finches on each island were slightly different and produced slightly different offspring. I have heard about this before in previous classes, however I still find this to be very interesting. Making the trip to these islands allowed for Darwin to begin his journey as a scientist. He became very well known after this occurred. It is crazy how he found so much that helped him by visiting the Galapagos.
The two topics that I found to be less interesting from the chapter were Galton’s survey method and his twin studies. The survey method is a research method that originated from Darwin’s questionnaires on emotion and Galton’s questionnaires on different topics. Galton is given credit for this. Twin studies was essentially measuring twins and was a means of demonstrating how intelligence is inherited. The reason I thought these topics were less interesting because they are just so self-explanatory and boring. I know that they are a way of studying psychology but the different methods of research sometimes seem to be rather dull compared to other topics.
One thing from the chapter that I think will be beneficial in understanding the history of psychology would the topic of functionalism. Functionalism focused on the study of human conscious experience from an evolutionary perspective that deals with studying the adaptive value of various mental and behavioral processes. The reason I think this is beneficial in understanding psychology is because many psychologists use it. Also, it involves studying human behavior and different mental processes which is a way for us to understand more about the history of psychology.
Two topics I would like to go over in more detail would be Lloyd Morgan’s canon and Galton’s imagery and association. The book definition for Lloyd Morgan’s canon is that it is a principle of parsimony, stating that the best explanation for some phenomenon was the one with the fewest assumptions. I would like to have this put a little more clearly. I would just like to learn a little bit more about Galton’s imagery and association including the word association test, which was a more systematic way of measuring associations.
Terms used: chain of being, inheritance of acquired characteristics, Darwin & Galapagos Islands, survey method, twin studies, functionalism, Lloyd Morgan’s canon, word association test
I LOVE Darwin. I love all the controversy and I love how he discovered something that changed everything for the future. I think its funny how he started off being shoved into medical school by his father but couldn’t stand the clinical procedures. Next he tried studying clergy. He eventually found his true calling with his love for the natural world. Even though his father told him he was disgracing there family and any family he would have by not perusing the medical field. Sedgwick views were called catastrophism, which is an attempt to maintain supremacy of God and the Bible while accounting for what scientists were discovering about nature. He thought that geological change happened abruptly under the control of God. Lyell, on the other hand, argued that geological change occurred more slowly and involved sources that are constantly at work such as volcanic action, earthquakes, erosion, and weather. This is called uniformitarianism which is the assumption that uniform laws of nature operated to produce gradual geologic change.
I also enjoyed Darwin’s contribution with his theory of evolution which promoted a way of thinking which led to be called functionalism. Functionalists were interested in studying human behaviors and mental processes. There was also an increased interest in comparative psychology which is the study of similarities and differences among all animal species. And also individual psychology which is a measurement of differences via intelligence and personality tests.
I didn’t like George Romanes theory about anthropomorphism, the attribution of human faculties to nonhuman entities. So for instance he said that spiders have a fondness for music, scorpions would commit suicide if surrounded by fire, that birds show sympathy and conjugal fidelity, and beavers show sagacity and forethought when selecting sites for their lodges. I think that dogs and cats and horses have feelings, but insects don’t. I also don’t think they put any thought into where they decided to live.
Something you could cover in class would be Conwy Lloyd Morgan and his law of Parsimony. I don’t think I got a good grasp or understanding of that.
What I found interesting in this chapter was how in the age of Enlightenment, scientists were known to be heroic and religion and God started to become questioned. There were a lot of species being discovered, concerning many people about the bible and noah's ark which became known as the species problem. This concern led scientists like Erasmus and Lamarck to develop ideas about evolution and Lamarck came up with an idea called the chain of being, stating that species are evolving from other species and offspring was being passed on from generation to generation which is known as the inheritance of acquired characteristics. This is interesting to me because if it wasn't for the Darwin's and other scientists, we may not have learned about certain species on where they came from and how they evolved. There's even species out in the world today that haven't been discovered (perhaps deep in the ocean) and new species are like aliens to our eyes. Most species that are well known have learned to adapt to their environment, and those that are undiscovered will probably die out and we may not ever know about them.
Obviously another interesting part of this chapter was the whole section about Charles Darwin's life, and how his father forced him to go to school he didn't want to go to, and eventually he found the love of the natural world at Cambridge, and eventually considered himself a geologist and soon a zoologist. He then went on the "Beagle" for 5 years which changed his life by discovering that finches were somewhat the same on the islands as the mainland but had different beaks, coming up with his new ideas on the evolution of species. Darwin became very ill and held off publishing his book for about twenty years on his ideas about the species and natural selection to survive. Of course, when it was published, people were judgmental of his ideas and the bible, and he stood up for his beliefs, which obviously his ideas has made an impact today.
Two things I didn't find very interesting in this chapter was the section about Galton and how he thought intelligence was innate and the first survey method was created, and also about his ideas on association even though his findings did somewhat help out with research methods today. Methods and studies are important today, I do admit, but no matter what, there's always weaknesses that go along with each method. Case studies for example usually only deal with one individual or another example are surveys in general, they only measure a certain amount of people usually in an area, and no one survey can look at everyone and represent it as a whole. Although I found this section quite bland, I found that Galton was a little harsh with the term eugenics, stating the strong should reproduce and the weak or poor should not. Although it is a bit harsh, it somewhat stands true today. The fittest and strongest/wealthiest do survive more than the weakest. Galton's work has helped scientists and psychologists understand human cognition.
I would like to learn a little more about Lloyd Morgan's canon, because it confused me, and about George Romane's work on anecdotal evidence.
Terms: Species problem, inheritance of acquired characteristics,chain of being,eugenics
One of the interesting parts of this chapter to me was about Charles Darwin. I had never learned so much about his background before. He was from a very wealthy family and grew up not really caring about his education. His father had little hope for him and did not think he was going anywhere in society, but he actually became one of the most well-known historical biologists. He planned on going to school to be a minister but found that he loved studying nature. He became close to some of his professors and one of them recommended him to go the ship the Beagle that was going to South America. He was able to collect information on many of the different species there, which helped him to form his idea of evolution. One of the most important things was the birds on the Galapagos Islands that all ended up being different kinds of finches. He came back to England but did not write his book about his theory for twenty years. When he did finally publish his book, On the Origin of Species, it became very popular. He talked about the struggle for existence in it and the theory of natural selection, which is similar to artificial selection that breeders had been doing with animals such as pigeons, but naturally. The reason he is linked to psychology is through functionalism. This was about how humans adapt behavior to the environment around them.
Functionalism is connected to comparative psychology, which is another thing that I am interested in. This is how humans and animals are similar. Before Darwin, many people did not think there was much of a connection between animals and humans. Darwin first studied this by looking at the facial expressions of different people around the world. He also looked at why we do certain things, like why our hair stands up. He traced these things back to when humans were more animalistic. This was his idea of serviceable associated habits, which was that some of the things we do today that really seem to serve no use, were helpful before humans completely evolved.
One thing I found uninteresting was where the survey method came from. I thought it was pretty bland and not exciting information. Galton was studying heredity and if intelligence was passed down. He sent out a questionnaire to fellow scientists asking them questions that related to the fact of whether or not they thought their intelligence was from nurture or nature. Most of them said they believed it to be nature. It seems crazy to me that this was the first time every that someone had thought to put out a survey, when today they are used all the time to collect data. I could see where the scientists would want to say that they are naturally better than everyone, and not just anybody can become that intelligent, so the questionnaire had a lot of bias in it. He also studied twins using the survey method, which was one of the first studies to look at twins. Through these studies he came up with the theory of eugenics, the idea that society works to improve it’s genes.
Another thing I found uninteresting was the imagery and association interests of Galton. He asked people to recall their breakfast table. For the most part I do not understand why this is all that important. The three things he looked at when asking people was illumination, definition, and coloring. His findings showed that scientists had the least amount of imagery and children had a lot. But later on, some other colleagues of his thought this was wrong and redid the study. They found that scientists actually did have a lot of imagery.
I would like you to go over in class what is important about imagery and association, or maybe it really is not important at all.
One thing that I found interesting in Chapter 5 was the section on Darwin’s trip to the Galapagos Islands. I took Human Origins last semester and the majority of the material for that class focused on evolution and Darwin. I thought it was interesting how he noticed the differences in the beaks of the birds and how they evolved over time. I had never heard of the noticeable differences in the tortoise shells, but I found it interesting and most likely easy to tell a difference over time. Another thing I found interesting was Darwin’s take on emotional expressions. I interact with people a lot at my job and constantly find myself talking with the customer. I often wonder if I give off a “fake friendly” vibe, not on purpose, but because I have to move fast during lunch rushes but I still want to seem polite.
One thing I didn’t find very interesting was the section talking about The Origin of Species. Mainly because I have already learned about this, therefore the material didn’t really get my attention. Another thing that didn’t really get my attention was Darwin’s life background. His findings are interesting to learn about, but after taking a class that mainly focused on just Darwin, it’s not that fascinating to learn about him anymore.
I would like to learn more about comparative psychology because it’s a topic I have never been introduced to. I would also like to learn more about the concept of evolutionary psychology.
Two of the things that I found to be interesting in this chapter were the fact that multiple people were coming up with similar ideas about evolution at the same time that Darwin was, he was just the best at providing evidence, and that Galton, while very influential, seemed to have done a lot of his research just so he could feel that he was actually superior to other people, instead of just having been lucky to be born into wealth.
the biggest thing that I found to be less interesting in this chapter were the sections going through Darwin's life and his theory of evolution, and while i did actually find everything in this section to be interesting, i didn't see how all of it pertained to psychology.
While this subject was never really discussed in this chapter, while reading it I did become curious about how instincts are formed, and something else i would like to know more about is darwin's grandfather, he sounded like an interesting man.
The first thing I found very interesting in chapter 5 was the idea of the species problem. It was interesting how people started to question many aspects of the Bible. Like wondering how Noah was able to fit 2 species of every animal on the ark, how did the earth become so populated with diversity, where did all these fossils come from? As Charles Darwin went on his voyage on the Beagle, he tried to answer these various questions. When Darwin arrived at the Galapagos Islands he was able to notice the aging of the different layers of sediment. He also noticed the many different species of animals, one in particular, the finch. I was really intrigued when I came to find out that Erasmius Darwin (grandfather to Charles) was one of the first to reject the biblical account and was able to look at life from a single filament. As I was reading Charles Darwin’s earlier life I was able to connect myself to him. It seemed like as he was in school he could never find something he was interesting. He went from medicine to theology, botany, geology, and even zoology. I can easily say that I had the same problem. Starting at being to a helicopter pilot, I was never able to find my field of study that I was most interested in. It wasn’t until the end of fall semester that my ambition was being a coach and the only way to seek that was education. Since I am so interested in Darwin I would really like to know more about the emotional expressions he studied on animals. It seemed like the book didn’t give a real good definition of serviceable associated habits and I would really like to know when they are entitling. My last question is how Darwin was able to draw such a precise and accurate model of the Galapagos Islands. Given the fact he had no aerial view to reference or any of the technology we have today.
This is probably the chapter that I enjoyed reading the most. I had previously had a bitter taste in my mind when it came to the word ‘Darwin’ because of what the campus group UNIFI have come to represent him with. This changed as soon as I had read this chapter on his life and work I now have a great respect for the man. Darwin was a very brave individual. I mean he didn’t really know what he wanted to do with his life until he discovered his love for the outdoors and then he pursued it relentlessly, just because it was something that interested him. His love of science and the outdoors took him all over the world and he was willing to follow it, even around South America to the Galapagos Islands. In addition to his sense of adventure he was willing to take the scientific process to new levels. He continually thought throughout his trip about the current beliefs of his time, like catatrophism (the rapid, violent formation of the earth) and the species problem (“mystery of mysteries”-how were there so many diverse creatures, how did they fit on the ark). His beliefs were not largely accepted by the general population and they definitely clashed with his wife’s religious beliefs. Regardless he followed what he thought to be true to the very end and ended up writing On the Origin of Species by means of Natural Selection. His bravery and dedication intrigued me. I was also taken by all of the events surrounding Darwin’s discoveries extremely interesting. He grew up in an affluent home where he was without direction and embarrassing to his parents. He had a grandfather, Erasmus, who held the belief that all species on earth could be put into a chain of being, from simple to complex. He had great teachers, Reverend John Henslow, the minister/scientist, and Reverend Adam Sedgwick, the geologist, who set him on his way to challenge the world around them scientifically. He was chosen by Robert FitzRoy to be his intelligent conversation partner on the Beagle which took him around the world. He just so happened to stumble across some finches on the small Galapagos Islands. He just so happened to get a letter from Alfred Wallace who had similar ideas to Darwin. All these culminated into creating a perfect atmosphere for his book to be born into.
The least interesting, or maybe the most disturbing part of the chapter was Francis Galton and his extension of Darwin’s theory of evolution to humans. Now, granted, Darwin might of well have come out and said it but he didn’t, his half-cousin did. By looking at survival of the fittest Galton applied it to his social structure. Those who were in the upper echelon of society tended to also have family who were in esteemed positions, and respectively for those in the lower class. He accomplished this by surveying individuals whom he knew and through the use of twin studies (huge breakthrough-nature: twins act the same, nurture: twins act differently). Ultimately this led to the eugenics- the idea that society as a whole should actively try to improve the genetic make-up of people by encouraging people with desirable traits to breed while those with undesirable traits would be discouraged/forced to not. When it came to eugenics is where this goes too far.
This chapter as a whole is useful to helping us understand the continuing challenges between church science and the scientific community. Beliefs like catrastophism and uniformitarianism, young earth and old earth, and a literal belief in the account in Genesis continued the feud. The scientific community had no way to counteract the Biblical account of creation and the way the world was formed. They had ideas but nothing too solid to stand on, that is until Darwin’s theory of evolution, which meshed much better with the scientific community as a whole. With this belief and understanding the scientific community had a sound theory to determine how we ended up where we are today.
Two topics that I would enjoy being studied a bit more would include the two other men discussed in our chapter, George Romanes and his Anecdotal Method, and Conwy Morgan and his principle of parsimony. The anecdotal method put a lot of emphasis on the abilities of animals, and possibly gave them too much credit by attributing human characteristics to them. Morgan’s law of parsimony sought to correct this in saying, “In no case may we interpret an action as the outcome of the exercise of a higher psychical faculty, if it can be interpreted as the outcome of the exercise of one which stands lower on the psychological scale”. These two I understand, but at the end of the bit about Morgan he said that still believed that animals are possible of many astounding feats. In what ways do these two theories overlap? Do they? What would Morgan and Romanes think about the Bird caring for the cat on that youtube video? Would saying that the cat and bird developed a friendship be going too far?
In Chapter five one thing I found more important to know is evolution. Evolution is the change over time in one or more inherited traits. Evolution can occur when there is variation of inherited traits within a population. There are two processes of evolution. One is natural selection and the other is genetic drift. Natural selection is a process in which there is different survival triats that differ from inherited traits. And genetic drift is a process which there are random changes to traits within the population. Darwin believed that some variation was spontaneous and random, like a mutation. Secondly he believed that the offspring that are “selected” by nature will live on while others will die “survival of the fitist”. By those without the new “selective” trait die out is the reason for extinction in animals.
Most of what I found interesting in this chapter had to do with Darwin and his research. One of the most interesting things about Darwin is his theory of natural selection, which basically states that the organism with the traits best suited to survival in a specific environment would be more likely to survive, therefore living long enough to reproduce and pass on those beneficial traits. His example was with the finches and the shapes of their beaks. He found that the birds on an island with seeds that had harder shells who had stronger beaks were most likely to survive, so their offspring began to resemble this trait of a strong beak. On other islands where the seed shells weren’t as hard, the beaks weren’t nearly as large and strong because it wasn’t necessary to get through the shell to the seeds.
Another thing about Darwin that I found interesting was learning about his roles in the creation of functionalism and comparative psychology. Functionalism looked at human behaviors and mental processes and how they adapt and evolve. While Darwin didn’t do his research with humans, his research did tie directly to adaptation to environment as well as evolution (obviously). Comparative psychology is more interested in looking at the similarities and differences found between different species. This goes along perfectly with Darwin’s theory because he was working with different species and comparing them systematically.
I thought the least interesting part of this chapter was the section on Romanes. I think the potential exists that he would have seemed a lot more interesting to me if he weren’t in the same chapter as Darwin. But I just find Darwin so fascinating that everything else in this chapter didn’t really hold a flame to his work.
Obviously I am a bit partial to Darwin so I think he has the most profound effect on the history of psychology. While I think his actual research did a lot for the field of psychology, I think his bravery to go about his research perhaps had more of an impact. At the time Darwin was doing his research the church was in complete power, and they taught that God had individually created each and every species that existed. Obviously Darwin’s theory directly opposed this belief, and knowing that he could get in a lot of trouble with the church he still continued his work.
The section on Species interested me because it spoke on the theory of evolution, which is something I don't believe in. And I feel it's always fun and entertaining to hear other peoples side of things when they believe differently. This explained how Darwin wasn't the first to develop a theory on evolution, but Lamarck. I thought it was interesting that he believed animals evolved into more complex creatures as the years went on from one single organism. I think that's insane to believe that. So I guess the only reason it interested me was to read about a point of view different from what I believed.
(least interesting) I think it's nonsense to agree with Darwin in his belief that one species can evolve into a completely different species from what it originated from. That would be like believing that we as humans can evolve into Avatars later on down the road. It just doesn't match up or fit, and from what I've read so far doesn't provide anything evidence strong enough to make me change my mind. I do believe that animals "habits" change overtime through adaptation and the attribute is passed on through offsprings because that's what begans to be taught eventually.
I believe that the section on Studying Individual Differences would be a great topic to elaborate on to help give a better understanding about the history of psychology and what it has developed into today from where it started. After all, most people believe that psychology is dealing with people and mental issues only, so this would probably be appealing to one ignorant to the fact that psychology is far more in depth than they could even imagine.