Please read chapter 5. After reading the chapter, please respond to the following questions:
What were three (3) things from the chapter that you found interesting? Why were they interesting to you? What one (1) thing 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?
Think of a topic from an earlier chapter. How does the current chapter relate to the topic from the earlier chapter we have already read?
What topic would you like to learn more about? Why?
One thing I found interesting in this chapter was Darwin wasn’t the first person to develop ideas about evolution; his own grandfather also thought evolution was a valid explanation to the species problem. Even outside of the family different theories of evolution were being studied and considered. However, for some of the time the Anglican Church still controlled many of the universities and scientific thought.
Another thing I found interesting is that Thomas Malthus influence on Darwin. It was Malthus views on humanitarian aid that led to the idea of the survival of the fittest in human populations, which Darwin, of course, applied to animals and his theory of evolution and the need of a species to survive. This also led Darwin to his ideas of struggle for existence and natural selection.
I also found Francis Galton’s work on individual differences to be interesting. Galton, a relative of Darwin’s, did a lot research on different subjects, but I found his work on fingerprints to be the most interesting and important. He noticed how the swirls on people’s fingers were different, and never the same. His research led to Scotland Yard to adapt fingerprinting for identification, which is still used today. It is also interesting that he would coin the term eugenics. Given Darwin’s theory of evolution, Galton was able to extrapolate from his background of a wealthy upper class white man he felt he was this way because he was more evolved and more intelligent as a result. He believed this could be used to create a master race of desired qualities, eugenics.
I don’t find evolution to be that interesting to study as a whole. I understand the importance, validity, and concepts; it just doesn’t interest me as much as other subjects. I think it is because it reminds me of my high school biology experience and that was also not interesting. I would much rather learn about cultures and geography than biological theories.
Darwin’s theory of evolution fits into psychology in different ways. First it is similar to psychology because it is searching for truth just as psychology and the rest of the sciences. Secondly, evolution stimulated the psychological idea of functionalism. Also influenced was comparative psychology; which studies the similarities and differences among species as well as individual differences. He also studied human emotions and there potential origins. He set up the basis for new branches of psychology to emerge making him important to the history of psychology.
Galton’s ideas on individual intelligences reminded me of Locke’s views on intelligence. Locke believed that intelligence or knowledge came from our experiences. Galton on the other hand believed intelligence came through genetics and evolution. This facilitates one ultimate question: Nature vs. Nurture. Locke is on the side of nurture and Galton on the side of nature.
I want to learn more about American psychologist and their response to Darwin and Galton’s views on evolution. The basic idea seems to be contradictory to American values. With Darwin evolution went against the church, even though this wasn’t his intent or what America was supposed to be founded upon. Galton’s more egalitarian view goes against the idea of the “American Dream,” popular in America at this time. I want to know how well these ideas were first accepted in different circles of American culture.
Goodwin seems to be saying that it took Darwin’s Origin of Species and Expressions of the Emotions for people to start thinking that it was possible to research human behavior by using comparative studies of animals. There were already scientists doing comparative physiological experiments, so it doesn’t really seem like it would have been much of a stretch for one of them to attempt comparative psychological experiments as well. (I’m not trying to put a presentist spin on this; just wondering if there were, in fact, experiments in this vein that preceded Darwin.)
The argument that Darwin’s work enabled others to develop comparative psychology does seem to be the main point of the chapter, however - and will be the most useful in understanding Darwin’s place in Goodwin’s history of psychology.
Darwin’s study of the evolution of emotional expressions was itself interesting, as he tried to show that humans shared behavior (expressions) with other animals. I would like to hear more about this. Romanes is criticized for taking the comparison too far, and anthropomorphizing animal behavior; but I wonder if the actual problem is that we still cling to the belief that human emotions are somehow ‘nobler’ than the behaviors of animals. Morgan argued, “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 in the psychological scale” (Goodwin, 154). That suggests to me that we should consider the possibility that we have dressed up our animal behavior to look less like animals than we are.
I also thought the Close-Up of Douglas Spalding was interesting. Much of (recorded) history seems to be the story of affluent men with time on their hands. Spalding had a slightly different start (he was a rough tradesman before finding a patron), but the patronage of the Amberlys allowed him to expand on his earlier intellectual pursuits. He was linked with John Stuart Mill and Bertrand Russell, which shows the (universal?) value of networking in those circles. It was rather quaint (if a bit salacious) how Goodwin said of Lady Amberly, “She also tutored the naïve Spalding in the human instinct of love” (Goodwin, 151).
The part that I found least interesting (or rather, least relevant) was the extensive description of Darwin’s early life and the voyage of the H.M.S. Beagle. IMO, Goodwin takes a winding path and generally doesn’t do a very good job of clearly stating each individual’s contribution to psychology. I’m not very happy with the text, in that regard. (It’s a textbook, not a biography. I’d prefer to see some clear lines drawn.)
This chapter relates to Chapter 2, showing the change from the Cartesian view (that humans were a different kind of being than animals) to a more modern view (humans are simply another type of animal).
I found it very interesting that although Darwin was not at all the first person to develop ideas about evolution, he is the first person we think of whenever anyone mentions evolution. Not only did another researcher introduce to us the idea of inherited characteristics in the first place, but Charles Darwin's own GRANDFATHER rejected creationism in favor of evolution! This goes back to the idea of "multiples" discussed in the first chapter, when two or more people make the same discovery during about the same time period. However, today we tend to take a personalistic view toward evolution: we think of it mainly in terms of Darwin.
Another thing I found interesting was that Darwin was NOT only interested in evolution and the concept of "survival of the fittest." In fact, he was interested in quite a few things: geology, nature, individual differences, and emotions, for example. One of Darwin's primary areas of research was in comparative psychology and the evolution of emotional expressions - not only in animals, but in humans as well. He studied which muscles are involved in emotional expression, as well as which emotions are adaptable for survival and why we have emotions at all. I found this to be highly interesting. When we think Darwin, our minds automatically go to the theory of evolution, so it's pretty cool to find out that he had many other areas of interest.
Douglas Spalding and his study of instinct was also pretty fascinating to me. I have often learned about instinctive behavior of animals, imprinting, and critical periods in other psychology courses; however, I never really knew who was responsible for such theories - I only knew that they existed. The idea of imprinting was especially interesting to learn about, especially the study with the goslings.
On the other hand, I found the section about George Romanes and the anecdotal method as well as the portion on Conwy Lloyd Morgan and his principle of parsimony to be quite uninteresting. I just wasn't interested in the topics mainly because I didn't quite understand them. There wasn't enough information given in the section to snag and keep my interest.
I think basically the entire chapter is useful to know when studying the history of psychology. Obviously the sections on Darwin were the most important in learning about evolution; however, I think the parts about comparative psychology and individual differences were also of utmost importance.
The main thing I noticed when reading was the fact that Darwin was NOT the first person to suggest evolution. This brought to mind the concept of multiples from chapter 1.
I would like to learn more about the portion entitled "Investing Imagery and Association." It seemed very interesting, but there really wasn't enough information there for me to be able to get into it.
Since I attended a private catholic school for most of my life, I had never truly been taught Darwin’s theory of evolution, and had it elaborated in a way that I could truly understand. After reading this chapter, I have a much better understanding and I enjoyed learning about it. What was first so interesting to me was his Christian upbringing. After attending Oxford for his education, his initial plan was to serve as an Anglican clergyman while studying science at the same time. An opportunity presented itself to Darwin, though, and he was soon to travel to South America, a trip that would change his life and spark his interest in his evolutionary theories.
Much of Darwin’s theories on evolution caused uproar in the Church of England, threatening all that they stood for. I do not understand why both the theory of evolution and the story of creation, God created the world in seven days, cannot be accepted. Science is necessary for human advancement and many of Darwin’s theories make a lot of sense to me. The finches that Darwin found while exploring the Galapagos were strong evidence for evolution. As a person with strong faith I can accept that and it does not shake what I already believe in.
An analogy made by William Paley really stood out to me and was written in the third paragraph of the chapter:
“…the complex design of a watch, which necessitates a watchmaker to make it, and that of the infinitely more complicated human eye, which require an “eyemaker” who is by definition infinitely superior to the humans using those eyes.”
This to me is just a good analogy in supporting that God could have created us humans in all of our complexity, but it does not insist that science does not exist and that it is not important.
I find that much of the early lives of each scientist is incredibly uninteresting and seems to me irrelevant to what we are studying. I do not see how Romanes’ wealthy upbringing is key to his success in learning animal behavior.
Darwin was very important in promoting a different way of thinking about things, his beliefs in evolution when religion had a powerful hold over the people of that time, which is the simplest way of describing what psychology is. He also took a huge interest in mental processes between species, which is now known as comparative psychology, and how a person can measure these differences.
Today we know that both nature and nurture play a huge part in mental processes. Galton was interested in discovering if intelligence was hereditary. He found that through his research, it was. Back in chapter three, Lashley was also interested in learning and intelligence, but looked at it from the other perspective. He was interested in discovering which parts of the brain were necessary in learning. He also ran studies which required rats to learn tasks which “bear at least some relation to the intelligent, adaptive behavior found in the animals’ real-world environments.”
I would be interested in learning more about Darwin’s theory of evolution and get other college student’s opinions on the topic. It is a very interesting subject which can cause much debate and I would be interested in hearing differing opinions on the subject, why they feel the way they do, and get their reactions to my opinions as well.
One of the topics I found most interesting in the chapter was how Darwin began to construct his evolutionary theory. After observing the species on the Galapagos and remembering how certain pigeons were breed he began to construct his theory in more detail. I found it interesting how he was to even begin to rationalize a theory like this at the time he lived. A theory like this for the time in which he lived is amazing because there is really nothing other than Darwin himself to direct his forward thinking.
I was also very interested to learn how Darwin a naturalist and zoologist tied into the history of psychology. After I read what the book had to say it was very easy for me to realize why Darwin was included in the history of psychology. When the book talked about how his research ties in with behaviorism and the adaptation of an ever changing environment it was clear to me why he was included. Also his theory’s according to the book also lead to comparative psychology in assessing the behaviors of two different species or in the study of individual differences whether it be humans or animals.
I really enjoyed reading about Darwin’s views on emotions as well. With Darwin’s first principal of serviceable associated habits he suggests that emotions are naturally engrained in us do to certain stimuli that have triggered that reaction in the past. This view is similar to previous chapters that have talked about nerve reactions like pulling your hand away from a hot flame. You don’t have to tell your hand to be pulled away your brain just does it. Darwin with his first principal suggests something similar with emotion, we don’t tell ourselves to feel one way we just do based on the stimuli we receive. Darwin’s second principal is antithesis. Antithesis is where the reaction is opposite of the emotion felt, like if a dog is frightened its fur bristles and it bears its teeth to look bigger and more intimidating. The third principal is the direct action of the nervous system. This also ties into earlier chapters as well that talk about our nerves reacting to the outside world. This principal suggests that the emotions we feel especially the strong ones can cause physiological changes such as trembling, with either excitement or fear.
One of the things I found least interesting from the chapter was where it talked about Darwin’s ship that he sailed on. The reason it didn’t interest me was because I could not get over the thought of how does this even apply to what we are learning. The ship didn’t come up with the theory of evolution Darwin did so I’m not sure why the book doesn’t talk less about the ship and more about Darwin.
I would like to learn more about the application of evolutionary psychology. It would interest me to know what people have learned by studying the evolution of human behavior and how much it has changed over the course of time.
Something that I found interesting was how women and African Americans were able to pursue higher level education in a time that did not encourage it. Women were supposed to stay home and raise a family. They were not meant to study at a university. Today I am sure that this would anger many women around the globe. African Americans probably felt the same way. They were dealing with so much discrimination it had to be hard to even think about taking on a career path like that. They did though, which is really neat. It is something that I would like to learn more about. I want to know how they coped with all the distractions they were dealing with. In particular Francis Sumner.
Something else that I thought was interesting was William James's study on emotion. I think it is interesting to think about a frightening time. For example if you were sleeping and all of a sudden you woke up and heard a loud crash. Would the sound send a message to your brain to start pumping blood faster so you are more alert? And would all of this happen before you are able to think about the question is somebody trying to steal something or kill me?
A final thing that I found to be interesting was the research involving habits. I think that a habit is something that is automatic as James discusses. I had a habit of biting my nails for a very long time. I do not remember when I fell out of that habit, but I find it interesting and would like to learn more about how one gets addicted to a habit like that. Your body in some way is telling you to perform this habit to make life easier is what I am getting out of this. Habits take up a lot of people's time and I think it would be interesting to learn more about what triggers it.
One thing that I did not enjoy reading about was the construction of all these new psychology text books. I realize they have a great importance to our knowledge with the subject but at the same time I want to see what the best topics inside those text books have to offer. Not when they were published.
I think that this chapter relates to previous chapters because it introduces a lot of new faces to the study of psychology. It illustrates who has contributed early to this subject in the United States of America.
Something I found interesting was Charles Lyell's theory of uniformitarianism, the assumption that the laws of nature operates to produce gradual geological change. The belief at the time was nature changes abruptly due to catastrophism. Catastrophism was that geological change was due to God's decisions. I found this interesting because of the thought that God decided there was going to be an earthquake or other weather effects because it was in his plan. Lyell's theory was risky because Christianity was at a high and was the only thing people really used as an excuse for anything happening, nobody ever questioned it because it was in God's plan.
I have heard of Darwin and his Galapagos finches in almost all of my science classes. Coming into this chapter I wondered what he could have done really in the science field. And because of his theory of evolution, it made psycholgists more interested in studying human behaviors and mental processes of how the individual adapts to the changing environment. This is known as functionalism psychology which I am more interested to read about in the upcoming chapters. But he also contributed to comparitive psychology, which is studying the differences and similarities of animals. He also influenced the study of individual differences which led to personality and intelligence testing in the future.
The insert on Douglas Spalding and his instinct experiments was interesting to read. His experiment with the baby chickens and removing one of their sences, either visual or auditory was fascianating. He found the the chickens responded normally after their "handicapped" area was fixed. It showed that there is raw instinct in some things. His studies of critical periods and imprinting all had to do with chickens, and I found his experiments to interesting.
I have never been that interested in evolution and all of the biological findings. I jsut never clicked with that section of science and I have heard so much about Darwin and evolution I feel like I'm burnt out of it.
This chapter reminded me of Ch. 3 when Flourens started to use animals to test on with his method of ablation, to see how they react. This also reminded me of Lockes views of intelligence when reading Galtons intelligence theories and experiments.
I think understanding how Darwin influenced psychology with his theory of evolution is important to psychology's history. I didn't know he had such an impact on psychology and its important to understand how he helped the science evolve making psychologists think more about behaviors based on the changing environment. I would like to learn more about Galton and his interest in imagery and association. It sound interesting but I want more on visual imagery and how it works.
This chapter was somewhat difficult for me to read. This chapter deals a lot with religion, and I’ve found that most people have very strong feelings and opinions on religion, no matter what their beliefs. I am no exception to the rule, and I consider myself a strong, Christian woman. Reading about evolutionary thinking was hard to stomach, however I did appreciate how the text was written. The author does a great job as to state opinions matter-of-factly and I commend him for doing so. This whole issue was my least favorite part of the chapter, though chapter five was not my least favorite chapter we’ve read so far. Being strong in my faith, I admit to not knowing much about Darwin and his journey. Though I do not agree with Darwin’s beliefs and conclusions, I admit to finding his journey very interesting.
For starters, I had no idea Darwin ever went on a voyage. I had no clue that his journey on the Beagle would lead him to have such a strong impact on evolutionism. It makes complete sense though. Being originally from England, Darwin was basically only exposed to the beliefs of the Catholic Church. I also couldn’t believe that Darwin was actually going to school to become a minister. Those must have been some pretty intense layers of coral and rock for him to stray off that path so far. Haha, no, I’m joking. But that was another thing I was unaware of; I had no idea Darwin was first concerned with geology when it came to science. I would have loved to seen those layers of coral and seashells and just South America in general way back when. I can only imagine the beauty of it all. It must have looked especially beautiful for Darwin after being sea sick for weeks on end. All in all, I found the beginning of Darwin’s journey not only fascinating, but quite ironic as well.
I love animals. I love zoos, aquariums, farms, etc. Therefore, I also loved reading about Darwin’s time in South America as well as the Galapagos. As I just said, I had no idea that he was first interested in geology. Darwin, after studying the layers of soil along the sea line, determined that the changes developed slowly and gradually over many years and therefore the earth must be much older than once thought. This got him thinking about species and how this must be true for living organisms as well. He then studied birds, especially finches in the Galapagos. Though I love animals, I am deathly afraid of birds (yes, I’m strange) so reading those details kind of gave me the heebie jeebies. Other than that, it was great to read about his journals. I couldn’t believe how many pages he wrote on rocks, birds, other species, etc. It would be very interesting to read those works.
Finally, I had no idea the impact on psychology Darwin had. As you can tell, I really did not have the slightest inclination on Darwin. Darwin’s work on emotions was the most interesting to me. I find it fascinating that the basic emotions are the same throughout the entire world and different cultures. Darwin’s three principles on emotions are also interesting. Serviceable associated habits, the first and most important principle, had an example of contempt in the book. I didn’t think this was the best example, but it did help me to understand. The other two principles also made sense and I found importance in them as well. Darwin’s work with psychology is the most interesting to me because of my major and no interference with my other beliefs.
Darwin’s contributions to psychology are the most important thing from this chapter. Darwin was the father of functionalism. This is the psychology that studied how human behavior and thinking adapted to the changing environment. Without Darwin, who knows how long, or if even, this theory would have been born.
In chapter three there was a lot of discussion on physiology and how it plays a role in psychology. One of the things that was discussed was the nervous system. In chapter five, one of the three principles of emotions Darwin discusses is the direct action of the nervous system. This principle states that there are certain side effects that accompany emotions which come from physiological arousal. Learning about the nervous system in chapter three helped me better understand this principle.
I’d love to learn more about the psychology of emotions. I’m a woman, and to be honest, a bit of a drama queen. Therefore learning more about emotions is very interesting to me. Why are some people like me, very emotional? Why do some people barely express emotions? These are all questions I’d love to have the answers to, and learning more about the psychology of emotions, I believe, would help me find these answers.
What topic would you like to learn more about? Why?
One of the first interests in this chapter to me was the modern university and the staggering numbers of student increase from 1870 to 1910. The numbers went up from 67,000 to 335,000. This increase obviously also created a demand for graduate education and this eventually kept American students here in America rather than going to Germany to get a better education. Reading about the Land Grant Act and how the government gave land to a state and if they built a University on this land within five years, they got to keep the land. That lead to a tremendous increase in Universities. Obviously this growing education trend and open universities was primarily aimed at middle and upper class white males, which makes it even more remarkable how many more women are in college now than men. During this time women were actually discouraged from going on and getting an education after high school. One of the other ironic things is that when women were enrolled in college, they were not in programs like Psychology, and when I look around my classes today, I see a lot more females in my Psych classes than males.
Psychology was typically a part of the curriculum in black Universities, but rarely as a concentration. Only 4 of the 50 black universities surveyed in 1936 had Psychology programs, just reading these stats shows how new Psychology is as a study. I found it interesting that Francis Sumner, one of the first black students to receive a second bachelors degree went on after graduation to teach Psych.
One other thin I found interesting in this chapter was how William James when he died he still insisted on being a Philosopher rather than a Psychologist, but still goes down as being America’s First Psychologist. I also found it interesting that he did not attend school formally before the age of ten and even as a teen, it was very sporadic and by eighteen he knew the essentials of Latin, could read German and was fluent in French. Wow, this is impressive. Like it seems a lot of other Psychologists, William James went to college initially to study Chemistry. I also enjoyed reading about Psych’s most famous textbook and reading James’ theory on emotion
In this chapter, reading about some of America’s famous Psych pioneers, G. Stanley Hall was the least interesting to read about and Mary Whiton Calkins way of Challenging the Male monopoly seemed way more important to me. Primarily because of her persistency on getting into grad school and how difficult it was for a woman at that time. she also invented paired associate learning, which is pretty amazing. There were a few other women in this chapter that sparked my attention. They all have an unique and large part in the History of Psychology
The psych of emotions and the research on association are 2 things i would like to learn more about.
Darwin is a pretty interesting man. His father wanted him to study medicine but he wanted to study to become an Anglican priest. However, he ended up studying evolution, which wasn’t the churches favorite topic, and ended up becoming denounced all over England. I enjoyed his study on zoology and I liked reading about the voyage he took to South America.
The first thing that I found interesting in this chapter was Darwin and Emotional Expressions. What got me was he studied the emotions and actions of dogs, which I would think would be a lot harder than humans. He studied the facial features of a people and compared a simple smile to laughter. What he found here was that laugher is triggered by pairs of muscles that move, while smiling doesn’t take much. He also found three prime principles of emotional expression. The first being the most important: serviceable associated habits. This one is the most helpful (in body actions) that will help in the struggle to survive. The second is called the antithesis. In this one Darwin says that it is the opposite of other expressions that are in the body and its reactions. The last is called the direct action of the nervous system. This is what Darwin called the “side effects” of emotions.
I found Galton to be interesting as well. What I think I liked the most about him was the fact that he didn’t see earning a living as a big deal, and because of this he was able to study many different things. I liked that he studied fingertips and came to realize that every person’s tips have their own unique pattern. This would later become very useful to the Scotland Yard. It seems like he did a lot of research on humans through measuring and surveys. And it paid off because he did get quite a bit of information out of it. I also liked his work on imagery and association.
The last thing that I found to be interesting is the theory of Evolution. It’s something that I always kind of wondered about. The whole “are humans a form of a monkey and were did we come from” is really interesting to me. It’s something that really makes you think but luckily Darwin (and others) did a lot of that thinking and come up with what he thought about evolution. I liked Darwin’s struggle for existence, adaptive variation, and natural selection.
I didn’t find Conwy Lloyd Morgan to be all that interesting. Nothing of his really jumped out at me. The only thing that was interesting about him was that he could pass off as Santa Clause.
I think a lot of this chapter is useful, the study of emotion, the new thoughts on evolution, zoology, and geology. It all seems to be pretty important. Without some of this we might not know where Africa is or what animals are there. I’d say Darwin did a pretty good job with what he did along with the others that help along that way.
This chapter falls in line with the other four chapters because we are still learning about new theories and psychologist. Each chapter gives us more information about what psychology is and where it cames from with the all the founders too.
I would have liked to read more about Galton and his twin studies. I’m curious on what he found while he surveyed them.
I found the information about how the state colleges were created to be very interesting. I also found it very interesting how some of the most famous Ivy League colleges got their names. I thought that John Hopkins University information, about how it was the only American school equal to a German school to be really neat as well. I enjoyed reading about the creating of woman’s colleges and how hard it was for woman and minorities to go to college.
It was also amusing to read about how women were intellectually incapable of going on to higher education because of menstrual cycles. That idea or concept will always be a source of humor for me. One of the things in the chapter I find the least interesting was the section on professionalizing psychology.
I found the information on the woman, minorities, and the first American psychologist to be far more interesting. I think one of the things from the chapter that was important to psychology was how the first psychologist in America shaped how psychology is taught and how he paved the way for education today.
I would like to learn more about women in psychology as well as their efforts to get into graduate school in a time where society looked unfavorably towards women in higher education. I would also like to learn more about the psychology behind women being inferior due to menstruation and how and if it really does affect intelligence or mental concentration.
While I’m no longer a practicing Catholic, I did attend Catholic grade school for six years. I’ve always been a bit skeptical with the Bible and Creationism, which is probably why I was drawn to the opening part where it discussed Enlightenment science and the species problem. I think it’s fascinating that some scientists felt compelled to fit evolution or design theory into theology – that it was the “safe” way to approach evolution. I also found William Paley’s analogy from the design of the watch (and the need for a watchmaker) to the design of the human eye (and the need for an “eye”maker) to be a stretch, at the very least.
(Call me a skeptic…)
Something that I’d never heard before but learned from this chapter is that Charles Darwin attended Christ’s College “where Darwin studied for the clergy” and everything that went along with that school at the time. I thought the bit about the school being a safety net to prevent kids from becoming an embarrassment was particularly funny. I also found it interesting that Darwin had – before his journey to the Galapagos Islands – subscribed to the argument from design. I guess it surprised me because I’d always viewed Darwin as such a pioneer on the front of evolution. Darwin has become somewhat of a poster child for people who dispute the Bible and Creationism, so it’s odd to hear that he’d intended to go down a Christian path of scientific theory.
I also had never known how Darwin came to be aboard the HMS Beagle (recruited for companionship and possible scientific exploration by the captain Robert FitzRoy), and thought the cross section drawing of the ship was neat. I thought it was especially funny to see the casks of beer filling half of the hull.
I know this is more than three, but I also thought Galton’s geographical skills (his accurate maps of Africa and ensuing awards) were neat. It again goes along with my theory that scientists of this era were talented across a spectrum of fields, not just psychology. Galton studied a nature theory of inherited talents. He ignored nurture aspects and concluded that intellect was passed on strongly from father to son. He also found similarities in his twin studies. I thought his concept of eugenics was fascinating and also extremely dangerous, since “cleansing” of a species can lead to the belief that bad seeds should be eliminated from the gene pool (ahem, Holocaust). His Anthropometric Laboratory was amazing… studying desirable talents and physical attributes.
As my topic I’d like to learn more about, I think I’ll look into the influence of eugenics on leaders who have committed mass murders under the guise of cleansing their gene pool.
I was pretty much interested throughout the chapter, and I’d just be picking something out of a hat if I had to say what I wasn’t interested in. Then again, I’d taken a Human Evolution course three or four years ago and always found this topic fascinating.
The most useful bit of information would probably have to be the evolution of emotional expressions. I think that there is a highly instinctual nature to our behavior, including anger, arousal, etc… all of which would be important to keep in mind when researching the motives behind human behavior.
We know Darwin as the father of Evolution, but he was also had many contributions to the world of geology. Lyell came up with the idea of uniformitarianism, “the assumption that uniform laws of nature operated to produce gradual geologic change” (137). Many people during this time period believed in catastrophism which believed “that geological change occurred abruptly and dramatically as the result of major catastrophic events under the control of God” (137). It was a big deal back then to go against the church and Darwin was ready to do that on his voyages on the Beagle. He observed that the volcanoes at Cape Verde had a gradual accumulation of a shell and coral layer towards the bottom of the volcano. This would show that that it was formed by the theory of uniformitarianism and not catastrophism, making the world much older than previously thought making evolution on the brink of being discovered.
I knew Darwin was very influential in the theory of evolution, but I didn’t know he also had theories about emotion. He thought emotional expression was evolutionary. He studied this in four different ways. He studying children and the insane because they express emotion without reserve like adults do. The second way was galvanization where “electrodes touched the surface of the skin and stimulation produced recognizable muscle contractions” to show which muscles were used in expressing certain emotions. One of the most influential ways was through the first cross-cultural study of emotional expressions. He asked correspondents from around the world to examine facial expression. This would give us an idea of basic emotions that everyone across the world can express. The final way he studied emotion was by looking at animals’ expression of emotion. He could break this down into three different principles, serviceable associated habits, antithesis and direct action of the nervous system. I think Darwin’s theory of emotional expression was most influential to modern psychology. His theory is the basis of how to study emotions. Reading people’s emotions is essential to our survival and interactions still today. Without the ability to understand this we would be lost and not be able to interact with other as well.
I found Galton’s theory of eugenics interesting. It was essentially what Hilter believed about the Aryan race. He believed that society should take active steps to improve our genetic make-up. He believed that rich people were more intelligent and to have better genes, where as poor people were intellectually inferior so they should not reproduce. The making of a society that only consists of “perfect” people would be dull. There’s many books theorizing this and the ideas of this control, some examples are The Give and1984.I understand the theory that the “fit survive”, but only allowing a certain breed to reproduce is ridiculous. I would like to look into this theory more and see how it affected people’s ideas later.
I found Darwin’s theory of evolution quite boring; I have learned about it since high school. I understand the importance of it to biology and psychology though. It helps define how we developed from our first ancestors to what we currently are now. In psychology we study our development throughout our lives.
I found many things is this chapter interesting. I love learning about historically famous people’s early lives. I think that it is an interesting aspect about people that is not often common knowledge. Because of this, I paid a lot of attention to the early life of Darwin. I found it interesting that his dad sent him to medical school in order to ensure he followed his father’s path. Darwin left the college, without graduating. I also had no idea that Darwin studied at Cambridge University to become an Anglican priest. I find this to be interesting because of the way he turned to evolution.
I have heard about Darwin’s study of Finch beaks in the Galapagos Islands in many science and biology classes. Reading this section, I found a lot of new information that I had not already been aware of that I found interesting. First off was the fact that while he was in the Galapagos, he noticed beak differences, but that he didn’t consider the meaning or reasons why. He also forgot to label the finches by their island of origin. I found this all to be interesting because it is background information of a study that is widely taught. It also is interesting because this study does mean so much in defense of evolution, but at the time, Darwin didn’t think twice about the observations he made.
I also enjoyed reading about Galton’s work to create Hereditary Genius. I didn’t realize that Darwin and Galton were cousins. I also didn’t realize that Darwin’s work involving animals inspired Galton to study the nature of intelligence. I found it interesting that he decided to study this subject to prove that he and the members of his class had highly evolved ancestors that made them superior to everyone else, instead of this being because they had been born into wealth. I also found his conclusions about family talents, such as doctors and lawyers, to be interesting.
A part of this chapter that I did not enjoy was the section on George Romanes. I felt that it was very cut and dry. The introduction to his life was so short and uninteresting, that I did not want to read on to see the work he had done.
I believe that the whole chapter is important to understanding the history of psychology. The people focused on in this chapter looked outside the norms to consider another version of life. Darwin stretched out from the church to develop the theory of evolution. Had there not been people willing to break social norms, we may still believe that people with mental disorders are possessed by evil spirits.
This chapter relates to previous chapters because it is continuing to give us a basis of people who were willing to come up with ideas and do tests and experiments to see if their ideas were true or false. This chapter introduces more individuals whose work influences the way the field of psychology has developed into the field we study today.
I would like to learn more about the subfield of evolutionary psychology. The book generally gives some vague information about this subfield. I would like to learn more about how and who developed this subfield as well as more about their ideas.
Right away I noticed that a topic like this in this chapter is good for debate. Even though not everyone sees eye to eye, I think it is indeed very interesting.
First of all I find Darwin to be very interesting. For such an intelligent man I find it fascinating that his father thought very little of him as a toddler, then tried to shape him to follow his fathers footsteps. Most importantly I found reading about Darwin's visit to the Galapagos Islands very interesting. The pictures of the finches that were shown in the book are good illustration to natural selection. The different beak size and shape are good indicators that these birds produced offspring that would fit the present environmental needs in order to survive. This was interesting because I learn really well from pictures.
The second thing that I found interesting while reading this chapter is comparative psychology. The study of similarities and differences among humans and species is important because I am a firm believer in learning from animals to better understand humans. From psychological perspective, individual differences was interesting as well since research was conducted to measure the intelligent and personality differences between animals and humans.
The third thing that I found interesting in this chapter is Francis Galton. He was an explorer of Africa and various other places which won him a medal from the Royal Geographical Society. Galton created the first systematic weather maps and was the first to take note to low and high pressure systems. Galton also measured the different patterns and swirls located on the finger tips of multiple people. Galton demonstrated that every person had a unique pattern on their fingertips. This later lead to the "fingerprinting" technique.
What I found least interesting is the twin studies. I think this is least interesting to me because I spent a semester in biopsychology talking about twins and their comparisons and differences. It just wasn't interesting to read this again.
Understanding Darwin and how nature and people in general evolve to adapt to their environment really can help relate this chapter to psychology. Along with the physical changes that Darwin explains, one can not go without psychological changes as well. In this chapter we are learning about new theories and where ideas originate, thus leading us to psychology.
I would like to learn more about the Anthropometric Laboratory that Galton established. In order to breed for intelligence, Galton knew that those who were suited as the best had to be carefully picked. Each person was put through multiple tests. Around 17,000 people were tested altogether. This relates to the holocaust and trying to find the "perfect race" known to Hitler as the Aryan race. It seems that history does repeat itself, but in Galton's case, the two were much different matters.
The studies of Galton leads right into the second thing that I would like to learn more about. The Galton whistle. It is very interesting to know that people who suffer from age-related loss of hearing have a hard time hearing high shrill tones.
In chapter 5 I was interested in Charles Darwin in general. I knew the basics of what he was about but this chapter allowed me to understand about him more in depth. One thing about Charles Darwin to me was that he had at one time wanted to join the clergy in his youth. I did not know much about his past and having had such a world changing theory as the evolutionary one made it seem that much more interesting that it once came from a man who wished to be a man of faith.
It was also interesting to see the development and transition of ideas during this period. The world very slowly began to see other ideas than that of catastrophism, which argued that geological change occurred abruptly and dramatically as the result of major catastrophic events under the control of God. One of these ideas that was introduced was uniformitarianism, which argued that geological change occurred more slowly and involved forces that are constantly at work.
One other thing that interested me was Darwin’s finches. I myself am a bird lover and it was interesting to learn about their involvement in the creation of the evolutionary theory. These birds were distinguished by their size and by clear differences in the shape of their beaks. Their beak shapes were decided by what island they were on and their food source. These finches helped Darwin to conclude that they were at one time a single species and then later spread to the other islands and adapted.
The rest of the chapter did interest me as well especially on eugenics and the explanations on animal behavior. However if I had to choose I would say the least interesting thing was on imagery and association.
The most useful thing I read that related to psychology was Darwin’s contribution to psychology. He helped to promote a different way of thinking among psychologists called functionalism. Functionalism studies human behavior and mental process in terms of how they adapted to the environment.
The thing I would like to learn more about is eugenics. It is interesting to me how this could be applied today to humans and what developments have occurred in this field.
(I read chapter 5 instead of chapter 6, so I am going to comment on that one!) As a biology major, I have learned about Charles Darwin over and over again in pretty much all of my classes in college. I still was able to find a lot of interesting things from this chapter though. I didn’t know Darwin’s contributions to psychology, so I thought this theories on the evolution of emotional expression was very interesting. The principle of serviceable associated beliefs was especially intriguing because it explains an evolutionary aspect to our human emotions, which is not what I first think of when I think of evolutionary characteristics.
I also didn’t know that Darwin was ill for most of his trip on the HMS beagle, and for the rest of his life after the voyage. It’s amazing that he was still able to complete his research and publish many works despite struggling to stay alive! I know when I get sick, I have no motivation to do anything productive, so I give him major props.
Francis Galton is also an interesting character from this chapter. His idea of eugenics reminds me of ideas that Hitler would come up with. It talks about the heredity of human characteristics and how people can manipulate offspring to produce highly gifted races of people. I was a little shocked that there was an entire society that believed in this view, but then again this was in a different time when they considered women and minorities inferior. From an evolutionary perspective, it would be interesting to see if it is that simple, but from an ethical perspective, it’s outrageous.
I have taken a lot of biology classes already, and evolution is a major component in most of them. Evolution comes along with Darwin, so I learned about many things about his life and works. I already knew a lot about Darwin’s finches and the journey to the Galapagos Islands, so I didn’t find that very interesting.
The most important concept to know about psychology from this chapter is the beginnings of comparative psychology. This type of psychology is a very important area that has contributed many theories throughout history.
This chapter discusses anecdotal evidence being used to support Romanes’s works, and it was also mentioned in chapter 3 in the discussion of phrenology. Both ideas were discounted because they didn’t use direct observation to support their claims.
I would like to learn more about Morgan’s principle of parsimony. The examples in the book were really interesting, and I would like to find more. Also, Morgan had a pretty awesome beard in the picture in the book, so his ideas must be good!
According to me this chapter was the most interesting chapter that I have read until now. I have always been fascinated with and interested to know more about Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution also known as origin of the species. So, the first thing that I found about this chapter was reading about his work and trying to link it to psychology and imagining how different psychology would be if Darwin would not have come up with this very significant theory.
The second thing that I really liked about this chapter was reading about Galton and his work. It was interesting to know that Galton was Darwin’s Cousin .Galton carried on or it can be said that started where Darwin left off. Galton basically studied Heredity and conducted a lot of studies related to heredity. Galton gave a lucid explanation of why there is a difference in the intellectual abilities of people and reached a conclusion that genetics plays a significant role in their superiority.
Another aspect of this chapter that I found interesting was the shift from the views of church to the extremely new concept of evolution and how evolution challenged those views and how Darwin was initially hesitant to express his views openly. Darwin had a lot of skeptics holding him back but it was interesting to read about how his work was finally accepted and he was finally regarded as a hero and respected for his contributions.
The part of the chapter that I found least interesting was the topic of imagery and Association as it seemed too much of a biological topic as it is presented in the book and seemed irrelevant and boring to be studied by a student of psychology.
I think this chapter relates to the previous chapters as the previous chapters introduced and mentioned the various psychological traits and their measurement, this chapter is a step ahead deeper into that direction and explains about “why” there are differences among the mental capabilities of people. This chapter basically introduced the field of comparative psychology.
I would like to know more about the work of Galton and also how and what contributions the theory of evolution made to psychology and how it influenced psychologists and their work.
The section on Charles Darwin was one of the interesting sections to me. First of I found it interesting to learn that Darwin was not always a successful man. It wasn’t necessarily easy for him to find his passion in life. It was also interesting to learn that his dad thought of him as kind of a disgrace until the later years of his life. It is almost impossible to not find Darwin interesting because his work was so innovative and also so controversial.
Galton’s methodological techniques in research were also an interesting thing to me. He is said have pioneered the use both surveys and twin studies. Both of these techniques are still reliable today and that is what makes them most interesting to me. The use of techniques like these would help researchers to draw much clearer conclusions in research than strictly observation, which may be affected by researcher bias.
The last thing that I found interesting was Galton’s idea of positive and negative eugenics. I find it disturbing that certain “successful” people would be encouraged to reproduce, while others would discouraged from doing so. I think that there are a lot of successful people who may not have had very successful parents. Some of these individuals are likely to have made essential contributions to our world as we know it. It would be interesting to me to find successful contributors to our world that had less successful parents. I wonder how different our world would be today if these individuals would have never been born.
The one thing that I disliked in the chapter was Galton’s investigation of imagery and association. I did not like this section because I could not quite understand what was really going on. I understand that he was having people envision things but I do not really understand what the information he accumulated led him to believe.
The thing that I think is most important to understanding the history of psychology is Darwin’s theories. His theories made comparative psychology and studies of individual differences a popular thing. Findings in these areas have led to many discoveries that help to improve the standard of living for people. Without some of the work done by Darwin some individuals may have never been differentiated between to such a thorough degree.
The methodological techniques that Galton used make me think about the chapter that talks about physiologist. When I think about the physiologist I think of how the things they did were a way to test philosophies. They helped advance psychology. Just like physiologist Galton’s techniques helped to take psychology to a new level.
I would like learn more about positive and negative eugenics. It was the most interesting thing in the entire chapter for me. I also think that a lot of people probably took this idea and ran with it. This thought of human “natural selection” may have possibly led many people to try and create a society free from unintelligent people.
I starting to value the black and whiteness of many of the photos in the text book. I tend to think lately that things are better like that and if we have color available we should use it. We can now choose whether we want color or black and white, or sepia . . . like the old western photos. There are also some songs that I like but most of all when they happen to be on a radio station. Technology has advanced so that I could instantaneously listen to a tune almost whenever I want any time o’ day. Lastly, black and white printing is free in the computer lab. . .color printing is not.
I may have read the chapter. So Darwin had reference to Malthus? For some reason I have thought that Darwin was the first scientist ever and he had died in a meteor accident. Didn’t Darwin invent the pallet and the pallet jack? Anyway, my thinking is. . .if Malthus influenced Darwin. . then how NOT very surprising it is to me now how Germany, etc. would base some social strategies off of it. If it is true that the earth will over populate, and the only thing to possible save everyone that can be saved is for everyone else to die……then why wouldn’t a nation pro-actively try to control who stays and who goes?
The “close-up” on pages 150-151 was pert near interesting to me. Critical periods are mentioned which are kind of “windows of opportunity” maybe of time when one best learns or does not learn at all. Mogli, for example, was a jungle boy in a book. I theorize that being civilized post late-adolescence would be very difficult indeed as language acquisition critical periods are during childhood, for example. Similar would be a person like me, for example, trying to learn “wolf” at my age of young riding hood. I would have made a much better wolf had I been integrated in their society family unit at birth.
I have a question to communicate my least interest. So was the portrait of Charles Darwin and his son (pg. 147) painted by Charles Darwin?? The caption is super confusing me and I am curious as relative to interested. Thanks.
The first thing I found interesting in the chapter was the couple pages on "Education for Women and Minorities" because it also talked about the schools which were designed to give them an opportunity. It was also interesting to read about the stereotypes that existed within the older culture about women and different races being inferior. For women some of it stemmed from the Bible, that women were made from a man's rib as well as that the smartest men would be smarter than the smartest women I also found to be kind of peculiar. I also found some of the intelligence tests done, which when designed assumed whites would perform better. Following the testing when the African-Americans performed the same they assumed the tests to be inaccurate or changing the results to favor whites.
I found William James' section on consciousness to be rather interesting when I got to the part about sensibly continuous. I was quite intrigued when I read his interpretation that our perception of consciousness is one continuous stream of thoughts because I had never thought about consciousness and thoughts in that way before. I didn't agree when he said the sleeper immediately reenters the same stream upon waking because whenever I wake up it seems to me like it is a new continuous stream. Is it really possible to say for sure? I don't know but it is something interesting to ponder about.
I also found the William James section on emotion and the James-Lange theory of emotion to be interesting. I can remember hearing of this theory before, but I didn't know who the person behind the theory was. Just like the two point threshold and just noticeable difference after reading the part on making a face and having the emotion come with it (at least a little bit) is quite amazing that a person's body can do it. It seems kind of like the old trick to not go to school as a kid of convincing yourself that you are sick and getting sick because of it or having the symptoms of the illness. It goes to show you how much our body and brain can do.
The main problem I have with the writing of the author of this textbook is that he seems it very important to add information on every person's early life and education whether or not it has any significance on the person's theories or just for interest's sake. It gets annoying after awhile when it seems to have no point other than telling me where they got their educational foundations. Yes it can be important sometimes if the person's mentor had a large influence on their work as well, but it seems not to be the case for many of the people.
I think learning about G. Stanley Hall would be the most useful in understanding the history of psychology because his founding of the APA and psychological journals seems to be very important to the continuation and furthering of the psychological field.
With the introduction of American Psychology's first textbook in this chapter, the textbook combined many early psychological thoughts and philosophies of the science we have learned about in previous chapters into a concise textbook.
I had some trouble wrapping my head around the theory of recapitulation so I'd like to learn more about that. I also found the close-up on maze learning to be kind of fun, and wouldn't mind hearing some random interesting stories about maze learning.
I thought that it was very interesting to see what Charles Darwin’s background was. It is interesting that Darwin was not an outstanding student and his parents thought that as a child he wouldn’t make anything of himself. He proved his parents wrong and came up with some very important theories. I also was unaware that Darwin went to school to be a clergy, this probably benefitted him, because he had a lot of biblical knowledge that he needed in order to claim his side of the story. This fact also concerns me for the type of people that were clergy of this time. Darwin did not go to school to be a clergy because he was passionate about God and was eager to teach others, but he did it because it was a typical field someone in his social class would go in to. This can tie in with the other chapters when the Catholic Church was being strict about ideas that oppose God, where they actually concerned for peoples relationship with God, or just doing what their career expects them to do. Their faith very well could have been authentic, and they may have fully believed it, but this case shows not all the clergy were necessarily authentic believers in Christ. This can also be seen today in our churches, where pastors of priests do not teach biblical truth and do not even have an authentic faith, but just use this position as a career, and a way to look good.
The section about the expression of emotions was interesting. I am a strong believer in the Bible, so I believe in creationism, but this theory is something that I think is plausible, and doesn’t contradict my biblical beliefs. I think that evolution like this can occur; the crucial difference between my beliefs and evolutionists is that the source of this change over time is God, and not just spontaneous, I also don’t believe in anything that would contradict the bible. Obviously, emotion expression is not learned, but is natural, so it makes sense that the way we move our facial muscles to express different emotions, could have become what it is now to serve a purpose for us. I had never heard of this theory from Darwin, so I found it interesting, and it is not one that I oppose which happens often with Darwin.
Another thing I found interesting was Romanes work. He followed the same path Darwin did, and he was very curious and explored his curiosity which is commendable. He had some interesting ideas such as scorpions committing suicide around fire. He did not have valid evidence to support this, because anecdotal evidence is not necessarily valid and reliable. I just found it so interesting how different his theories were, and how he came about studying this. Did he just decide to stick scorpions by a fire, or turn on music for spiders? He seems like a guy that had very scattered thoughts and pursued each of them.
I did not find the section about Galton very interesting, and more specifically the first section about him. I thought it was pretty bland and used a lot of more scientific and research based vocabulary. I know that psychology involves research and a lot of great information has come from research, but I prefer to the more personal aspect of psychology. I know that this information is important, and I am grateful that people did do this research, so that we can have more knowledge, I just don’t find it as interesting as other aspects in psychology.
I think it is most useful to know about Darwin and his theories even if I am not fully supportive of everything. The evolutionary perspective in psychology obviously has some Darwinian influence, and there is a lot of interesting research in the evolutionary psychology. So I believe knowing the basics of Darwin can be beneficial for that aspect of psychology. I would like to learn more about Romanes, because I find his research so odd, which intrigues me.
One thing that I found to be very interesting was the fact that a African American was noticed for their work. Francis Sumner was interesting to me because not only was he black but he was home schooled during his high school year. To me this showed that one is able to be home schooled and still succeed about everyone else. Sumner was 16 years of age when he was accepted into Pennsylvania’s Lincoln University, which had been founded as the first black college. Once finishing college his continued to go to another college. From there he then taught psychology and German. I found through the readings that Sumner was a very bright person and had so much potential. He not only taught but he did this while completing his master’s degree. Sunmer was then the first African American to complete a Ph. D in psychology. Over all I felt like he was able to make a statement about blacks and how much they are like the whites, some of which are smarter.
Next thing that I found interesting but was not talked about in depth was the fact that rubber gloves were used in surgery for the first time in 1890 at the John Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. I found this interesting because rubber gloves are used everywhere now a days. I just found this to be a hmmm or Ah- ha moment.
Lastly I found the maze learning to be interesting as well. The only part that I was interesting by way the general concept that many animals have to go through mazes in humans studies. I found it odd that one could not just make an extremely large maze and test humans. Also when I was reading about the mazes, my mind go side tracked and started thinking about corn mazes and haunted corn mazes.
I did not find this chapter to be very interesting. I enjoy learning about people but at the same time it feels like we are talking about the same thing just from a different persons perspective. I think I also struggle because I do not enjoy reading in general. I think the reason I am not very into the readings and the book is because I am more interested in why the brain has one do something or why does drinking cause FAS. Guess I just need to get into some sort of grove.
I really felt that having information about the first African American was most useful. There are not many books in Psychology that talk about blacks and how they achieved so much when times were the hardest.
I think that this chapter reminded me of chapter three is aspect of testing animals.
I would not mind learning more about the learning maze!
I feel that chapter 5 was very interesting and did a great job of better informing me of Darwin's work, rather than the typical explanation I have heard "Man came from monkies." This short and uneducated phrase is actually what always turned me off from learning more about Darwin. Now, I am really not interested in getting into any heavy religious or atheist point of views. However, the influences in my life so far have lead me to have another phrase in my head, that being "God made man." At this exact minute of my life, I am not really sure if I believe that or not, but I do believe that it is entirely possible. I also feel that it is important to mention that an aspect of my hestitance about God creating man has a lot to do with the enviroment I am surrounded by. Not that anyone told me to be hesitant, but in fact, the opposite. I remember thinking from a young age, "Why is it okay for us to be reciting 'One Nation, Under God' in the Pledge of Allegiance?'' I specifically recall sitting in fourth grade and wondering how parents would feel if we were all saying "One Nation, Under Satan?" This chapter took me back to that curiousity, thinking "What if we were all reciting, "One Nation, Under Darwin?" I guess I took the rebellious stance on things early in life. Although I can say that at a certain point in my life I did honestly believe that God made man, I can't say that I was thinking too much about the God and the making of animals. I think that the part that stuck out to me the most in chapter 5 was Darwin's finches and the constant struggle to survive. Before reading chapter 5, I was aware of the deifintion of the word "evolve" (to develop gradually, especially from a simple to a more complex form) but I have to say that I never pondered how this would pertain to something like the beak of a bird. Darwin noticed that the birds from the Galapagos Islands differed in size and also had different shaped beaks. He concluded that these differences within the birds had much to do with the climate of the islands. Some of these areas had hard shelled nuts and the finches there seemed to have tough, blunted beaks. Other finches had thinner beaks which seemed to spear certain insects. Since Darwin was familiar with artificial selection, he began thinking of natural selection and the possibility that a species could prepare their species to survive. When I was reading about natural selection, I had to agree that this made a lot of sense and again, I was thinking that it is entirely possible. One other aspect about chapter 5 that I feel is noteworthy was Darwin's attitude towards religion. When thinking of Darwinism in the past, I ASSUMED that Darwin simply wrote off religion and loved having "the real explanation." I found it interesting to learn that Darwin once studied to be a clergyman and that he did educate himself with the teaching of religion before ultimately developing the theory of evolution. I was also surprised to learn that Darwin did his best to respect his wife's religious beliefs while disregarding his own. I was much more interested in Darwin's findings while reading chapter 5 and not so interested in the men such as George Romanes and Conwy Lloyd Morgan.
Three things I found interesting were the relationship between evolution and the formation of functionalism, Morgan's parsimony, and Galton's eugenics
I know a bit about Darwin's theory (debating with creationists is a hobby of mine), but I never thought a lot about its implications for the history of psychology. It makes sense for the psychologist, who is naturally interested in this phenomenon of consciousness, to ask why we have consciousness in an evolutionary sense. I thought that was cool though, because I haven't considered it before.
Morgan's parsimony was interesting to me both because it's an applied version of Occam's razor (a principle I'm fond of), and because it was an intriguing precursor to Thorndike and his puzzle boxes.
I hear a lot of people talk about the link between Darwin and eugenics, and I've always dismissed the argument. It's interesting to me to see that people have been misusing Darwin's ideas for their own benefit since the late nineteenth centuries.
One thing that was less interesting to me was Romanes's anecdotal method. I guess it wasn't that I was not interested as much as I was not impressed (maybe that's a bit presentist of me to say). I would be interested to learn about the history of research methods. How long have people known that anecdotal evidence is less valid than quantitative data?
In terms of the development of the field of psychology think the birth of functionalism from Darwin's theory will be the most important thing we read about in this chapter.
I think Darwin's ideas pose a problem for Descartes and his dualism. We talked about this a bit in my Philosophy of Science class. Descartes thought that other animals were nothing but sophisticated robots (which is partly why he was able vivisect so many animals without feeling like a horrible person), but that people possessed a soul. The blur between human and animal was around before Darwin, I'm sure, but Darwin gave it a realistic mechanism. I wonder what Descartes would have thought of Darwin's theory, and what he would think if he were alive today, now that so much evidence for Darwin's theory has been amassed.
Found the life of Charles Darwin to actually be interesting. This is unusual because I usually do not like reading about the backgrounds of people. I liked his just because I noticed he wasn’t very motivated at first. Many of us believe that when someone is well known, that means that they worked really hard and are capable of many great things. Darwin didn’t seem like he knew what he wanted. He left the school his father had sent him to because he was not interested in learning about medicine. From there, he went to study clergy. After realizing it wasn’t for him, it was then he noticed his passion for the natural world at Cambridge University. Darwin’s father was not too impressed by this, but that changed after his voyage to the Galapagos Islands. This voyage made Darwin a celebrity among the zoologists and geologists because of the specimens he had been sending back home. During the first few years after his return, he wanted to organize and classify his collection of species. However, this could sometimes be difficult since Darwin kept getting very ill.
I found the section dealing with Darwin’s delay on presenting his theory of evolution to be interesting as well. Not only was Darwin struggling with illness, but he was also concerned about the reactions of his peers. Many of us today do not find ourselves being concerned about what other people have to say about our work. We have the freedom to publish what we want when we want. However, this was not the case in Darwin’s time. Without the acceptance of his peers, people may not embrace the theory but instead reject it. Another reason Darwin struggled with publishing his work and worrying about his peers was because of another theory of evolution that was circling and was being rejected. Darwin knew that this was because the theory was very vague and he also knew that he had a lot more evidence to back his theory up; yet he did not want there to be confusion between his theory and the other one. Eventually after a series of events Darwin was ready for his theory of evolution to be presented. I could not believe that it took him twenty years to get to this point, but when he finally completed his work “On the Organ of Species by Means of Natural Selection or the Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life,” it appeared in bookstores and sold out 1250 copies on the first day.
The third part of this chapter I found to be interesting was Francis Galton; he is most directly responsible for beginning the study of individual differences. I wanted to note that I didn’t think that it was extremely important to know that Galton was Darwin’s half-cousin, however; I liked that it was included because I think it helps in relating psychologists to one another. This also went along with Galton’s studies. He wanted to study intelligence after looking over Darwin’s work with animals. Galton wanted to examine the question on whether or not intelligence was inherited. When looking at the family trees of those who were “highly able people,” he found that talent seemed to run in families. In addition, he found that if two relatives appeared in the dictionaries, they were four times more likely to be directly related than at a second level. I don’t necessarily agree with this whole inherited thing just because I think that a lot of times intelligence is based off of our environment. I do think that some of it is biological but to have it completely inherited seems a little farfetched. I think that the reason for our environment influencing intelligence comes from having available sources versus not. Those born into wealth can easily go out and further their education, whereas, those who are not born into a wealthy family find it a lot harder to do so. This doesn’t mean that they do not have the same mental capabilities; they just do not have the means to get there. Galton’s work was easy to pay attention to because it presented a lot of ideas that some people, such as the wealthy, believe to be true that they are superior when in fact they really are no different.
There were parts of this chapter that I found to be uninteresting. One section that I was not very impressed with was George Romanes. The beginning of his life was about like Darwin’s, except for there wasn’t much to explain his background. This whole section seemed to just drag on and I had to keep looking back to reread certain parts because it was difficult to focus on. I really did not think that this section was extremely important to put in, but I’m sure there is more to George Romanes than what was included in this chapter and that might be something to look into at a later date.
Like many chapters before, this one is helpful in understanding the history of psychology because we continue to be introduced to new ideas along with the people who thought of them. I find it interesting to see how far psychology has come and to learn about those who pushed the limits and did what they could to discover new ideas even if it meant being rejected. We are still seeing the important role that the church plays in the new science of psychology. Testing the ideas of the church was very risky but without these psychologists we would not have a proper understanding of humans. Having this understanding has saved many lives as well as help us form new alternatives to helping individuals as well as understanding them.
This chapter relates back to other chapters because in ways it continues to build off of ideas that have been suggested. In Darwin’s categories of emotions, his third principle of emotion dealt with the nervous system. The nervous system was discussed heavily back in chapter three. Looking at Galton’s ideas of intelligence reminds me of Lockes views of intelligence. All in all, we can see that the chapters continue to build off of each other providing continuous frame work to the field of psychology which eventually lead us to where we are today.
I would like to learn more about emotional expressions. I think when it comes to emotions it is easy to be interested because all of us can relate to it. I just want to know more of the differences in emotions and what contributes to those differences.
(I have talked with Dr. MacLin about week six and week seven and why they are late. He said to get them done when possible and turn them in. I just thought I would make a quick note letting you know and I apologize for the inconvenience)