What I would like you to do is to find a topic or person from this week's chapter that you were interested in and search the internet for material on that topic. You might, for example, find people who are doing research on the topic, you might find web pages that discuss the topic, you might find a video clip that demonstrates something related to the topic, etc. What you find and use is pretty much up to you at this point. Please use at least 3 quality resources.
Once you have completed your search and explorations, a) I would like you to say what your topic is, b) how exactly it fits into the chapter, and c) why you are interested in it. Next, I would like you to take the information you read or viewed related to your topic, integrate/synthesize it, and then write about the topic in a knowledgeable manner. At the end of your post, please include working URLs for the three websites. Keep in mind that it will be easier if you keep it to one topic.
Additional instructions: For each URL (internet resource) you have listed. Indicate why you chose it and the extent to which it contributed to your post.
Chapter 5
I chose to do more research on comparative psychology, which is a term used in chapter five when comparing human traits to traits of other species. I wanted to look further into this topic because it was something that stood out and interested me when reading the chapter. Technically, humans are just another species so it would be interesting to find out the traits of other species and see if there are any relations. After researching comparative psychology on the internet I found that it is not just comparing human traits with other non-human species traits, but it can also simply be the study of one individual organism and understanding its behavior. A similar term that takes on the same meaning as comparative psychology is ethology. Both study the non-human behavior of animals and also the behavior of humans. The study of animal behavior can lead to a deeper and broader understanding of human psychology. Research on animal behavior has led to numerous discoveries about human behavior, such as Ivan Pavlov's research on classical conditioning or Harry Harlow's work with rhesus monkeys. The two known for starting this study of animal behavior are Charles Darwin and Georges Romanes. There are many branches or definitions of comparative psychology, but whether it is the study of animal behavior or comparing the similarities and differences among different species, it all encompasses the idea of evolution, helping us understand the relationships involved. Some of the other branches of the topic of comparative psychology are heredity, adaptation/learning, and mating/parenting behaviors. By incorporating the whole meaning of comparative psychology, it allows us to come up with a target behavior. We can come up with this theory by finding a trait that is convincing across all species and contributes to the lifetime reproductive success of the individuals. Studying these traits point out certain behavioral, physiological, and environmental mechanisms that are a necessity for specific generations.
One thing that I really wanted to find out more about was what kind of animals is used as subjects in comparative psychology. Apart from the clear choice of primates, domestic animals such as dogs and cats seem to be popular as well as rats. Other animals that have been or are being used include pigeons, dolphins, and parrots. Some of the biggest similarities were found between human infants and chimpanzee infants.
Something interesting that I came across was the effect of animals on humans. The term domestication comes into play when humans started to view animals as property. This made it look like humans and animals were different and unequal. I find this interesting because it is true and just seems normal that humans are so unique and superior to animals. It is easy for us to assume this, but comparative psychology uses science to possibly disprove or lessen this theory.
http://psychology.about.com/od/comparativepsychology/f/comparative.htm
I chose this website because it explained what comparative psychology is. It also went into detail as to why we study and use comparative psychology.
http://www.apadivisions.org/division-6/publications/newsletters/neuroscientist/2010/11/historian-column.aspx
I chose this webpage because it when deeper into detail of comparative psychology and it also included Ethology and how both the sciences studied animal behavior.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparative_psychology
I don’t normally use Wikipedia but, there was a lot of information from this webpage. I chose this webpage because it explained more than just what comparative psychology was, it explained the history, studies, species studied, the effects of animals on humans, and etc.
While reading chapter five, the one topic that I decided to learn more about was Erasmus Darwin, one of the first people to peg the idea of evolution. Erasmus Darwin achieved many things during his lifetime, most of which he should be very, very proud of.
Erasmus Darwin was the grandfather of Charles Darwin and also to Francis Galton, both people who also had a voice in the idea of evolution. He was also a philosopher, slave trade abolitionist, inventor, and poet. He was a key figure in the Mindlands Enlightenment as well. He was also a predominant member of the Lunar Society; an influential group of scientific entrepreneurs who were involved in Britain's early forms of industrilization. They wanted to improve society through science, education, industry, and political change. Erasmus invented the windmill, and carriages as well, and also promoted the canal system and use of steam power. Along with all these wonderful things he was doing to improve society, he also introduced the idea of including scientific techniques into agriculture, for example: fertilization. One of the last ideaologies of Erasmus Darwin's that I'm going to write about is the idea of Zoonomia. This was his most important scientific work, and it included the idea of natural selection and included facts about different species of animals. It introduced the three elements of desire according to Darwin Sr. These were; lust, hunger, and security. This idea also included laws describing organic life and a catalog of diseases and treatment for these various species.
Along with all these wonderful contributions to the idea of evolution, and the industrialization of the new era, he was also pushing for womens rights and education of women. He wanted woment to recieve a good education. He wanted them to be educated in schools rather than privately at home, and he wanted them to be educated in the subjects of psysiognomy, physical education, botany, chemistry, mineralogy, and experimental philosophy. He wanted women to be deucated in money handling and also to be fluent in modern languages. Erasmus thought women and men should have "complimentary" skills and interests.
As you can see, he was a very important contributor to the idea of evolution, as well as to the industrialization of the new era. He had many great ideas and I believe he was a very important figure to psychology, and isn't credited as much as he should be.
After reading chapter five I wanted to learn more about the Galapagos. I have watched a couple documentaries on the islands and also happen to know someone who got a grant to go there a couple years ago. She is a marine biologist. I have always been interested in learning more about the animals on these islands. I have also found it fascinating that the water can be cold when they are on the equator. This relates to this chapter because Darwin is the one who found this chain of islands and his discovery set off a chain reaction of events soon to follow. I have just looked at more updated information about the islands that he discovered.
The Galapagos has two seasons in a year as does Ecuador. One season known as the hot and rainy season is from the month of December till the month of June. During this time there is a high percentage of humidity and the average temperature is 80 degrees Fahrenheit. The other season is known as the months from June to November where the average temperature is 70 degrees Fahrenheit. During this time there are cool winds. Though there are the two defined seasons the temperature and other climate effects may change significantly from year to year of season to season. When the winds come from the south it can cause the islands to be quite chilly. The Humboldt Current that usually travels through the islands can be interrupted approximately every seven years. It is interrupted by what is called the El Nino. When this happens the islands are subjugated to heavy rainfall which can cause floods and landslides.
The tourism on these islands is usually determined by which month of the year it is because of the climate. Normally the biggest rush for tourism from December to May because during that time the seas are calm and the weather is hot. The tourists that want to view more of the animal activities usually come around the months of June through August. The divers that come to these islands prefer to visit from July to November because the whale sharks are there. When traveling to these islands there are strict rules because they want to save the environment of the islands. The tourists must follow the guide’s rules and they must never go off of the marked path. One of the best ways to see the islands is by a cruise, but if you do take a cruise your time off-board will be limited because the point of the cruise is to see as many of the islands and animals as possible. One of the most popular activities that tourist do is snorkeling and scuba diving. When scuba diving and snorkeling it can be cold depending on which area of the sea you are diving. It is one of the best places to dive because of the fact that there are a lot of large animals and the colors are so magnificent. A few other activities that can be done are fishing, hiking, biking, surfing, and volunteering, kayaking, and horseback riding.
There are many different species of animals that exist on and around these islands. A couple that may be familiar to most people are the Galapagos Tortoise, the marine turtle, penguins, finches, fur seals, sea lions, rats, bats, sharks, dolphins, and so many different fish I wouldn’t even know where to start. Some animals that people don’t really learn about are the iguanas. These islands have three types of iguanas they are the marine iguanas, land iguanas, and the lava iguanas. These iguanas can be seen all over the islands. The blue footed booby and the red footed booby are some of the most interesting bird species that I have learned about because well there feet are literally red or blue. These types of birds are good divers and can go to a depth of 8 meters under the water.
I am not going to be able to talk about each and every species, but I am including the link that followers for people that would like to see pictures of some of these magnificent animals like the different iguanas, whale sharks, and the blue and red footed boobies. Go to this link for further species and pictures:
http://www.galapagosislands.com/galapagos-natural-wonders/wildlife-gallery.htmle
http://wikitravel.org/en/Galapagos_Islands I chose this link because it gave me a good outline for my blog and gave me ideas of what to talk about and research further
http://www.pbs.org/safarchive/5_cool/galapagos/g24_weather.html- I chose this website because it built off the last one where climate and weather was concerned.
http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/photos/animals-of-the-galapagos/#/bottlenose-dolphin_481_600x450.jpg
http://www.galapaguide.com/islas_galapagos_fauna.htm
I used these last two websites because they had both pictures and facts about different animals that exist on and around the islands.
As I read through chapter 5 I was thinking about writing my topical blog about Darwin, or Spalding, but then I decided to look a little deeper and I saw that many of my classmates weren’t intrigued by George Romanes so I wanted to take a closer look on him and see if there was anything exciting to learn since I kind of just skimmed over the section in the book about him. The book briefly touched on his life’s background and also on his book Animal Intelligence, but while researching I learned a lot more about this psychologist.
George Romanes was born on May 20, 1848 in Canada; he was the fourth out of five children. Romanes was raised in a wealthy Christian family. His father was a minister and growing up he thought he wanted to follow in his footsteps. As a child he was sent to a prep school in London but had to drop out when he had an attack of the measles. From then on out, he was home schooled and before attending college his parents sent him to a tutor. Charales Edmund Lister, a good friend of the Romanes, changed George’s views and convinced him to go to college at Cambridge where he would study natural sciences. In 1870 he competed and won a scholarship and took honors in the science department. Shortly after he came down with the Typhoid fever, and this is when he wrote an essay that would grab Darwin’s attention. Because of this Darwin and Romanes became lifelong friends and eventually Darwin gave him all of his notes on animal behavior. George quickly was influenced by Darwin and gave up most of his religion and became agnostic due to the theory of evolution, but on his death bed he regained his religious side and died a Christian.
Romanes is often criticized because he had a tendency to support his claims with anecdotal evidence. This consisted of stories he heard from friends rather than research/tests. Although this may not seem credible, he did have rules behind the claims he accepted as true and most of his theories were valid. He accepted the criticisms people gave him because it helped him gain a name for himself. One of Romanes most famous works was Animal Intelligence. In this book he coined comparative psychology by comparing animals and humans: he wanted to promote animal intelligence as similar to humans. Other than the anecdotal observations done by outsiders, Romanes did do some introspection by analogy of behaviors on various animals including protozoa, ants, spiders, reptiles, fish, birds, elephants, monkeys, and domestic animals, but his most covered species was insects. George’s main purpose of this was to prove that there is no difference between the acts of reasons performed by an animal opposed to that of a human and he shaped this with the “mental ladder”. This mental ladder showed various animal aspects in the order of their degree of mental functioning. Animals that act more advanced like humans were higher on this ladder meaning they were higher on the evolutionary scale.
Romanes also worked to prove that language could have appeared naturally by natural selection, he invented neo-Darwinism (an updated form of Darwinism), and he did studies on the basis of hybrid sterility which I found very interesting. What this means is that he wanted to find out why some animals could mate and others could not. For example why a horse/ass could mate, but a horse and a dog could not. He went through Darwin’s theories and cleared up some confusing points. He explained that reproductive isolation depends more on the chromosomal differences than the genetic information. He also believed that it depended on external barriers, hygienic measures, and internal barriers, organism’s immune response. He published all of his findings on this subject in a book called Physiological Selection: An Additional Suggestion on the Origin of Species. One last thing Romanes is well known for is his work on jellyfish to show that the nervous system evolved and that the purpose of it is sending messages from one part to another. All in all Romanes contributed a lot to evolution and came up with many great findings with comparative research between animals and humans; he was a very interesting scientist/psychologist to research more about and I learned a lot because of it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Romanes
http://www.muskingum.edu/~psych/psycweb/history/romanes.htm
http://faculty.frostburg.edu/mbradley/psyography/romanes.html
After reading this week’s chapter I decided to learn more about the voyage of the Beagle. Darwin gathered much of his information on geology and zoology on this trip. He also did his experiments at The Galapagos Islands. All of the information he learned on this voyage led him to discovering evolution. I find the voyage of the Beagle interesting because the whole time Darwin was ill. Every day on the boat he was sick and yet he persevered for his work. Obviously this voyage was very important so that sparks my interest in it.
The HMS Beagle set sail from Plymouth Sound on December 27th, 1831. The main goal of the voyage was to survey the southern coasts of South America, especially port areas. Once the Beagle reached South America it would go back and forth from one coastal region to another. That allowed Darwin to spend a great amount of time ashore. He explored the continent, observing nature, and collecting natural history. The Beagle surveyed and charted coasts. He would send his findings to Cambridge along with letters and a copy of his journal to his family. Darwin’s was an expert in geology but did a lot of zoology work as well. He would collect beetles and dissect marine invertebrates. He recorded his findings very well.
While on the journey Darwin read Charles Lyell’s book Principles of Geology which had the concept of uniformitarian. Darwin channeled that thinking on the voyage while collecting and exploring. Darwin enjoyed the tropical forest in Brazil but hated the slavery that was going on. Darwin made a major fossil discovery of huge extinct mammals. Darwin didn’t just focus on science during the voyage. He also learned about the different cultures in the area. Some of Darwin’s discoveries and the theories he came up with from the discoveries challenged Lyell’s ideas. While in Chile Darwin experienced an earthquake; he studied the geology of the ground after it. He theorized that as the land rose the oceanic islands sank. Then he came to the Galapagos Islands. There he studied the native mockingbirds trying to prove “centre of creation.” Darwin then studied how the Cocos (Keeking) Islands formed. That is when FitzRoy started writing the official Narrative of the Beagle voyage. After a five year trip the Beagle landed in England in October of 1836.
Darwin was passionate about information in general. He studied and collected now matter ill or healthy. His goal was get as much information as he could that would be relevant to his interests. He was so passionate because he had such had amazing opportunity. If you look at the map of the journey you can understand why it would take five years in those days. They covered a great amount of ground in not the most comfortable of settings. Darwin shared a room with surveyors while the whole time he was sea sick on the ship. Being a scientist was no easy job in that century. Darwin was a tremendously determined person.
Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Darwin#Voyage_of_the_Beagle
http://www.sparknotes.com/biography/darwin/section5.rhtml
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_UZ5u5sN1WQ
One thing that really interested me in chapter five was the section on Francis Galton and eugenics. For this blog, I decided to learn more about eugenics. I am interested in this information because I am interested in the concentration camps in WWII and this was one of the contributing ideas to the start of these concentration camps. I am also interested in this section because of the implications of this. I can't imagine a world where someone can decide that you aren't smart enough or pretty enough to have children without even taking your opinions into consideration.
Francis Galton came up with the term eugenics in 1883. He believed that a system should be created that gave points to families with desirable traits. Those families would then be given money as an incentive to marry and breed with other families that had desirable traits. Galton believed that this would create smarter, more beautiful people.
Galton had two categories for which people would be put in. There were the eugenics, or people with good traits, and there were dysgenics, or people with unwanted traits. The dysgenics were to be encouraged not to procreate in order to end the lineage of their undesirable traits.
During the late 1800's and early 1900's eugenics was a popular study of thought. Many universities had eugenics programs and research was heavily funded. There were even eugenic organization meetings.
The United States implemented eugenics in the 19th century, as did many European countries. These laws made it legal to sterilize and even euthanize people who were decidedly "unfit" to reproduce.
Eugenics fell out of favor during World War II when the Nazi regime used it to justify the extermination of millions of people. During this time the Nazi's conducted twin studies, conducted many human experiments, and attempted to wipe out an entire race of people in order to improve society. The Nazis believed that the Aryan race should be the only one left standing, and would do almost anything to ensure that this happened. They also wanted to exterminate people who were blind or deaf, had mental disorders, were homosexual, or had physical deformities.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Galton#Heredity_and_eugenics
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics
https://people.creighton.edu/~idc24708/Genes/Eugenics/History%20of%20Eugenics.htm
In chapter 5 evolutionary psychology seemed interesting. The first source I found about Evolutionary psychology explained how it is the biological approach to studying human behavior. Both cognitive and evolutionary psychologists believe behavior can be explained by external forces. Although evolutionary psychologists think those internal forces are the product of adaptations through natural selection. There have been many biological, psychological, and scientific approaches that have studied human behavior; however, evolutionary psychology focuses on a specific psychological adaptation of behavior. Also, evolutionary psychology is a dimension of sociobiology with the understanding that human behavior is not just a product of natural selection but rather linked to the psychological notion of change. The bottom line is we have to learn how to adapt in order to survive.
The second source is a journal on cognition and motivation of evolutionary psychology, by Leda Cosmides and John Tooby, they explain evolutionary psychology as the cognitive revolution. According to them our brain is an evolved computerized system which is capable of solving the complex problems of survival. We have inherited survival skills from our ancestors giving us the ability to adapt. For a long time it was thought that the human mind started out as a blank slate. With an evolutionary psychological view, we now know that the mind is entwined with human nature as what Cosmides and Tooby call, “The information-processing architecture of the human brain,” which is, “packed with content-rich adaptive problem-solving system,” in which motivates us to keep functioning. The article further explains how, “Each organ in the body evolved to serve a function,” such as the heart for pumping blood and the brain for supplying information. Also mentioned is how the brain was designed through natural selection to be a computer, and over time these changes are influenced by the environment. Our cognitive way of thinking was designed for the social world we live in and for our ability to reason with nature and adapt to an environment that evolves with time.
The third source is a YouTube video of John Tooby, who is considered to be a pioneer for evolutionary psychology. In the video he discusses the importance of applying evolutionary thinking to the human mind, and understanding how it was shaped from natural selection. He would like us to understand how “perceptions are externally driven hallucinations of our active mind.” He is also interested in how the design principles governing nature intelligence is connected with artificial intelligence. He believes when it comes to social disputes, “truth often lies in middle for scientific debates,” and that truth can be far beyond our comprehension and expectations. Tooby views evolutionary psychology as a combination of different ways of thinking through integrating evolutionary biology, cognitive experimentations, and neuroscience. According to Tooby natural selection, “acts as a filter on biological structure: it only builds functional structures that solve evolutionary recurrent adaptive problems.” We have brains that are created with a “problem-solving system” which gives us the capability of adapting to our environment.
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/evolutionary-psychology/
http://www.annualreviews.org/doi/pdf/10.1146/annurev.psych.121208.131628
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GrIKrNtkwIQ
I of course chose Darwin as my person of interest; the chapter had so much to say about him. I really enjoyed learning about his voyage on the Beagle. I had no idea of any details to this story prior to reading the chapter. First off, I did not know that he initially was interested in geology and wanted to be a clergyman. Second, I didn’t realize he went on this voyage as a captain’s dinner partner, or an intellectual that the captain could be happy talking to on this long journey. The fact that he accidentally recorded the finches in South America as different kinds of birds, when in fact they were different species of the same kind of bird, was interesting to me. Another cool thing was that he noticed the coral and sea fossils way above sea level at Cape Verde, which helped him to realize that the Earth is much older than everyone previously thought. He also found more evidence of this at the Galapagos Islands in fossils and species of tortoises, for example. Furthermore, that fact helped him in writing his theory of evolution. Something that shocked me about him was that he married and had ten children with his cousin. I suppose during that time it may have been normal to marry within the family? This led me to wonder who decided and when it was decided that it was wrong to marry inside the family. Back to Darwin, I was amazed to find out that he wrote 200 pages of this theory and that it took him ten years to publish it. The church was probably a problem for him, as well as his sickness. I thought it was interesting that the church had such a large influence on who decided to publish their ideas; it makes me wonder who held back during that time, and if there’s an idea that will never be heard that could have been “the best idea ever.” I also wonder if Darwin would not have gotten on that ship, would we have this theory of evolution that he created, and that many people believe in? We probably would not have received his contributions to geology, zoology, and psychology that he gave. It is mind-blowing to know that fate made him one of the most famous evolutionary theorists by accident.
I read some of Darwin’s finished published work, “A Naturalist’s Voyage Round the World: The Voyage of the Beagle (not all 300 some pages, however),” and I thought one particular quote from this book was interesting:
“There are several other sources of enjoyment in a long voyage whichare of a more reasonable nature. The map of the world ceases to be a blank; it becomes a picture full of the most varied and animated figures. Each part assumes its proper dimensions: continents are not looked at in the light of islands, or islands considered as mere specks, which are, in truth, larger than many kingdoms of Europe. Africa, or North and South America, are well-sounding
names, and easily pronounced; but it is not until having sailed for weeks along small portions of their shores, that one is thoroughly convinced what vast spaces on our immense world these names imply.”
I find it really interesting that some people are so offended by his evolution theory. I personally think he was ahead of his time and in no way was he trying to discredit God. Honestly, some people are just really ignorant to think so. He did not even mean to contribute to science when setting out on this journey, which I personally think could have been an act of God himself through fate to bring us more answers about the world we live in and how we got to where we are today.
Terms: Darwin, Cape Verde, Galapagos Islands, theory of evolution, theory, geology, zoology, psychology
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Darwin I chose this source because Wikipedia always has an abundance of information, and I thought what was given as information sounded reliable.
http://history1800s.about.com/od/innovators/a/hmsbeagle.htm I use this site often, especially when looking up biographical information about people. It was interesting to find that there was a whole section for this very topic.
http://www.gutenberg.org/catalog/world/readfile?pageno=1&fk_files=2966362 I thought it was very interesting to see this theory in the words of Darwin (if we are sure they have not been changed), and I enjoyed skipping toward the end to read his final thoughts on the journey.
I chose to learn more about the evolution of emotional expressions. The book touched on it a bit in chapter 5 and I thought it was very interesting. It is nearly impossible for me to imagine a time when humans lived in such primitive states where facial and emotional expressions were needed for mere survival. For instance, as the book points out, a "sneer" that we now use to show our dislike, could have derived from pre-fighting situations.
I found a lot of research on this topic. A lot of studies have focused on three main themes: the adaptive origins of facial expression, the universality of facial expressions, and the communicative functions of facial expressions. To show and emphasize the universality of facial expressions, many researchers use the same technique or ones similar to it. Generally, photographs depicting different emotions such as fear, surprise, happiness, or anger are taken to countries all over the world to be shown to different segment's of their population.
In the most effective research studies, populations range from the most prestigious Westernized cultures to more primitive, non Westernized cultures. Across all of the studies that I came across, results showed converging evidence. No matter the level of civilization or the level of influence from Westernized cultures, when asked to point to the photograph depicting a certain emotion, let's say "anger", most of the times, the same photograph was chosen. However, I did learn that the two emotions of "fear" and "surprised" were often used interchangeably.
Because of this great universality of emotional expressions and the influence that Darwin's theory of evolution has had on modern psychology, researchers began to wonder what the adaptive reasons for each facial expression were. There is a lot of research out there but common themes and theories are seen throughout most of it. Emotional expressions are widely agreed upon as what used to be non-communicative functions that served to enhance our ancestors' chances for survival; each one depicting a different message. For example, when one experiences the emotions of "pride" their body language is very similar. A proud person usually has their shoulders open and wide, with a straight back and an open smile. This is due to the fact that when someone is experiencing "pride" their lungs inflate and increase in volume as to prepare for encountering challengers.
Once these concepts were understood, some researchers, such as Paul Ekman, began to focus their research on how this knowledge could benefit the human race. To Ekman, our emotions are impossible to avoid. They are genetically encoded into us. For us to not accept this, Ekam would argue, is ignorant and ultimately only hurtful to us. He believes that by practicing emotions and your expressions of them, you can learn to live a life with less emotional distress/regretful encounters than we currently do. He says that if there was some way to increase the time allot ed between an impulse and our emotional reaction.expression to that impulse, we could think about our emotions and express them in a more concerned fashion, avoiding confrontation.
After learning this, I thought about my personal life and it made sense to me. Many, unconscious facial expressions have caused me unwanted and unnecessary confrontation. Learning about the origins of each emotional expression really made me view life with a more simplistic approach.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_emotion This website gave me great background on the history of the evolution of emotional expressions along with more specifics on Paul Ekman's research dealing with their adaptive origins.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yx1M7vVAuOo
This was a video clip of a lecture given by Paul Ekman. In this segment, he was discussing his theory on how we can benefit from paying more attention to our emotional expression.
http://face-and-emotion.com/dataface/misctext/inner_outer.html
This was a research article that offered me converging evidence with Paul Ekman's theories.
The big thing that I found interesting and the easiest to learn about in chapter 5 was Darwin. I liked how the book portrayed his story, but I had this feeling that they were not giving me all the information. So in this assignment I wanted to research more about Darwin and his life not just with his theory of evolution, but also his everyday life. It would be fasinating for me to see how he lived, and what lead him to this revolutionary discovery. In my research I wanted to find viewpoints that were conflicting because it brings different stories on Darwin onto the table. So I set out to find more about Darwin and this is what I found to be the most interesting information that I could find.
I found somewhat of what I was looking for in the sense that I gained more information about Charles Darwin's life. The book had mentioned that Charles was born into a long line of successful intelluctuals and was thought by his father to be in line, but I never knew that Darwin had siblings. My original understanding was that Darwin was an only child, but the information that I found from this site said that Darwin had five other brothers and sisters. However, it did not tell me whether they were all dissapointments to their father as well. I went on to read some of the same stuff that was mentioned in the book. Tales of the voyage and the academic bust that was Darwin's early life. I also found that the information I read painted a clearer picture of what we discussed in class. Darwin never intended to discover the theory of evolution when he went on the voyage. Darwin was merely bored on the ship and was collecting data because that is what he was taught by his mentor. I found this interesting to read about becasue my first belief was that Darwin was this God hater and was determined to bring down the theory of creationism. I enjoyed the information on this particular site, but was not satisfied in my journey to know about Charles Darwin's personal life.
I found what I was looking for as my research continued. I was provided with the most personal information about Darwin while searching for information on Darwin. Everything that you could think of from his physical attributes, medical college accomplishments, interests in books, family life, etc. It was all there and now I have a better understanding of not only his life journey, but also what type of person that Charles Darwin was as a person. I especially like the part that talked about his personal life at home. The book never got into this and I never thought they would because of the context of the book, but Charles was a true family man. I got to read some passages from his sons and daughters about what type of person he was, and most of them talked about how they thought he liked playing and spending time with them more than his research in natural science. I thought this was the coolest thing ever because you would never hear this type of stuff in a history book. This type of informtation was also interesting too because I got to read about some of accomplishments in the medical college that Darwin attended. Turns out that Darwin was not a slump like the book made him out to be. although he was not the best student in the classroom he still recieved some academic awards for his findings. This was exactly what I was looking for when I started my research, and it was cool to find out more about Darwin on a personal level.
I continued my research and found some more interesting things, but the last findings had to be the best. I was interested in this particular site becasue it gave me a timeline about Charles Darwin's life. Specific dates on which he did things. It told me everything from when he was catologing his finding in South Africa to his interest in his cousin and then wife. That had to be the most interesting information to me. I do not know if I just missed it completely in the book or what, but I did not know that Darwin ended up marrying his cousin. I did some more research and found out that this type of thing was acceptable at the time, but it baffeled me when I first came apon it. There was also stuff that the book also talked about. I read about his voyage that his mentor sent him on and how long he was away traveling and collecting. Most of the information that I read about the book had already talked about, so I was not to impressed with the site. I did like the fact that it was a timeline based aspect of his life, so it painted a much clearer picture of how things unfolded.
Overall, I think I found what I was looking for in my research. Everything from his personal life to a continued perspective of the book. I was really interested in how he was as a person away from the "office", and I am glad that I found out the information that I did. Darwin and his theory are a much clearer concept to me from what I learned about in my research, and now I know that facts about who he was.
http://darwin-online.org.uk/timeline.html
This site was a timline about Darwin's life, and provided useful information to me.
http://www.aboutdarwin.com/darwin/whowas.html
This was the best site that I found during my research and I am very glad that I did. I discovered who Darwin was as a person away from the office and that was very interesting.
http://www.biography.com/people/charles-darwin-9266433?page=1
These next two sites are the same thing, but in this site I found more of an extended version of what the book was portraying and was very interesting to read about.
http://www.biography.com/people/charles-darwin-9266433?page=2
The topic I choice to write about this week is none other than Lamarck’s concept of inheritance of acquired characteristics. It fits into this chapter quite nicely due to the fact that I plan on going a little more in depth on how Lamarck came to this theory and how it fared against Darwin’s Theory of Evolution. I’m interested in this theory more so then Darwin’s for the fact that when Lamarck thought of this concept it had a little more understanding then that of Darwin’s. I mean this in the following way, looking back at Darwin’s and even before that his grandfathers attempt to reject the biblical account of creation, it seemed farfetched and with no backing. With Lamarck, although still farfetched, had more conceptual backing that made sense. If one has the ability to use a simple tool, that ability should be and more than likely will be used by the next generation.
Lamarckism or otherwise known as Lamarckian evolution was the name given to Lamarck by himself and his theory of inheritance of acquired characteristics. His theory purposed that any abilities that an organism acquires over its life time would be inherited by their offspring of the next generation, allowing for adaptation. He supposedly based his theory on two observations, observations being the key word; 1) one losses or gains characteristics based on usage, this observation lead to the law of use and disuse and 2) the individual inherits or doesn’t inherit those traits from their ancestors, leading to the inheritance of acquired traits. One of the most popular observation that Lamarck observed that is known today is that of the giraffe. By watching the giraffes use their necks to reach for leaves high in trees, they would eventually strengthen and gradually lengthen their necks. Leaving their offspring to inherit slightly longer necks.
We all know Darwin as the one who expanded the evolution theory, but it was Lamarck who had a more complete theory of the early Theory of Evolution. At the time and all through the 19th century both Lamarck and Darwin’s theories were considered by religious authorities. When Darwin published his Theory of Natural Selection, he obtained greater scientific recognition then that of Lamarck. Lamarck still had support, but that support dwindled quickly. Starting with German Zoologist August Weismann who was out to prove Lamarck right in his cells determine heredity experiment, ended up doing the exact opposite and proving Lamarck wrong in the 1800’s. In another account attempt to prove Lamarck’s theory, biologist Paul Kammer ended up taking his life when he was charged with investigative fraud. Ending much of Lamarck’s Theory.
http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Acquired_characteristics http://www.alternativeinsight.com/Lamarck.html http://biologicalexceptions.blogspot.com/2011/08/when-evolution-goes-sideways-sea-slug.html
For this topical blog I have chosen to write about the history of eugenics. I found this topic interesting due to my interest in the movie Gattaca. The movie has a basic line of the general focus of eugenics. In the movie, a family chooses to genetically alter one child, while leaving their other child "up to chance". While the child grow, the genetically altered child advances and becomes an obvious favorite in the family until an accident occurs and becomes paralyzed from the waste down. The plot continues but that is unrelated to this blog.
Beginning with Francis Galton in 1883, eugenics is the science, also claimed to be pseudoscience, of improving a human population by controlled breeding to increase the occurrence of desirable heritable characteristics. Galton believed that giving incentive to families with desirable traits to marry and breed with other families with desirable traits would create a smarter and more desirable population. Through this, he had formed two groups of people: eugenics and dysgenics. The eugenics were the people with good, desirable traits while the dysgenics were those with bad, undesirable traits. Those which were deemed to be obtaining undesirable traits were encouraged not to populate. Many argued that encouraging those with undesired traits to repopulate would save money, for the government would not have to support degenerates. Those with undesired traits were deemed "unfit" for repopulation, these undesired traits ranged from racial minorities, low I.Q.s, mental and physical handicapped, and those criminally inclined. After World War One, local eugenics societies and groups began to arise, from the fear of foreigners and immigrates the war had produces. These groups spread the word of eugenics and host "fitted families" and "better baby" competitions. These societies and groups hoped to support better breeding and prevent poor breeding and risk of poor breeding. These groups hoped to keep people with undesired traits to their heritage separate from others and from reproducing. Laws were even to legalize the sterilization of those deemed "unfit and undesirable" for reproduction. However, the idea ended during World War Two when Hitler and the Nazi's claimed that eugenics was their motivation for the extinction and the idea of the pure, Ayran race.
https://people.creighton.edu/~idc24708/Genes/Eugenics/History%20of%20Eugenics.htm
This site had a lot of information in a uniformed manner.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/10/opinion/sunday/douthat-eugenics-past-and-future.html?_r=0
This article from the New York Times had a great overview of the history of eugenics.
http://hnn.us/articles/1796.html
This side had a great understanding of the history of eugenics with lots of information.
It might seem weird but I really wanted to do more research on the Galapagos Islands. This is where Darwin really started noticing differences in species because it was such a remote island. I wanted to learn more about what sorts of species they saw there and how they were different from the mainland animals. They all evolved differently because almost the entire enviroment was different. They ate different things and developed different ways to cope with these tasks.
Darwin and the Beagle arrived at this island on their voyage around South American. I find this to be very interesting because they were not there in anyway to look for clues to evolution. I think it's crazy that the theory was not even thought of by Darwin at that point. This island was a big inspiration to the theory because the evidence is much stronger. Darwin did field studies on these animals and years later discovered differences. I bet he was kicking himself for not getting more information.
The combination of weather and other enviromental changes changed the evolution of these species. One big factor is that this island was rarely visited by humans. It was mainly used as a docking point for voyages to South America. With little human interference combined with the unique enviroment caused a very different looking species (in some cases). An example of this would be the Galapagos tortoise which is the largest species of tortoise and has a shell up to five feet in diameter.
I found myself wondering what conditions the islands were in today. The Ecuador goverment does a good job trying to conserve this enviroment. Overnight stays are limited. I think it is important to keep these islands somewhat off limits so we can see how the animals continue to evolve. Also, some forms of species only exist on this island, such as the Blue footed booby. Not all efforts have been successful because certain new plants brought by humans, such as the avacado plant, have caused harm to the nature habitat. We should make greater efforts to conserve the Galapagos islands because they have been so important to evolution. It contains great evidence towards the theory. We also have no way of knowing if we cannot learn more from the islands in the future. Whatever we do, we must try to let places like this live in peace so we can learn from them in the future.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gal%C3%A1pagos_Islands gave me a lot of general info on the islands
http://www.lonelyplanet.com/ecuador/the-galapagos-islands/history gave me a more in depth look at the history and discovery of the island
http://www.worldatlas.com/webimage/countrys/samerica/galap.htm showed me the geography of the islands
During this chapter one person that really caught my attention was Francis Galton. I found his views on having a eugenics-based society as kind of appalling yet interesting at the same time. This interested me enough to find out what kind of person he was and why he would think that way. Galton was a smart kid growing up. He was accepted at the Birmingham General Hospital at the age of fifteen and left school completely at the age of sixteen. Major psychologists were very interested in his IQ level. Some considered him to even be a genius. He was also a cousin to Charles Darwin. So the intelligence gene was obviously through out the whole family.
One of his theories he is better known for is his theory on eugenics. He presented his theory in 1833. He believed that intelligence was purely inherited. In order for the human race to improve those who were less intelligent should not be allowed to have children. When I first learned this I thought dang what a jerk! However, during his time it made sense. It was looked at as a way to improve the human race and turned into a competition for survival between social classes and human races. During the Victorian Age those of the upperclass used this theory as well as Darwins to justify their discrimination towards the lower classes.
Another thing Galton is known for is his twin studies. Twin studies are done to estimate hereditary traits. Galton isn't the one who actually came up with the idea to perform a twin study. According to the website someone had called Galton and told him he knew of a set of twins and asked if they could help on his study of eugenics. The classic twin study looks at twins living in the same environment. The more modern twin studies look at twins living in the same environment as well as separate environments. They also look at the events that impact their life.
After reading about Galton's life I feel like I understand a little more of why he thought their needed to be a eugenics-based society. At the time people were dying of disease, filth, lack of sanitation, and other various reasons. Those who survived most often were the wealthy who just so happened to be considered intelligent.
http://www.muskingum.edu/~psych/psycweb/history/galton.htm
This website gave me information on Galton's past.
http://www.britannica.com/blogs/2009/02/beyond-darwin-eugenics-social-darwinism-and-the-social-theory-of-the-natural-selection-of-humans/
This website gave me more information on his theory of eugenics. It also provided me with information on why people thought that way.
http://www.apa.org/monitor/apr04/second.aspx
This website informed me more on twin studies.
This week one of most interesting things that I could pull out of chapter 5 was Darwin's life before he wrote Origin of Species and became famous. I also really liked the ideas and studies of Francis Galton and really decided that I would like to learn more about his life.
Francis Galton was born on February 16, 1822. Being the youngest in his family, he grew to have a very strong connection with his sister Adele. She would be the first to believe that Francis was some kind of prodigy. Believing so, she became his first real educator and had taught him to read a few small books by the age of two.
At the age of five Francis went off to school only to find that he was the only one of his peers to be constantly studying. Consequently, by the age of eight, his father had him sent to Boulogne to study French. At the age of 14 Francis joined the King Edward's School in Birmingham a year later he as accepted as a student at the Birmingham General Hospital, he soon left at the age of 16.
Being the student that he was, Galton's progress invited the attention of many major psychologists such as Lewis Terman, who wrote a paper in attempt to measure Galton's IQ and believed he would find a genius.
Although Galton did not do as well attuning Cambridge University as his cousin Charles Darwin, he did get ahold of very controversial ideas when he finally settled down to do scientific research. Although his interest in math and the science of measurement led him to concentrate mostly in the field of mapping and meteorological observation within geography. It was this field that he made his first discovery; a weather map that appeared in The Times in 1875
Although he continued to focus os the Geographical Society, in his forties he switched his research to study heredity. He said "I was encouraged by the new views to pursue many inquiries that had long interested me, and which cluster around the central tropics of heredity." It was during this time that he began to develop his psychological career. he began by collecting his data on eminent men in England and wrote English Men os Science. After this study he began to place his focus on improving the population and heredity dispositions. He became the founder of Eugenics and promoted it very strongly. He later passed away in 1911, but not until he left much of his wealth to a chair of Eugenics at the University of London.
During his lifetime Galton became consumed with the field of Eugenics. he built a laboratory where he could collect data. People swarmed the idea and the laboratory. In the first year in opening alone there was an estimated 10,000 people passed through it in testing procedures. Eugenics was seen to many people as an expression of class prejudice. However, Galton praised it as an aim toward a society consisting entirely of superior men and women
Many people around the world were impressed with Galton's life work. Such as James McKeen Cattell, who first mental tests were derived from Galton's work. Galton's laboratory also served as a stimulator for scientists like Edward Thorndike whose Law of Effect was relevant to Darwin and Galton's theories of adaptation.
http://www.indiana.edu/~intell/galton.shtml
This wedsites information was very clearly organized which was very helpful
http://www.indiana.edu/~intell/galton.shtml
This site simply had a ton of information. It was very in depth about Galton's life and really answered a lot of questions I had
http://www.muskingum.edu/~psych/psycweb/history/galton.htm
I really liked this site because it had a lot of easily to read information and due to the URL I knew it was valid.
After reading chapter five, I wanted to do more research on the Galapagos Islands and what Darwin found there. I decided to do more research on this because I was surprised to read that studying evolution wasn’t what brought Darwin to the islands. I was always under the impression that studying evolution was Darwin’s intent when traveling to the island but that is not the case. Darwin just stumbled on the idea while he was examining the animals of the islands.
"When on board HMS Beagle as a naturalist, I was much struck with certain facts in the distribution of the inhabitants of South America, and in the geological relations of the present to the past inhabitants of that continent. These facts seemed to me to throw some light on the origin of species - that mystery of mysteries, as it has been called by one of our greatest philosophers." Charles Darwin, 1859
Charles Darwin traveled to the Galapagos Islands on the HMS Beagle. The ship spent three years sailing the coasts of South America. During the voyage, Darwin spent his him on land collecting fossils and examining animals. Once on Galapagos Islands, Darwin did the same but stated to notice that there was something different about the birds. Darwin noticed that depending on what island a certain bird inhabited, the beaks would differ. The different type of beak depended on how the birds of that island received food. It was not until Darwin left the islands that he formed the theory of evolution. Darwin returned to the islands years later but was surprised to see that it was not the same. Because of weather change, he was not able to collect the data he was hoping for. His theory of evolution led him to natural selection. Natural selection refers to the survival of the species that can live long enough to reproduce a continue their genes.
http://www.savegalapagos.org/galapagos/charles-darwin.shtml
I chose this website right off the bat because I like the quote by Darwin. With further reading, I found that it was informational and easy to understand.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darwin's_finches
I chose this site because it gave great detail about the finches that G=Darwin found on the islands.
http://www.terindell.com/asylum/jason/darwin.html
I chose this last site because I thought it was a great brief overview to the information I had previously found.
I chose the topics of natural selection and the theory of evolution to examine in more depth. I feel like the terms “natural selection” and “evolution” both have a negative connotation. The first issue I think that many people have with the theory is the idea that evolution and progress are the same thing. In reality, natural selection modifies the traits of individual organisms to be better suited for their respective environments. The evolution of traits may be beneficial in certain environments, but detrimental in others. Therefore, the misconception that evolution equates progress is futile because humans are not the finished product and are no more developed than any other organism. Evolution is depicted by a tree, not a ladder. Human beings are merely a branch of that tree.
The second misconception that I wish to discuss is that evolution is not a theory of the origins of life, and therefore should not be a rival to religious teachings. The theory of evolution does not focus on life’s origins, but how life changed and diversified after its origins. I think that the terms “natural selection” and “evolution” are automatically attacked because they are assumed to advocate an anti-religious viewpoint. If people could actually think about these concepts with a level head and evaluate them critically, they may come to understand them in a whole new way.
Natural selection in itself makes perfect sense and is very difficult to disprove. My favorite example of natural selection is the following: two snakes live in the jungle. One snake has the ability to detect movement through advanced eyesight while the other lacks the ability to detect movement through advanced eyesight. When the population of mice is low and their is competition for food, the snakes must beat each other to the punch if they want to survive. The snake with the advanced eyesight will be more likely to catch his prey than the snake with poor eyesight. Therefore, the snake with good eyesight will survive and pass that gene on to its offspring with the snake with poor eyesight will starve and die all the while never passing on his genes to any offspring. If one looks at natural selection in this way, and not as a random transformation between the two generations, he or she may come to realize that, in the end, natural selection is simply the passing of favorable genes from prosperous organisms to their offspring. Likewise the "poor" genes are wiped out by the inability for them to be passed along to offspring.
One thing we discussed in class was the idea that humans have learned to control their environments. Therefore, these changes do not happen as rapidly because there is no need to change. I read an interesting article the other day that said something along the lines of future humans will lose the pinkie toe because it is no longer necessary for balance. I think that changes like this are inevitable and make perfectly good sense. Fear of change and perseverance of tradition are holding people back from accepting a theory that really holds little contradiction to their believes in the first place.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_selection
This website gave me the general background of natural selection and complemented the textbook.
http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/misconceptions_faq.php#a3
This website shows many misconceptions regarding evolution.
http://www.nyu.edu/projects/fitch/courses/evolution/html/evidence.html
I chose this last website because it helped to back up what the other sites said.
After reading chapter five I chose to learn more about Darwin's contribution to psychology, which was, comparative psychology. I chose this because after all this book is the history of psychology and I think learning about a branch of psychology will be beneficial.
Comparative psychology is usually associated with the study of animals, and how they can relate to humans. It has been said that the comparisons between different species is not the sole purpose of comparative psychology, but looking at an individual species is an important step as well. The process used in comparative psychology includes comparing similarities and differences among species to gain an understanding of evolutionary relationships. This description of comparative psychology can be linked directly back to Charles Darwin, because of his important work with evolution.
Charles Darwin had such a major impact that some believe psychology should be spoken in terms of pre- and post-Darwin. It is interesting how one man can be thought of so highly by a group of such intelligent people. It is important to know that even though Darwin is thought of highly, there have been a huge number of other important contributors to the field of comparative psychology.
There are a lot of disagreements between comparative psychologist's as to exactly what the field is and what it is supposed to study. Not everyone agrees with the definitions. I mentioned one definition earlier in which comparative psychology focuses on the study of animals and how they relate to humans. Others believe that comparative psychology is based on comparisons between different species, such as humans vs. animals. There are a number of main focuses researchers focus on in comparative psychology. They look at evolution, heredity, adaptation and learning, and mating and parenting behaviors. An interesting fact about the development of comparative psychology is that there has been debate on disposing of the name all together because some believe the name is not an accurate description of what the field is.
I enjoyed learning about comparative psychology. I am amazed at how many people played a role in the beginning of this field. Charles Darwin had an important role because of his important discoveries in evolution. Evolution is involved in comparative psychology because it is the main focus. Observing how different species have evolved and continue to evolve over time is a major part of comparative psychology. Before doing more research I did not realize how huge evolution is on the concepts of comparative psychology. Nor did I know that there was so much disagreement on what the main focusses should be when doing research for comparative psychology.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparative_psychology
This site had information regarding the history of comparative psychology
http://psychology.about.com/od/comparativepsychology/f/comparative.htm
This site had general background information
http://www.psychoid.net/comparative-psychology-comparing-studying.html
This site focussed on the concepts of comparative psychology and modern focusses
For this week's research blog, I am choosing to research the evolution of emotional expression. The book introduces the subject as a subcategory of comparative psychology.
Azim F. Shariff from the University of Oregon confirms that the specific facial expressions humans adopt in different settings are associated with particular emotions that have an evolutionary root. For example, when we are disgusted, we narrow the nasal cavity and close our lips tightly together so as not to inhale any poisonous substances that might be in the air. Similarly, people puff out their chests to express pride because it increases the production of testosterone and increases lung capacity so that you can attack any predators or whatever may come your way. These expressions which served a biological purpose evolved to take on a social meaning as well-- just another application of evolution. These findings are not unique to the western world. They are present in all societies worldwide, and notably, across a variety of species. This means that although these expressions have social meaning this day in age, they must have originally evolved for biological purposes, irrespective of society and culture.
Although certain expressions have biological roots in more primitive species, human facial structure has resulted in the ability to create more expressions than any other species. Because communication is imperative to the development of humans, we have developed the ability to express more complex emotions with just our face. Such characteristics include more visible white in the eyes, the presence of eyebrows, pronounced lips, and other additional muscles that allow us to articulate the most complex of emotions.
Although there is still much work to be done to identify the reason each human emotion and its respective expression has evolved, scientists are able to pin its purpose down to survival. However, certain expressions are thought to have evolved earlier on, being associated with more primitive parts of the brain. These expressions, like those of fear, serve the purpose of staying away from danger. Filial emotions, which express love for offspring, are attributed to early mammals, while social emotions like guilt and pride are unique to social primates. Humans are said to be the best adapted in expressing their emotions, so much so that more sophisticated parts of the brain moderate more primitive parts of the brain. This is the case when the cortex inhibits the amydala's fear response.
This topic fits into this chapter because it relates to darwin's theory of evolution and his model of comparative psychology. Darwin was the first to write about emotion in an evolutionary sense. I find this topic to be interesting because it takes something as sentimental as human emotion and shows how it's linked to "cold, hard science'. It's amazing how the smallest quirks-- even those on an individual level, have a root in something that bonds us together as a species.
http://cornellsun.com/node/38053
http://www.psychologicalscience.org/index.php/news/releases/what-are-emotion-expressions-for.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_emotion
I decided to do more research on emotions across cultures this week. I found that while it seems to be accepted in the works of psychology that raw emotions are universal, psychologists agree that the way emotions are expressed varies widely depending on the cultural norms. Darwin initially described emotions as being completely universal, the "neuromuscular activity of the face." Darwin supported the universality hypothesis, claiming that all people experience and communicate the same basic emotions (anger, disgust, fear, happy, sad, and surprise) using facial movements that are results of evolutionary backgrounds of the human race
The subject has now been well studied in psychology by prominent psychologists and cultural anthropologists such as Paul Ekman, Margaret Mead, and Yuri Miyamoto among many others, but is still debated.
The subject of emotional expression across cultures has been studied using fieldwork experiences, photos, film, natural observation, and computer graphics experiments. A full on nature verses nurture debate has broken out in the world of psychology over the expression of emotion.
Research suggests that display rules, the socially acceptable, unwritten laws for displaying emotions in one's culture, and ideal affect, the emotion or emotions which are most favored and respected in one's society, are learned at a very young age from family, peers, story books, and other firms of media. The research has suggested differences in Westerners and Non-Westerners as young as preschool age on this level.
Most comparisons within this sect of this field have been Western individualistic society (usually the USA) and Non-Western collectivist societies (usually China or Japan.) This is a bit of a limitation to current research because if there are major differences between cultures, we may be missing out on a ton of interesting and potentially theory making or breaking information from the many cultures throughout the world that remain unstudied.
The information given about America suggests that Americans tend to respect and expect a positive affect. That is, Americans value being largely happy most of the time. It was also found that Americans tend to focus on the facial expressions of the individual person while Non-Westerners generally focus on the expressions of the entire group or the state of the background because to them, emotions are about the relationships one has with the larger group and the world as a whole.
Based on the information I have found, I would say that the raw emotions are universally felt and universally expressed within micro expressions at least. Display rules in each culture dictate which emotions are okay to express explicitly and how to do so in a manner that is acceptable. The differences in display rules have led to outward differences in the way we control which emotions are available for the public eye and this, for psychological researchers.
Http://end.Wikipedia.org/wiki/emotions_and_culture
Http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2012/04/10/1200155109.full.pdf+HTML
Https://www2.bc.edu/~russeljm/publications/psyc-bull1994.pdf
Based on today's discussion, I realized that it is important to understand the culture of the time to really know where somebody's coming from. Sir Francis Galton lived in England during the Victorian era, which was a time of prosperity and growth for the United Kingdom. It happened to be a very religious period as well. The textbook explained Galton's situation basically by saying that he was a spoiled rich person who had nothing better to do but to come up with all of these ideas. However, I think that it has a bit more to do with his environment. His family's wealth is what, in a practical sense, allowed him to focus on all of these interesting studies as opposed to working a normal job. But I think that his Victorian age environment had just as much influence over his decision. Had he been alive during a period of hardship, maybe he wouldn't have been relaxed enough to decide that he doesn't need to earn a living. Maybe the fact that England had gone a century without a single epidemic, as well as the fact that there was a new religious enlightenment, influenced the path that he took in life.
I have always thought of the man as Charles Darwin's crazy cousin who was an advocate for compulsory sterilization, however I could not have been more wrong. The first time I studied any of Galton's work was when I was reading about eugenics. Some eugenicists come off as wanting to eliminate bad genes from the human gene pool. However, the idea behind it leans more toward passing on good genes. Regardless of one's moral standing on that, I think it's clear to say that we need genetic variation and mutation. No single genotype is ideal for everything. Different genetic makeups are prone to be more adaptive to different environments.
Enough about eugenics though...Because he was a brilliant man, and the environment was ready, Galton came up with many scientific breakthroughs that are nothing short of amazing. I had no idea that he came up with statistical correlations, regression, and standard deviation. Having experienced psychological research, statistics are the backbone of modern research. Because of that accomplishment alone I think we ought to refer to Galton as the father of psychology.
History has a funny way of remembering people. Eugenics has such a negative connotation, and most history sources just credit Galton as the creator of eugenics, without giving him credit for anything else. He was just as brilliant as his cousin Charles Darwin, but history doesn't necessarily remember him that way.
http://galton.org/psychologist/index.html
This website had an interesting story on Galton, and talked a lot about his studies of individual differences
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galton
This website gave a full background on Galton, and talked about many of his contributions to the scientific community
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victorian_era
This website was crucial to understanding the environment in which Galton came up with many of his ideas
The topic that I chose to do more research on after reading this chapter was a little more in depth look at Darwin’s study on the Galapagos Island finches. The way that this topic fits into this chapter is because it is an example of how Darwin was starting to see changes in same species of birds and how he cold correlate that to information he knew about the human species. This was kind of a pivotal point in history when people could start seeing changes that weren’t explained through the church. The reason I am interested in this topic is because it’s kind of cool to see how species change in order to adapt to their surroundings and to carry on their genetic code to their offspring and how this can relate to other species and how they do things in order to survive and reproduce also.
This observation was brought up when ornithologist John Gould was studying changes and selective breeding in Beagle specimens that were strictly confined to the Galapagos Islands. The interesting thing here was that these birds looked odd to John Gould and were classified as 14 different species, so with this information it interested Darwin to investigate. Darwin later found out that these were not birds of different species, but they were birds that had all come to the Galapagos Island and dispersed. Once all these birds had dispersed they had come across different predators and prey and adapted through time in order to survive their new environment. One example of this would be a bird with a small sharp beak in order to kill small insects that were thriving in that environment, another would be a bird with a big beak that would be used to crack open nuts that were thriving in that environment. The main findings that Darwin found here were that the finches all came from the mainland as one species but then had dispersed and adapted to survive in their new area they had moved to.
Another interesting part of the finches Darwin discovered would be the genetic code that has to do with their adaptation to the different parts of the Galapagos Islands. Calmodulin is a protein that is found in birds that binds and activates certain enzymes in birds to turn specific genes on or off, whichever is seen fit to help that bird survive. So if calmodulin is in birds it can decide to make a beak grow or stop growing, whatever is seen fit for the environment. This is interesting because they’ve targeted a specific gene that was of interest here in the survival of these finches and it would be interesting to see what other things can theoretically turn “on” or “off” specific developments in humans to help them survive.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darwin's_finches - Background information on Darwin and the finches
http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/2006/08.24/31-finches.html - genetic background on the evolution of finches of the Galapagos Islands
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l25MBq8T77w – Examples of the finches from the Galapagos Islands and how they survive and adapted in their environment.
I decided to write about Darwin’s delay of his publishing’s. I just really enjoyed how smart it was of him to delay his findings to avoid being shut down by the church. It was incredibly strategic and could have backfired in many ways. For instance, one way it could have backfired is if someone else published similar work before he did. If this were to happen, then Darwin wouldn’t have been known as the founder of evolution and it would have destroyed the reputation he has today.
Darwin had explained his delay as “personal reasons” but in truth, he feared religious persecution and social disgrace. He didn’t want to have his reputation destroyed and also didn’t want to offend his wife and have here ridiculed as well. Darwin also wanted to make sure that his theories were as correct as he could get them. One of his previous papers on “glen Roy” had been proved wrong and it was quite embarrassing for Darwin, he didn’t want a repeat of that. Some people during the time thought that the delay of his work was due to his health, and it very well may have been. If it wasn’t, than it was a great natural excuse as to why he didn’t publish his work sooner.
Darwin used the extra time of his delay to continue to collect more data to support his hypotheses and in turn make his theories harder to disprove. This worked in his favor because this helped him really solidify his findings and the 200 page paper. It was historically important that this document be as perfect as possible because it set the biological scientific standard. I think one of the aspects of his work that caught peoples mind was how systematic his writings were. Darwin took the time to explain his theories and then to back them up with evidence. He even included his thought process of how he came up with his theories.
I can imagine that some other scientists at the time were eager for new information and possibly upset by the fact that Darwin took such a long time to publish his discoveries. On the surface, it looks somewhat selfish for Darwin to wait so long, as if he was building up the temptation; however this was not the case. If this was his goal, he wouldn’t have stretched out his delay to almost 20 years.
It’s amazing to see so much pressure on a simple of a thing as timing of a publication. The timing could have affected how people understood the content, and therefore the overall reaction of the general population. Thank goodness that the timing of his publication on his work of explaining evolution was perfect and that it all worked out in the end.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Origin_of_Species A great way to look the entire project that was Darwin's "Origin of Species", his publication on evolution.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1546868/Why-Darwins-theory-was-slow-to-evolve.html A news-like story of the delay of Darwin's works. Give a general look.
http://home.uchicago.edu/~rjr6/articles/Why%20Darwin%20Delayed.pdf Most helpful of the 3 articles I read. This paper writes every angle imaginable and explains in great detail what some of the assumed reasons for Darwin's delay were.
BR
I choose to look up more information on Darwin and his adventures to the Galapagos Islands as well as what he found. This topic fits into the chapter because this week’s reading was all about Charles Darwin and his background as well as his findings in the Galapagos Islands.
Darwin spent four years on a sailing on the ship called the Beagle for a surveying mission. Charles wasn’t paid on this voyage at all and the commander of the ship wanted to bring someone who would “profit from the opportunity of visiting different countries yet little known.” Darwin was the one who decided to apply for this job or opportunity and little did he know it would change his life and career.
The Beagle spent five weeks in the islands and Darwin made sketches and notes about what he was observing on each island. One thing that people don’t realize is that Charles Darwin’s trip to the Islands didn’t make him suggest the theory of natural selection. A lot of people believe that Darwin came up with the saying the “survival of the fittest” when actuality he didn’t. The Galapagos Islands weren’t the first set of island that Charles had been to but they provided him with species that were isolated from humans and this allowed him to see whether the patterns he’d noticed on other islands was being repeated from island to island.
He studied finches, tortoises, and lizards or iguanas. Darwin assumed that each of these species would be the same across the islands, because they were so close, but they weren’t. This is what sparked the question in him to figure out as to why they weren’t. When collecting finches to document Darwin forgot to write down what island they came from. This could have been a huge set back but luckily for him, two guys from the ship were helping him collect finches and everytime they shot one they wrote down the location. This allowed for Charles to reconstruct his data and have them labeled correctly by his two assisstants. Many of the animals on the islands didn’t orignate there but they developed skills and adaptations to be able to survive on the islands. Darwin sent back his data and collection of notes about these animals on the Galapagos back to England while he stayed on his voyage. Him doing this, made him famous without him even realizing it until he got home. His work definitely got attention from other scientists and his peers. It took him twenty years to get his book published, but to him it was worth it because he took the time to integrate all the evidence he could to help support his theory about these different species.
Darwin’s contributions for evolution was that he studied why and how it happened; he didn’t come up with the idea that it happened.
In his own words Darwin states that, “The voyage of the Beagle has been by far the most important event in my life and has determined my whole career.” He forever changed the idea about how evolution happened and brought it to light to the public as well as challenged the church a little bit.
http://researchfrontiers.uark.edu/14588.php
http://www.geol.umd.edu/~jmerck/galsite/research/projects/hayeslip/darwin.html
http://www.geo.cornell.edu/geology/GalapagosWWW/Darwin.html
In class we spoke mostly about Darwin and evolution, but I was more interested in C. Lloyd Morgan and Lloyd Morgan’s canon in relation to parsimonious explanations. In essence, he argued against reading too much into animal behaviors or actions by assigning the animals human qualities, anthropomorphism. Morgan was not arguing that animals were unintelligent but cautioned against assigning higher level reasoning to instinctive animal behaviors. Morgan believed in experimentation to determine if there were other plausible explanations for the behaviors, and then decide on the simplest one. Morgan’s canon is used as a form of Occam’s razor to urge scientists to consider the most likely reasons for action within a behavioral context.
There was an example given in Chapter 5 (Goodwin, 2008) about how Romanes proposed that scorpions would rather commit suicide than burn by fire, giving scorpions the human characteristic of choosing a quick death rather than burning alive. Morgan offered a more plausible explanation; he theorized that the scorpions were reflexively trying to use their tails to remove the smoke residue from their shells and accidentally killed themselves. Morgan was not saying that animals have no reasoning capabilities at all, because he did believe that animals have limited reasoning capabilities for practical purposes. Morgan wrote that a dog can learn to unlatch a bolt to open a door, but he does not understand the mechanisms of the latch and how it holds the door closed.
I witnessed a similar circumstance at the nature center in Osborne, Iowa. There was a wolf digging a very deep hole next to the fence in an obvious effort to escape, unfortunately he had chosen to dig at a spot where the concrete wall extended several feet underground. I made the comment to my husband that the wolf would be better off digging 10 feet to the left from where he was digging because there was no wall extending down. My husband remarked that we were talking about a wolf, and because he was a wolf he had probably not thought it all the way through! I was trying to be anthropomorphic about the wolf and my husband was being practical (as usual).
Morgan (1903) wrote about his dog learning to open a gate latch by accident, but once he learned to open the latch he was able to repeat the trick. Morgan did not credit his dog with any complicated thought processes or any speculative abilities; otherwise, the dog would have opened the gate much sooner because he had observed the gate being opened time and again by Morgan. It was only after the dog had bumped his head on the latch and the gate had swung open that he learned to open the gate by himself.
Osborne's wolf had the instinct to dig his way out, but he did not have the careful planning ability to decide the best place to dig.
Morgan’s research of animal behaviors contributed greatly to the field of psychology, which is one reason he is credited with being one of the forerunners to experimental psychology and comparative psychology. Some researchers argue that Morgan’s canon was not meant to minimize the intelligence of animals, but that we should study any observed behaviors more critically to be sure there is not an alternate, parsimonious explanation for the behavior.
I read through the information at the following links because they have Morgan’s own words:
http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Morgan/murchison.htm
http://www.brocku.ca/MeadProject/Morgan/Morgan_1903/Morgan_1903_16.html
This link I read through for the biographical information.
http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/C._Lloyd_Morgan
RB
In reading through Chapter 5, I already knew a lot about the story on Charles Darwin. I found myself being surprised by some of the information that was presented about his voyage on the Beagle. Then I came to realize that I didn’t know as much about Darwin’s voyage around the world as I thought I had. I only really knew about the Galapagos Islands and how long the trip took. Thus, for this week I decided to do my blog on the voyage of the HMS Beagle in hopes of learning more about this particular subject. In particular, I would like to learn more about some of the other aspects of that trip including Darwin’s theory of the evolution of emotional expressions.
The voyage of the HMS Beagle lasted for roughly 5 to 6 tears as it circumnavigated the world. The ship would first sail around the southern coast of South America, to the Galapagos Islands, to the southern coast of Australia, around Cape Hoppe, and then back to England. The initial goal of this voyage was to sail along the coast of South America to survey all of the ports. The idea was that by doing so, it would allow British merchants to retain their edge in trade. What I found interesting was that this journey was not for Darwin in any manner. He was simply just a guest on the voyage. A friend of the captain’s to be precise. Whenever the ship came to port, Darwin would leave the ship for extended periods of time. During those times Darwin visited the rainforest in Brazil, the Cape Verde Islands, and the Andes Mountains, among other places.
After leaving Peru, the Beagle sailed west towards the Galapagos Islands. It was here that Darwin made some of his most famous observations, which brought about his theory of evolution. Having never really been visited by humans before, this group of volcanic islands held a vast population of different species. He then proceeded to sail around the rest of the world and back to England.
http://www.aboutdarwin.com/voyage/voyage03.html
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/151902/Charles-Darwin/225882/The-Beagle-voyage
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Beagle_(1854)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Voyage_of_the_Beagle
All of these sites contained information on both Darwin and the HMS Beagle
After reading more about Darwin, and actually learning more about Darwin; which I didn’t think could be possible since every teacher despite what subject they’re teaching thinks they had to include a five minute lesson, followed by a 45 minute opinion/lecture about him, I actually found the information in this chapter pleasant. My area of topic, however, is not about Darwin, but rather a small grey box inserted onto a page in a half, about Douglas Spalding. I found Spalding to be interesting because he wasn’t your typical ‘rich off of daddy’s money’ stereotypical aspiring psychologist; however he was a white male.
The sad thing about Spalding was that there was virtually no information about him, and it really made me mad because it just supports the theory that money is power and without it ( especially in that day) anything you ‘discover’ just gets accredited to someone who had that power. From the information I did read online and given in the textbook, I was intrigued by Spalding, he came from a working class family and really self-educated himself while doing roofing jobs. Spalding was actually acquaintances with John Stuart Mill. The downfall with Spalding is that any information or data he collected was never published, besides for a select amount of popular magazines. But he was noticed for his work by William James on his work regarding instinct. Basically his results showed that experience were irrelevant within certain perceptual abilities (animals were his subjects) and in fact didn’t require experience at all but what is now known as instincts. I found this interesting because we have all heard of Konrad Lorenz’s term ‘imprinting’ and his study done with the baby geese following him in a field. I think the importance of Spalding to me, and I understand that this case happened to many people throughout time, was that he was seen as being an ‘average Joe’ and essentially still is. But I formed more of an opinion that here’s an average Joe, who didn’t have the financial ability to attend a prestige college, but yet still in a way was the founder of modern ethology. This idea just made me reflect back onto prior chapters and look at todays world and think that some of these well-known scholarly names might not be who they are today, without the average Joe’s and their contributions. Not to mention that Spalding did tutor Bertrand Russell who just so happens to be the best-known philosopher of the twentieth century.
http://www.brynmawr.edu/psychology/rwozniak/roots.html
http://books.google.com/books?id=eJfXkj56H0kC&pg=PA51&lpg=PA51&dq=modern+psychology+douglas+spalding&source=bl&ots=x0VqG0bBl-&sig=mFjQhbUbTWXoef6vzLeX-OkymDM&hl=en&sa=X&ei=2cwvUbnzHtT-2QXvjYGACg&ved=0CEEQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=modern%20psychology%20douglas%20spalding&f=false
http://www.post-journal.com/page/content.detail/id/615716/-Charles--Douglas-Spaulding.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Spalding