Voyage of the HMSBeagle Dates February 12th 1831 Captain Charles Darwin Ship HMS Beagle Destination Voyage around the world Findings evidence to propose a revolutionary hypothesis about how life changes over time ID: 684981
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Slide1
Evolution & Darwin
If humans share a common ancestry with other primates, then we can learn about our own development understand our behaviour better by studying them.Slide2
Voyage of the H.M.S.Beagle
Dates:
February 12th, 1831
Captain:
Charles Darwin
Ship
: H.M.S. Beagle
Destination:
Voyage around the world.
Findings:
evidence to propose a revolutionary hypothesis about how life changes over timeSlide3
Voyage of the BeagleSlide4
The Galapagos Island
Darwin was fascinated by the
land tortoises and marine iguanas
in the
Galápagos
.
Giant tortoises varied in predictable ways from one island to another.
The
shape of a tortoise's shell
could be used to
identify which island
a particular
tortoise inhabited
. Slide5Slide6
Ideas that shaped Darwin’s Thinking
James Hutton:
1795 Theory of Geological change
Forces change earth’s surface shape
Changes are slow
Earth much older than thousands of yearsSlide7
Ideas that Shaped Darwin’s Thinking
Charles Lyell
Book:
Principles of Geography
Geographical features can be built up or torn down
Darwin thought if earth changed over time, what about life?Slide8
Population Growth
Thomas Malthus
-19th century English economist
If population grew (more Babies born than die)
Insufficient living space
Food runs out
Darwin applied this theory to animalsSlide9
Natural Selection (Variation) & Artificial Selection
Natural variation
--differences among individuals of a species
Artificial selection
- nature provides the variation among different organisms, and humans select those variations they find useful
.Slide10
Evolution by Natural Selection
The Struggle for Existence
-members of each species have to compete for food, shelter, other life necessities
Survival of the Fittest
-Some individuals better suited for the environmentSlide11
Summary of Darwin’s Theory
Individuals in nature
differ
from one another
Organisms in nature produce
more offspring than can survive
, and many of those who do not survive do not reproduce.
Individuals
best suited
for the environment survive and reproduce most successful
Species
change over timeSlide12
Primate Evolution
Darwin did not specifically address primates in His famous
Origin of the SpeciesSlide13
Primates are mammals that have:
Opposable thumbs
Large brain
Good, stereoscopic vision
Ability to brachiate*
Flexible elbows for hand rotation
Grasping feet
*
swing from tree limb to tree limb using only their armsSlide14
Early Primates
Appeared 60-65 million years ago
Prosimian
Small bodies
Lemurs, Tarsiers
Anthropoids
Human-like primates
Evolved in AfricaSlide15
Hominid Evolution
Hominids developed 5-8 million years ago
Hominids are
bipedal
First hominids were in genus
Australopithecus
“Lucy” most famous fossil hominid
“
Ardi
” is the oldest Hominid
More modern hominids were in genus
Homo
Examine the Evidence: Primate skeletons
:
-Long
fingers and toes
are good for climbing trees
-Short
legs
are helpful for moving around in trees
-Wide
and short pelvis
suggests upright posture
-Thigh
bones
angle in toward knees, making upright walking easier
Lucy and
Ardi
VIDEOSlide16
More Recent H
umans
Homo sapiens
(Developed 400,000 years ago)
Neanderthals
Europe arrival (100,000 years ago)
Cro-Magnon
Europe arrival (40,000 years ago)
Americas arrival (12,000 years ago)Slide17
Primates and Humans
Power, Sex, Kindness, Grudges
Chimp – (Pan troglodyte)
Bonobo – (Pan
paniscus
)Slide18
What is Power? And Status? What does it mean to have it, or not to have it?
Student ideas about power:
…
…
…
Student ideas about privilege:
…
…
…
…Slide19
Power and Status
Wealth
may be an excellent thing, for it means power, and it means leisure, it means liberty.
James Russell Lowell
If those in charge of our society - politicians, corporate executives, and owners of press and television - can dominate our ideas, they will be secure in their power.
Howard
Zinn
When I see how we treat one another; the war, the crime, the inhumanity... I wonder a million years ago whether we crawled out of the slime or were asked to leave.
Milt Abel
Wild animals never kill for sport. Man is the only one to whom the torture and death of his fellow-creatures is amusing in itself.
James Anthony FroudeSlide20
Discuss...
Think about the ways in which you have or use power:
At home – over younger brothers/sisters
At school – over team/committee members
Your community – over the street-kid
Globally – over the enslaved cocoa-bean picker
Why do humans have a lust for power; is it nature or nurture?
E.g. In the 1970s human behaviour was seen as cultural, not natural. So, to make people ‘better’, change the culture.Slide21
Primate Power Relations
What does great ape (chimp, bonobo, gorilla, orangutan - our closest relatives) behaviour tell us?
E.g. Chimps –
hierarchy/status is all important
Male power is always up for grabs –
determined by who can beat whom [Female status is recognized, not contested]
Coalitions are necessary – Power relations! Slide22
Arnhem Zoo:
Liut
,
Nikkie
,
Yeroen
Three males in the Arnhem Colony, Arnhem, The Netherlands
Alpha males display aggression, hair on end, hitting any who don’t move away in time – Keeping track of those who don’t bob & grovel with pant-grunts
When the older
Yeroen
was Alpha, the stronger
Liut
challenged – After 3 months of being chased up trees, feigning injuries to get support...
Yeroen
eventually showed the required submission
The next year,
Yeroen
teamed with
Nikkie
– How?
Yeroen
exploited tensions among younger males by watching disputes flare, then stepping in to support one side.
Built relationship with
Nikkie
- lots of
grooming time –
Liut
knew and regularly
charged in to break it up
Eventually,
Liut
submitted to the new
Alpha:
NikkieSlide23
Nikke
&
Yeroen’s
Reign
Ruled as a team for 4 years ...
Benefits of status
: for female chimps,
food;
for male chimps,
prestige
and
sex
-
Yeroen
could have any
Over time, a bolder
Nikkie
restricted
Yeroen’s
benefits – A split! -
Liut
took over as new Alpha
Soon
Nikkie
&
yeroen
teamed up again – tension in the colony increased
In times of leadership tension, chimp males stay
close – “Keep friends close, enemies closer”
One night, the three would not separate when escorted to night cages –
Nikkie
&
Yeroen
ganged up on
Liut
– killing & emasculating him
In the morning , the colony refused to eat breakfast –
Nikkie
was chased up a tree by a female ally of
Liut’sSlide24
Humans and Status Recognition
Japan
– the depth of greeting bow signals men-women, and senior-junior family rank differences between men and women, and senior
Saddam Hussein had his underlings greet him with a kiss on his armpit
Larry King Live
– King would adjust the timbre of his voice to that of high-ranking guests; low ranking guests adjusted their timbre to match King’s –
In
all 8 US Pres. Elections 1960-2000, popular vote went to the one who held his own timbre
For the Physical
A
nthropologist – Power
R
elations are ingrained in human culturesSlide25
Patrols, Raids, and Death Squads
Xenophobia
- Fear and contempt of strangers or foreign peoples
Humans and chimps are xenophobic –
they are the only animals in which
gangs of males expand their territory
by deliberately exterminating
neighbouring males (Rwanda)
Is warfare in our DNA?
One aspect of human behaviour chimps cannot illuminate is something we do even more than wage war... maintain peaceSlide26
Some Questions
If human drive for power and status is part of evolutionary history, are we doomed to live with strife and injustice?
What would humans be like- what would be
lost
– if we did
not
pursue power and status?
If we are to put a check on the drives of our ‘inner ape’, how can we do this?Slide27
Bonobos – The Politics of Sex
"Sex is there, it's pervasive, it's critical, and bonobo society would collapse without it," he said in an interview. "But it's not what people think it is. It's not driven by orgasm or seeking release. Nor is it often reproductively driven. Sex for a bonobo is casual, it's quick and once you're used to watching it, it begins to look like any other social interaction."Slide28
Bonobos
and Sex
A zoo keeper used to working with chimps is introduced to bonobos, and accepts a kiss from one of his new primate friends. For chimps, a kiss is friendly vs. sexual. The zoo keeper was taken aback when he felt the bonobo’s tongue in his mouth!
For bonobos,
erotic contact mixes freely with everything else they do
. E.g.- sex is used every day to iron out ‘wrinkled relationships’ (=
make-up sex
)
Most of their sexual activity has
nothing to do with reproduction
.
It
frequently involves member of the same sex
– there are no
exclusively hetero- or
homosexual bonobosSlide29
Bonobo Sex and Society
Sex is very casual and well-integrated with bonobo social life
Female chimps are swollen (genital) less than 5% of adult life...Female bonobos are in this state close to 50%
Young females present themselves to males who have food – after sex, they share
To put a halt to
infanticide
(well documented among chimps and gorillas), bonobos evolved a female dominated, sexualized society in which paternity is a mystery
Females are dominant – a male has status (i.e. access to food and sex) according to the status of his mother (the Alpha male is the son of the dominant female)Slide30
Making Love, Not War
Peaceful mingling
between
bonobo groups
(Note: female bonobos migrate) contrasts with how chimp groups interact
Bonobos show the ways in which peaceful relations can evolve
: intermarriage, gene flow between groups, makes deadly aggression counter-productive
Darwin believed that
ethics/morality
grew out of
cooperative impulses
and impulses that might harm the group on which we depend for survival – on learning reciprocity (De Waal, p. 207)
While
human warfare exceeds the chimps
’,
human inter-group relations also exceeds the bonobos
’
Our societies are never completely competitive, never completely peacefulSlide31
Physical Anthropology Conclusion
What we can learn by observing the relatives who share almost all of our DNASlide32
What is Uniquely Human?
List some qualities/characteristics that clearly differentiates us from the great apes:
Greed
Hate
Morality
Destructive
Art/Creativity
Cruelty
Love
Marriage
Style/Fashion
Language
CurrencySlide33
Is it...Sympathy?
Chimps – who cannot swim – have drowned trying to save other chimps
After a fight between two chimps, others would console the loser
Rhesus monkeys, given the chance to get food by pulling a chain that would also give an electric shock to a companion, will starve themselves for several daysSlide34
Possible Implications
Physical/Biological Anthropologists argue that
human morality grew
out of these types of behaviours
Evolutionary Biologist Marc Hauser proposed in
Moral Minds
that the
brain has a genetically shaped mechanism for acquiring moral rules
Anthropologists do not argue
Chimps have morality
, but rather that
human morality would be impossible without certain emotional building blocks
that are at work in chimp/bonobo/monkey societies
To console requires
empathy
and a level of self awareness that only apes and humans possessSlide35
Is it...Reconciliation?
If two chimp males fail to make up, female chimps will often bring the rivals together – as if sensing that the discord makes the community worse off
Sometimes females will head off a fight by taking stones out of the males hands
Chimps
(and others, like macaques monkeys) have a
sense of social orde
r, and sometimes act for the greater good of the group
This is a significant
precursor of human moralitySlide36
Is it...Reciprocity?
Chimps are more likely to share food with those who have
groomed them
Capuchin monkeys show their displeasure if given a smaller reward than a partner did for performing the same task
Empathy, peace-making, following social rules, and reciprocity are the basis of
sociality
Human sociality adds two levels of sophistication:
human societies enforce moral codes more rigorously – with rewards, punishments, and reputation building
they also apply a unique degree of judgment and reason
Slide37
Disagreements
Evolutionary Biologist
George Williams dismisses morality as an accidental by product of evolution
Psychologists object to attributing any emotional state to animals
Philosopher Immanuel Kant believed morality must be based on reason, while David Hume believed moral judgments proceed from emotions
More recently, Jesse Prince argued that moral sentiments are shaped by culture, not geneticsSlide38
Concluding Points
Anthropologist’s work challenge the idea that there is a uniquely human behaviour
Anthropologists and moral philosophers have recently begun a dialogue about human morality and its origins
From an evolutionary point of view, primate social behaviour suggest how human social behaviours and ethical codes may have developed