Thursday September 5 What is Ecological and Evolutionary Anthropology What is anthropology the study of people and culture as well as our ancestors how we got where we are and interact with the world around us including non human primates Holistic study of humankind and their closest relatives through space and time The 5 field approach o Cultural anthropology the studies of cultures and society and their recent past often live with the people they re studying o Archaeology the study of past or historic societies through the material objects of their cultures including material items waste etc o Linguistics the study of language structure and evolution and the cultural context of things including accents and slang o Biological physical anthropology includes study of primates forensics evolution medical anthropology etc o Applied anthropology take knowledge gathered from these fields and use it to try and improve peoples quality of life What is ecology a holistic study of interactions between organisms between and within species and between organisms and their surrounding environment biotic and abiotic components processes interactions Biotic living abiotic nonliving What is evolutionary biology study of changes to form and function through time What produced diversity of life on earth o Descent of species o Origin of new species What is ecological and evolutionary anthropology study of relationships between hominid and non hominid primates and their biophysical environment to understand changes in physiology and behavior through space and time Trajectory of systems thinking o Mechanical approach first big idea about how the earth fit together and functioned reductionist way of thinking o Ecosystems approach how parts are interconnected its more holistic the world is less of a machine o Complexity Complex adaptive systems approach how things are interconnected but how complicated simultaneously they are Mechanical systems approach pre darwin reductionist focuses on individual parts world is predictable whole is no more than sum of parts Ecosystems approach 1964 the whole is greater than the sum of its parts Assumes 1 ecosystem is basic unit of nature which is all interconnected 2 biodiversity increases stability 3 change is bad strive for homeostasis main difference between this and complexity theory energy flows only Complexity Complex adaptive systems approach whose is greater than sum of its parts change is expected non linear and may or may not be bad adaptation and adaptive capacity are important energy and information flows A complex Biocultural approach combination of environment culture and genetics o A scientific study of what we inherit genetically what we inherit culturally and our experience within our environment o More than nature vs nurture o Culture affects human biocultural evolution through adaptations shapes political economy shaped the human brain and life history influences behavior and how we view the world What is science Science is about what we can know a process tool to try and figure out unknowns goal to advance knowledge of natural world by describing and explaining the universe as accurately and fully as possible Characteristics of science o Testable hypothesis testable statement that potentially explains an observed phenomena o Deals exclusively with the natural world o Parsimonious tries not to be complicated occams razor when faced with two possible explanations the simpler of the two is the one most likely to be true o Probabilistic o Logical rigor we repeatedly test something and our final explanation of the data is done relatively to the initial hypothesis self correcting approach The scientific method Observation questioning hypothesis prediction experiment result Hypothesis Theory vs scientific law o Observation applies to single or small number of events describes what happens o Law applies to all events describes what happens o Hypothesis explains why things happens applies to single or small numbers of events o Theory explains why things happens applies to all events Science is a culture 1 Communal 2 Universal 3 Disinterestedness 4 Organized skepticism Tuesday September 10 Natural history and the origins of evolutionary thought Early milestones Creation Stories o Iroquois creation myth o Jewish Christian Islam Essentialism Advocated by Plato each kind of thing has unchanging core of features very reductionist reproach no variation from true form Great chain of being advocated by Aristotle builds on essentialism basis for Judeo Christian beliefs Advent of a scientific revolution o 3 Principles continuity plentitude unilinear graduation Species and Status Kingdom phylum class order genus species o Renaissance 1400 s 1700 s o Understand world by observing natural processes o EX Vesalius Galen DaVinci human dissection o Heliocentric universe versus geocentric universe Galileo and Copernicus challenge Vatican o Edward Tyson dissects juvenile chimpanzee 1699 compares with human and monkey physical continuity suggested in similarities 48 similarities between humans and chimps and 35 between chimps and monkeys o Carolus Linnaeus and binomial nomenclature 1740 s 1760 s o Species organisms that actually or potentially interbreed o Monogeism all humans one species abolitionists and early evolutionists supported this idea o 1785 o Father of modern geology o KEY calculated Earth s age in millions of years o 4 54 billion year old lunar rock meteorites Australian rocks o Geological evidence evolutionary time span o 1812 o Fossil dig on the Seine noticed different layers of rocks had different species of flora and fauna the ones at the bottom being the most different from the ones at the top o Catastrophism natural disasters responsible for extinctions new species replace old o Key history guided by divine intervention is progressive o Uniformitarianism o Processes like erosion and uplift at work in past and in present o Deep Time theory o KEY Time is cyclic and history unfolds without requiring divine intervention after creation James Hutton Georges Cuvier Charles Lyell Jean Baptiste Lamark o 1809 o Transformational Evolution o Inheritance of acquired characteristics o Law of use and disuse o Giraffe example needed to eat leaves on a tree so it grew its Thomas Malthus neck longer o 1798 o Founded science of demography o KEY only the fittest get resources o Influenced Darwin s thinking Natural selection Differential survivorship and reproduction due to