Term Paper on "Human Evolution"
Term Paper 5 pages (1335 words) Sources: 1+
[EXCERPT] . . . .
Human EvolutionCultural variation and changes as determined by the evolutionary process: Analysis of "Culture and the Evolutionary Process" by Robert Boyd and Peter Richerson (1988)
In the study of human evolution, natural science is generally treated as having more significant and dominant role than social science, specifically anthropology or the study of culture. In the seminal work "Culture and the Evolutionary Process" (1988), authors Robert Boyd and Peter Richerson investigates and analyzes the role that the evolutionary process has in influencing cultural changes in the population. More specifically, the authors looked into the interplay between culture and science in helping develop human society holistically, that is, biologically and culturally.
Boyd and Richerson provide two general assumptions that lead to their hypothesis, which posits that science and culture significantly influence each other in understanding the human evolutionary process. In the words of the authors, "process-oriented "scientific" analyses help us understand how history works, and "historical" data are essential to test scientific hypotheses about how populations and societies change" (Boyd & Richerson, 1992:201).
The general assumptions that support the book's thesis include the following: (1) history is a determined pattern of cultural events that, when collated over a period of time, can help understand the human culture over a period or even in a specific or particular period of time, and (2) these determined patterns of cultural changes and variations influenced human evolution, simultaneously as biological changes are occurring in the l
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In order to establish the relationship of science and culture in promoting human evolution, Boyd and Richerson explicated on the concept of culture change as a precursor to history and historical changes, and ultimately, biological change in living organisms, particularly humans. The exploration into the possible link between culture and science (specifically evolutionary process) that the authors analyzed was not exactly a conceptual exploration but a methodological one. Boyd and Richerson sought to prove that determining cultural changes over time through evolutionary process theories and techniques is feasible and effective in tracing the origins of human evolution, both on a biological and cultural level.
With this methodology at hand, the analysis involved a "Darwinian approach" to culture, establishing the role that culture plays in determining history and influencing human behavior (that is, looking into one facet of human behavior as influenced by culture) (181):
The idea that unifies the Darwinian approach is that culture constitutes a system of inheritance. People acquire skills, beliefs, attitudes, and values from others by imitation and enculturation (social learning), and these "cultural variants" together with their genotypes and environments, determine their behavior. Since determinants of behavior are communicated from one person to another, individuals sample from and contribute to a collective pool of ideas that changes over time.
This passage brings into fore and launches the discussion on the interdependence of both genetic and cultural determinants to human evolution. In their discussion, Boyd and Richerson illustrated how cultural change is induced in human society in the same manner as biological changes changed the way humans evolved throughout history. Like the process of elimination that governed natural selection in the Darwinian evolution, cultural changes and variation emerged out of people's selection of specific traditions, beliefs, and language that will dominate within a society and a specific period of time. The survival of a particular type of culture is based on different factors, foremost of which the dominance level it has on the society, that is, how frequent these traditions, values, and beliefs are practiced and subsisted to, respectively. Thus, 'inheritance' in the case of culture is defined as the traditions, belief systems, and values that continued to prevail and develop, and is currently practiced by some societies today.
This 'cultural version' of natural selection demonstrated that cultural change is no different from biological change in serving as catalyst of human evolution. "Strings of cultural events," which bring about history, are defined as "just scientific explanations applied to systems that change through time" (184). This assertion is supported by the fact that… READ MORE
Quoted Instructions for "Human Evolution" Assignment:
“Content
Your paper must be based in part on a book that you choose from the book list provided to you on Blackboard. This book will serve as a jumping off point for your paper. In addition to the book that you choose from the list, you must use 4 additional scientific sources found through your own research (you may not use web pages). Please note: this is not a book report, it is a research paper. The book that you choose from the list provided should provide a starting point for a more in depth study of your chosen subject.
Formatting
Arial 12 pt. font (do not use ANY other font)
1” margins (make sure you adjust the settings in ‘page setup’ of Word)
Double Spaced
Page numbers at the bottom of your page
Bibliography
Your bibliography must only contain sources used in writing your paper. You must use a minimum of 5 academic sources (websites cannot be used). Each of those sources should be cited at least once within your paper.
Each paragraph should contain at least one in text citation (not to be confused with direct quotes). You are only allowed 3 direct quotes in the text, and they must add up to less than 5 lines in total. Basically, almost all of the paper must be in your own words.
CHOOSE ONE BOOK FOR RESEARCH AND THEN 5 ADDITIONAL ACADEMIC SOURCES EXCLUDING INTERNET WEBSITES
Living Primates
In the Shadow of Man
by ***** Goodall 2000
Through a Window
by ***** Goodall 2000
The Chimpanzees of Gombe
by ***** Goodall 1996
Gorillas in the Mist
by Dian Fossey 2000
A Brief History of the Mind: From Apes to Intellect and Beyond
by William H. Calvin 2004
The Hunting Apes: Meat Eating and the Origins of Human Behavior
by ***** B. Stanford 1999
Demonic Males: Apes and the Origins of Human Violence
by Dale Peterson, Richard Wrangham 1997
Significant Others: The Ape-Human Continuum and the Quest for Human Nature
by ***** B. Stanford 2001
The Woman That Never Evolved
by Sarah Hrdy 1999
Mother Nature: Maternal Instincts and How They Shape the Human Species
by Sarah Hrdy 2000
Our Inner Ape: A Leading Primatologist Explains Why We Are Who We Are
by Frans de Waal 2005
Chimpanzee Politics: Power and Sex among Apes
by Frans de Waal 2000
Peacemaking among Primates
by Frans de Waal 1990
Next of Kin: My Conversations with Chimpanzees
by Roger Fouts, Stephen Tukel Mills 1998
Kanzi: The Ape at the Brink of the Human Mind
by Sue Savage-Rumbaugh, Roger Lewin 1996
Kanzi's Primal Language: The Cultural Initiation of Primates Into Language
by Par Segerdahl, William Fields, Sue Savage-Rumbaugh 2006
The Egalitarians - Human and Chimpanzee: An Anthropological View of Social Organization
by Margaret Power 1991
Chimpanzee Material Culture: Implications for Human Evolution (Cambridge Studies in Biological & Evolutionary Anthropology)
by William C. McGrew 1992
The Cultured Chimpanzee: Reflections on Cultural Primatology
by W. C. McGrew 2004
Among Orangutans: Red Apes and the Rise of Human Culture
by Carel van Schaik, Perry van Duijnhoven 2004
The Red Ape: Orangutans and Human Origins
by Jeffrey H. Schwartz 2005
Apes, Language, and the Human Mind
by Sue Savage-Rumbaugh, Stuart G. Shanker, Talbot J. Taylor 2001
Bonobo: the Forgotten Ape
by Frans B. M. de Waal, Frans Lanting 1998
How Monkeys See the World: Inside the Mind of another Species
by Dorothy L. Cheney, Robert M. Seyfarth 1992
The Dynamic Dance: Nonvocal Communication in African Great Apes
by Barbara J. King 2004
Sex and Friendship in Baboons
by Barbara B. Smuts 1999
The Thinking Ape: The Evolutionary Origins of Intelligence
by Richard Byrne 1995
Almost Human: A Journey into the World of Baboons
by Shirley C. Strum 2001
Baboon Mothers and Infants
by Jeanne Altmann 2001
Paleoanthropology
From Lucy to Language
by Donald Johanson, Blake Edgar 1996
Lucy: The Beginnings of Humankind
by Donald Johanson, Maitland Edey 1990
Upright: The Evolutionary Key to Becoming Human
by ***** Stanford 2003
Lowly Origin: Where, When, and Why Our Ancestors First Stood Up
by Jonathan Kingdon 2003
Chosen Species: The Long March of Human Evolution
by Juan Luis Arsuaga, Ignacio Martínez 2006
Dragon Bone Hill: An Ice-Age Saga of Homo erectus
by Noel Thomas Boaz, Russell L. Ciochon 2004
How Homo Became sapiens: on the Evolution of Thinking
by Peter Gardenfors 2004
The Australopithecine Face
by Yoel Rak 1983
Unraveling Piltdown
by John Evangelist Walsh 1998
The Piltdown Forgery
by J. S. Weiner, Chris Stringer 2004
Piltdown: A Scientific Forgery (Natural History Museum publications)
by Frank Spencer 1990
The First Human: The Race to Discover Our Earliest Ancestors
by Ann Gibbons 2006
First in Line: Tracing Our Ape Ancestry
by Tom Gundling 2005
Becoming Human: Evolution and Human Uniqueness
by Ian Tattersall 1999
Braindance: New Discoveries about Human Origins and Brain Evolution
by Dean Falk 2004
Man the Hunted: Primates, Predators, and Human Evolution
by Donna Hart, Robert W. Sussman 2005
Bones, Stones and Molecules: "Out of Africa" and Human Origins
by ***** W. Cameron, Colin P. Groves 2004
The Ape in the Tree: An Intellectual and Natural History of Proconsul
by Alan Walker, Pat Shipman 2005
The Wisdom of the Bones: In Search of Human Origins
by Alan Walker, Pat Shipman 1997
The Hunt for the Dawn Monkey: Unearthing the Origins of Monkeys, Apes, and Humans
by Christopher Beard 2004
Peking Man: The Discovery, Disappearance and Mystery of a Priceless Scientific Treasure
by Harry l. Shapiro 1975
The Neanderthal's Necklace: In Search of the First Thinkers
by Juan Luis Arsuaga 2002
The Last Neanderthal: The Rise, Success, and Mysterious Extinction of Our Closest Human Relatives
by Ian Tattersall 1999
The Neanderthal Legacy
by Paul Mellars 1995
The Neandertals: Of Skeletons, Scientists, and Scandal
by Erik Trinkaus 1994
The Neanderthals: Changing the Image of Mankind
by Erik Trinkaus, Pat Shipman 1993
The Shanidar Neanderthals
by Erik Trinkaus 1983
In Search of the Neanderthals: Solving the Puzzle of Human Origins
by Christopher Stringer, Clive Gamble 1993
Honor among Thieves. A Zooarchaeological Study of Neandertal Ecology
by Mary C. Stiner 1995
The Neandertal Enigma: Solving the Mystery of Modern Human Origins
by James Shreeve 1995
The Singing Neanderthals: The Origins of Music, Language, Mind, and Body
by Steven Mithen 2006
Uniquely Human: The Evolution of Speech, Thought, and Selfless Behavior
by Philip Lieberman 1993
The Symbolic Species: The Co-Evolution of Language and the Brain
by Terrence W. Deacon 1998
Making Silent Stones Speak: Human Evolution and the Dawn of Technology
by Kathy D. Schick, Nicholas Toth 1994
Genetics and Modern Variation
The Journey of Man: A Genetic Odyssey
by Spencer Wells 2004
Evolution and Nutrition: A Biocultural Perspective
by Andres Roberto Frisancho 2005
Human Adaptation and Accommodation
by Andres Roberto Frisancho 1995
Patterns of Human Growth
by Barry Bogin 1999
The Growth of Humanity
by Barry Bogin 2001
The Evolution Explosion: How Humans Cause Rapid Evolutionary Change
by Stephen R. Palumbi 2002
Mapping Human History: Genes, Race, and Our Common Origins
by Steve Olson 2003
Genetics and the Search for Modern Human Origins
by John H. Relethford 2001
Reflections of Our Past: How Human History is Revealed in Our Genes
by John H. Relethford 2004
African Exodus: The Origins of Modern Humanity
by Christopher Stringer, Robin McKie 1997
Evolutionary Biology of Aging
by Michael R. Rose 1994
Culture and the Evolutionary Process
by Robert Boyd, Peter J. Richerson 1988
Not By Genes Alone: How Culture Transformed Human Evolution
by Peter J. Richerson, Robert Boyd 2004
*****
How to Reference "Human Evolution" Term Paper in a Bibliography
“Human Evolution.” A1-TermPaper.com, 2006, https://www.a1-termpaper.com/topics/essay/human-evolution-cultural-variation/6023505. Accessed 17 Jun 2024.
Human Evolution (2006). Retrieved from https://www.a1-termpaper.com/topics/essay/human-evolution-cultural-variation/6023505
A1-TermPaper.com. (2006). Human Evolution. [online] Available at: https://www.a1-termpaper.com/topics/essay/human-evolution-cultural-variation/6023505 [Accessed 17 Jun, 2024].
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[1] ”Human Evolution”, A1-TermPaper.com, 2006. [Online]. Available: https://www.a1-termpaper.com/topics/essay/human-evolution-cultural-variation/6023505. [Accessed: 17-Jun-2024].
1. Human Evolution [Internet]. A1-TermPaper.com. 2006 [cited 17 June 2024]. Available from: https://www.a1-termpaper.com/topics/essay/human-evolution-cultural-variation/6023505
1. Human Evolution. A1-TermPaper.com. https://www.a1-termpaper.com/topics/essay/human-evolution-cultural-variation/6023505. Published 2006. Accessed June 17, 2024.
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