scholarly journals Rethinking the theory of evolution: New perspectives on human evolution and why it matters for Theology

2016 ◽  
Vol 72 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Wentzel Van Huyssteen
Keyword(s):  
Human Evolution ◽  
Life Histories ◽  
Niche Construction ◽  
Gene Pools ◽  
Natural Environments ◽  
Human Origins ◽  
Religious Imagination ◽  
Theory Of Evolution ◽  
Genus Homo ◽  
Evolutionary Success

This article addresses the issue of human imagination from the perspective of ‘niche construction’ in the wider discussion about ‘what makes us human’ and what it means to be a ‘self’, specifically for the Christian faith and for theology. In the article, a brief review of human origins and human evolution demonstrates the path and substantive impact of changes in behaviour, life histories and bodies in our human ancestors and us as humans ourselves. In the interactive process of niche construction, potentially changeable natural environments were, and are, acting continuously on variation in the gene pools of populations, and in this way gene pools were modified over generations. It is argued that a distinctively human imagination is part of the explanation for human evolutionary success and can be seen as one of the structurally significant aspects of the transition from earlier members of the genus Homo to ourselves as we are today. There is thus a naturalness to human imagination, even to religious imagination, that facilitates engagement with the world that is truly distinct. This provides fruitful addition to the toolkit of inquiry for both evolutionary scientists and interdisciplinary theologians interested in reconstructing the long, winding historical path to humanity.

On Human Origins: A Bahá’í Perspective

1990 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
pp. 45-58
Author(s):  
Craig Loehle
Keyword(s):  
Human Evolution ◽  
Spiritual Development ◽  
Developmental Process ◽  
Human Origins ◽  
Literal Interpretation ◽  
Theory Of Evolution ◽  
Baha'i Faith ◽  
Divine Origin ◽  
The Individual

The question of human origins has been one of the major points of conflict between scientific and religious views. The scientific account of human evolution poses difficulties for those who demand a literal interpretation of scripture and believe in a special, divine origin for humanity. These difficulties are resolved by the Bahá’í writings, which view human evolution, spiritual development in the individual, the advancement of civilization, and the progress of religion as all representing a single fundamental developmental process and spiritual principle underlying all of creation. Rather than being in conflict with the theory of evolution, the Bahá’í Faith itself incorporates an evolutionary worldview.

scholarly journals Information about Human Evolution: An Analysis of News Published in Communication Media in Spanish between 2015 and 2017

Publications ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 28
Author(s):  
Jon Ander Garibi ◽  
Alvaro Antón ◽  
José Domingo Villarroel
Keyword(s):  
Digital Media ◽  
Human Evolution ◽  
Scientific Knowledge ◽  
High Frequency ◽  
Print Media ◽  
Biological Evolution ◽  
Knowledge Dissemination ◽  
Communication Media ◽  
Theory Of Evolution ◽  
Scientific Journalism

The present study examines a sample of 220 pieces of news related to human evolution, written in Spanish and published over a period of two years, both in digital and print media. The aim of this study is to assess the rigor and coherence of the information in the news in our sample with scientific knowledge on the theory of evolution. To this end, errors and the incorrect use of concepts related to biological evolution are identified, classified according to criteria resulting from the review of previous studies, and finally, the frequency of errors identified in news published in print media is compared with that identified in digital media. The results presented allow us to highlight the significantly high frequency of errors in the news analyzed and the most frequent error categories. Results are discussed within the frame of the important role that scientific journalism plays in the processes of knowledge dissemination, in this case, related to human evolution.

Biology and Behaviour in Human Evolution

1991 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 207-226 ◽  
Author(s):  
Phyllis C. Lee
Keyword(s):  
Human Evolution ◽  
Human Behaviour ◽  
Archaeological Record ◽  
Human Origins ◽  
Biological Perspective ◽  
Patterns And Processes ◽  
Reductionist Approach

Of the diverse approaches to understanding patterns and processes in human evolution, a focus on the biology of behaviour using principles derived from the non-human primates may have some utility for archaeologists. This article seeks to outline some biologically-based areas that could prove fruitful in exploring the origins of human behaviour within the archaeological record. It attempts to initiate a dialogue between biologists, even with their limited understanding of the problems facing those working with human origins, and archaeologists, in the hope that this dialogue will move beyond a simple reductionist approach towards the goal of integrating behaviour into a more sophisticated biological perspective.

scholarly journals Cognition blindness and cognitive gadgets

2019 ◽  
Vol 42 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cecilia Heyes
Keyword(s):  
Human Evolution ◽  
Niche Construction ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
Extended Mind ◽  
Cognitive Mechanisms ◽  
Methodological Issues ◽  
Thinking Process ◽  
Scientific Value ◽  
Central Purpose ◽  
The Continuum

Abstract Responding to commentaries from psychologists, neuroscientists, philosophers, and anthropologists, I clarify a central purpose of Cognitive Gadgets – to overcome “cognition blindness” in research on human evolution. I defend this purpose against Brunerian, extended mind, and niche construction critiques of computationalism – that is, views prioritising meaning over information, or asserting that behaviour and objects can be intrinsic parts of a thinking process. I argue that empirical evidence from cognitive science is needed to locate distinctively human cognitive mechanisms on the continuum between gadgets and instincts. Focussing on that requirement, I also address specific challenges, and applaud extensions and refinements, of the evidence surveyed in my book. It has been said that “a writer's idea of sound criticism is ten thousand words of closely reasoned adulation.” I cannot disagree with this untraceable wag, but the 30 commentators on Cognitive Gadgets provided some 30,000 words of criticism that are of much greater scientific value than adulation. I am grateful to them all. The response that follows is V-shaped. It starts with the broadest conceptual and methodological issues and funnels down to matters arising from specific empirical studies.

Woman the Gatherer

2018 ◽  
pp. 133-142
Author(s):  
Erika Lorraine Milam
Keyword(s):  
Human Evolution ◽  
Animal Behavior ◽  
Field Research ◽  
Human Origins ◽  
Male Authority

This chapter considers the research of women anthropologists during this period. It shows how many anthropologists had fought to refute the picture of universal male authority implied by common narratives of human evolution were women, often at the very beginning of what turned out to be long, notable careers. Their research gave fuller form to a rhetorically powerful alternative to Man the Hunter in reconstructions of human origins—Woman the Gatherer. Like her partner, Woman the Gatherer found intellectual support in research on long-extinct human ancestors, studies of human cultures today, and animal behavior, with a new emphasis on field research among primates.

Niche Construction and Religious Evolution

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Agustín Fuentes
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Processes ◽  
Niche Construction ◽  
Religious Institutions ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Religious Behavior ◽  
Evolutionary Context ◽  
Evolutionary Success ◽  
Religious Evolution ◽  
Core Part

In an evolutionary context neither religion nor religiosity can appear full-blown, and thus it is valuable to search for the kinds of structures, behaviors, and cognitive processes that might facilitate the appearance of such patterns in human beings. The quest for understanding the human propensity for religious behavior is aided by investigating the core role of the evolutionary processes related to the emergence of humanity. However, the majority of approaches in the field of the evolution of religious behavior, and religions themselves, rely heavily on overly reductionistic neo-Darwinian models. They seek to explain faith, religious institutions, and ritual practice primarily in terms of their relation to natural selection and their potential roles as adaptations. The niche construction approach to religious evolution provides an alternative to the primarily functionalist and reductive approach. This way of approaching the human niche, and human evolution, lays a groundwork for modeling the development of the structures (cognitive and behavioral) that can facilitate a more comprehensive, and less reductive, understanding of the human propensity for imagination, faith, and ritual. This approach suggests that a distinctively human imagination, and a uniquely human metaphysics, is a core part of being human and thus part of the explanation for human evolutionary success.

scholarly journals Present-day African analogue of a pre-European Amazonian floodplain fishery shows convergence in cultural niche construction

2016 ◽  
Vol 113 (52) ◽  
pp. 14938-14943 ◽  
Author(s):  
Doyle B. McKey ◽  
Mélisse Durécu ◽  
Marc Pouilly ◽  
Philippe Béarez ◽  
Alex Ovando ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Life Histories ◽  
Niche Construction ◽  
Dry Season ◽  
South American ◽  
High Fecundity ◽  
Large Numbers ◽  
Sustainable Fishery ◽  
Reproductive Cycles ◽  
Cultural Niche ◽  
Cultural Niche Construction

Erickson [Erickson CL (2000)Nature408 (6809):190–193] interpreted features in seasonal floodplains in Bolivia’s Beni savannas as vestiges of pre-European earthen fish weirs, postulating that they supported a productive, sustainable fishery that warranted cooperation in the construction and maintenance of perennial structures. His inferences were bold, because no close ethnographic analogues were known. A similar present-day Zambian fishery, documented here, appears strikingly convergent. The Zambian fishery supports Erickson’s key inferences about the pre-European fishery: It allows sustained high harvest levels; weir construction and operation require cooperation; and weirs are inherited across generations. However, our comparison suggests that the pre-European system may not have entailed intensive management, as Erickson postulated. The Zambian fishery’s sustainability is based on exploiting an assemblage dominated by species with life histories combining high fecundity, multiple reproductive cycles, and seasonal use of floodplains. As water rises, adults migrate from permanent watercourses into floodplains, through gaps in weirs, to feed and spawn. Juveniles grow and then migrate back to dry-season refuges as water falls. At that moment fishermen set traps in the gaps, harvesting large numbers of fish, mostly juveniles. In nature, most juveniles die during the first dry season, so that their harvest just before migration has limited impact on future populations, facilitating sustainability and the adoption of a fishery based on inherited perennial structures. South American floodplain fishes with similar life histories were the likely targets of the pre-European fishery. Convergence in floodplain fish strategies in these two regions in turn drove convergence in cultural niche construction.

Parallel evolutionary divergence in Arctic char Salvelinus alpinus complex from Transbaikalia: variation in differentiation degree and segregation of genetic diversity among sympatric forms

2015 ◽  
Vol 72 (1) ◽  
pp. 96-115 ◽  
Author(s):  
Natalia V. Gordeeva ◽  
Sergey S. Alekseyev ◽  
Arkadii N. Matveev ◽  
Vitalii P. Samusenok
Keyword(s):  
Microsatellite Loci ◽  
Life Histories ◽  
Salvelinus Alpinus ◽  
Gene Diversity ◽  
Adaptive Divergence ◽  
Evolutionary Divergence ◽  
Gene Pools ◽  
Ancestral Gene ◽  
Complex Species ◽  
Sympatric Forms

Despite the growing recognition of an important role of ecological speciation in evolution, the mechanisms driving sympatric divergence within a single population are not fully understood. We documented a series of parallel divergence events and tried to assess general regularities of the diversification of the ancestral gene pool. For that we analysed variation at microsatellite loci in populations of a highly polymorphic complex species Salvelinus alpinus from 14 Transbaikalian lakes, 10 of them hosting two or three forms: dwarf, small, and large. Our results suggest sympatric or parapatric origin of forms in all 10 lakes (in one lake, two forms out of three). Gene diversity and allelic richness of form populations are positively correlated with lake size and negatively correlated with modal length of mature fish, so that the dwarf form typically has the highest, and the large form, the lowest indices of genetic variation. The latter effect might be caused by differences in life histories, thus reflecting adaptive divergence. Sympatric forms have differently segregated gene pools (FST = 0.030–0.497, RST = 0.011–0.440) and restricted (m = 0.002–0.042) typically asymmetric long-term gene flow. The level of reproductive isolation among forms assessed using putatively neutral microsatellite loci is correlated with their differentiation in morphology, including trophic-related gill raker number, and with lake depth (i.e., with segregation of diets and with habitat diversity), which corresponds to “isolation-by-adaptation” pattern. Our data suggest that the advance in speciation stage apparently more depends upon ecological opportunities of lake ecosystems than upon their age.

Human Evolution: A new molecular view of human origins

1994 ◽  
Vol 4 (7) ◽  
pp. 651-652 ◽  
Author(s):  
John F.Y. Brookfield
Keyword(s):  
Human Evolution ◽  
Human Origins

scholarly journals Exploring gene–culture interactions: insights from handedness, sexual selection and niche-construction case studies

2008 ◽  
Vol 363 (1509) ◽  
pp. 3577-3589 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kevin N Laland
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Selection ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Human Evolution ◽  
Niche Construction ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
Feedback Mechanisms ◽  
Cultural Processes ◽  
Cultural Niche ◽  
Cultural Niche Construction ◽  
Shed Light

Genes and culture represent two streams of inheritance that for millions of years have flowed down the generations and interacted. Genetic propensities, expressed throughout development, influence what cultural organisms learn. Culturally transmitted information, expressed in behaviour and artefacts, spreads through populations, modifying selection acting back on populations. Drawing on three case studies, I will illustrate how this gene–culture coevolution has played a critical role in human evolution. These studies explore (i) the evolution of handedness, (ii) sexual selection with a culturally transmitted mating preference, and (iii) cultural niche construction and human evolution. These analyses shed light on how genes and culture shape each other, and on the significance of feedback mechanisms between biological and cultural processes.

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