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Darwin's Theory And Functionalism

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James’ theory involving functionalism is about how animals have a natural behavioral instinct that allows them to survive in certain, favorable environments. This coincides with Charles Darwin’s theory of natural selection and evolution and how animals have physical traits that allow them to live in a well suited environment to reproduce and pass down traits. In terms of functionalism, there could be many reasons as to why the chicken would cross the road. The main motivation is continued existence; an incentive to cross the road could be fleeing a predator or there could be a food source on the other side. Another incentive could be to escape a harsh environment to reach a more favorable one. The goal of any animal species, in this instance, the chicken, is to live long enough to reproduce to pass on its favorable traits. Freudian psychoanalysis is about how behaviors dealing with repressed urges can be analyzed and changed; this lead to modern psychodynamics in which childhood experiences play a role in behavioral development. When physical treatment did not work for his patients, he discovered they must have a nervous disorder in which it can only be treated through the mind; his work lead to the discovery of the “unconscious” part of the mind. The chicken’s desire to live drives it to unconsciously …show more content…

He studied Pavlov’s experiment and designed his own using “Little Albert” which focused on acquired irrational fears. In nature, offspring learn skills from their mother or from their own mistakes. In the example with the chicken, it either learned the behavior of crossing the road from its mother or from an induced stress mentioned earlier. Because of this conditioned behavior, it has learned that there is a beneficial outcome. Conditioned habits allow for greater survival rates so that behavioral actions can be passed on to future

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And not the child's mind only. The adult's mind too—all his life long" (Huxley, Chapter 2), shows how conditioning techniques

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Summary: Chapter One     The most consistent aspect about life is that change is always occurring; it is the one thing that we can count on. This seems to be the main theme throughout chapter one. The Chapter opens up with a story about the 2011 earthquake that caused catastrophic damage to Japan and makes the point that when something dramatic occurs in nature, we often tend to think of it as a momentary lapse of normalcy within the environment and that things will go back to their normal stable stage.  

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Darwin starts his argument by stating how closely similar certain animals and humans are formed or how humans and these “lower animals” develop over time physically and mentally. Then states how similar humans and the “lower animals” are birthed. He also makes that point of how man and these other animals have a similar structure in bodily systems such as the digestive system. Darwin then makes the point how humans are not immune to the natural selection which he sees as evidence that humans have evolved just like other creatures. Darwin even goes into a personal experience of his encounter with the Fuegians a people group who were not cultured and lived like “barbarians in terms of civilizations of the day.

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The book “Darwin’s Doubt” by Stephen C Meyer attempts to negate the negativity surrounding the theory of intelligent design by giving a creationist’s perspective on the different issues surrounding the controversy and provide an argument for the legitimacy of intelligent design from a scientific and rational viewpoint. The book is broken into three different sections part one titled “The Mystery of Missing Fossils”, part two titled “How to build an animal” and part 3 titled “After Darwin. What?” Part one of the book focuses on the lack of validation and evidence hence the name “The Mystery of Missing Fossils” and gives a very brief introduction to the problems of missing fossils, missing phyla, and just general missing validation of the evolutionary

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Yet, at some point the bird had cracked the egg and caused a sense of an adrenaline rush. Periodically, minds work against the body, holding back in order to keep “safe.” Despite this, frustration can build up, and with this it pushes the body and causes a sense of adrenaline to achieve goals the mind repressed. Not only did

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With behavioral psychology, the environment would be the determinant of the observable behavior. In the case with the chicken, the environment would be the road, what is on it, what is on the other side of the road, and anything else within sight of the area. The observable behavior would be the chicken crossing the road. There could be many reasons why the chicken would be crossing the road, such

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There are a number of other criticisms of functionalism. One is that functionalism is not in line with scientific thinking and only explains the existence of different societies in terms of their effectiveness. Marxists would add a

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Humans Applied to Darwin’s Theory As humans are biologically observed as animals, they are often taken into theory as animals. However, in Darwin’s book, On the Origin of the Species by the Means of Natural Selection, humans do not fit under the requirements to be considered what Darwin figures is an animal. If the humans do not meet his regulations, they can not be considered an animal in his theories. Thus, in On the Origin of the Species by the Means of Natural Selection, a book which he published, it is improper and unjust to place humans into the observations he has proposed.

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Did you know that whenever Charles Darwin released his theory 143 years ago the scientists of the day argued over it fiercely (Rennie) after a long while the scientists of the day were able to finally come to an agreement after studying Mr. Darwin’s theory. However the argument does not center on whether or not that evolution has occurred. The argument is how long it took the lord to create the earth. Was it six days as stated in the bible? Or did it take much longer?

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The idea of functionalism began to change American psychology. Functionalism studied three main concepts: it studied mental operations not mental elements, functionalism studied the ways the consciousness helps organisms adapt to an environment and it is acknowledging the mind-body relationship. Functionalism was primarily centered around the university of Chicago and involved the university of Michigan also. James Angell was from the University of Chicago and John Dewey studied at the University of Michigan. Angell was known for “founding” the idea of functionalism.

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In the article Atavism, the author explains the true meaning of atavism. The thesis of this essay is the theory of evolution that DNA can change over time. The author’s main claim is that atavism, a theory built upon Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution, is described as “the presence of characteristics found in remote ancestors but absent in other more recent generations.” The author argues this claim by stating, “The theory of evolution posits that DNA can change. These changes in an organism’s DNA can be good, bad or neutral.”

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1.According to Rice et al (2008:56) the rational that directed Darwin to his theory of natural selection pass on calming like this: all species are able of bring into being more offspring than their food wealth can sustain. Biological variation occurs in all species, and this variation is inherited. There are more those born than there is food to sustain them, there is rivalry between individuals for provisions. Some individuals have differences that are positive for survival, such as additional speed to outflow predators, fight to disease upright vision to locate food resources. These people are more likely to live longer life and produce more offspring than those who have dissimilarities less positive to long life and offspring production.

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Functionalism can be defined as a psychological philosophy, which considers mental life and behavior with regards to active adaptation to the person’s environment. Therefore, it provides people with the general basis on which they can develop psychological theories that are not readable and testable through controlled experiments and applied psychology. The whole idea of functionalism first arose in the United States back in the 19th century. During that time, it was used as an alternative to structuralism (Zhong, 2008).

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Evolution is a change that happens overtime to a species, the first person to suggest this theory was Charles Darwin. A biologist who spent most his life studying the evolution of several species in this planet. A biologist who revolutionised the world's perspective of the connection between species all over the world. He made a discovery that changed new things in scientific field by taking on evolution and natural selection. The reason for evolution is for organisms to adapt to their current environment and able to repopulate.

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The notion of Natural Selection defined by Darwin, is basically the Survival of Fittest--“the preservation of favourable individual differences and variations, and the destruction of those which are injurious.” [Darwin, natural selection] Through this process, if the time is infinitely long, the nature can always choose the most suitable to survive, eliminate the ones who do not adapt themselves to the environment. For instance, there is an area which is passing through a climatic change. Some of the residents there will undergo a change straight away in order to keep up with the living environment, some other species who cannot will likely be extinct.

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