TERM PAPER IN BIOPSYCHOLOGY

TOPIC: EVOLUTION, GENETICS AND

EXPERIENCE

Submitted by: Rizzalyn Pansoy

Submitted to: Mr. Aaron Ahrold G. Pamoso

Do we really come from apes, monkeys or chimpanzees? Have we evolved to
be better humans? Is there a great difference on our traits from evolving?
These questions have been tackled for countless of years all over again to
prove the existence of man and its origin but there are several dichotomies
that affect the current evolution process we have.

As we evolved further into becoming man and woman, scientist have earned
that we came as primates that have grown legs and fingers exactly how
human do. Humans are considered to be on the top of the food chain. It is
said that we human are capable of understanding and repetition of mistakes
not like animals that have been doing things on their own most thinking of
people when a child is too advanced on the earning is that is it learned or is
it part of the psychological state.

When a person shows behavioral traits assess if it is an issue or nature or

nurture but is the difference? Nature is the instinctive behaviors behavioral
development because instinctive behaviors are not learned; the early
ethnologists assumed they are entirely inherited. They were wrong, but then
so were the early experimental. While nurture is when the upbringing affects
the traits possessed by the child. John B. Watson once said “Give me a
dozen healthy infants, well-formed, and my own specified world to bring
them up in and I’ll guarantee to take any one at random and train him to
become any type of specialist I might select—doctor, lawyer, artist,
merchant-chief and, yes even beggar-man and thief.” (Watson, 1930, pp.
103–104).

What happens when a person loses his awareness? Dr. Oliver Sacks
encountered a patient diagnosed of asomatognosia; where a person is
unaware of his own body parts. He didn’t even notice his left leg has gone
missing thinking of it as a joke and threw it away but landing on the floor
only to notice that his own leg is gone not realizing what he had thrown was
his. It is a tragedy for a person to lose his awareness of oneself, now-a-
days in our society mental awareness is not talked about much people would
say that psychologist are only doctors for crazy people, even old people say
that all psychologists are also crazy but we assess on what we have in the
current issues. We see beggars on streets, we see “mga nabuang sa dalan”
many of them need mental help rather than just food and drinks here we
can say that a person who has lost his own awareness is helpless.

G. G. Gallup’s research on self-awareness in chimpanzees he pointed out

that even nonhumans, who are assumed to have no mind, are capable of
considerable psychological complexity—in this case, self-awareness.
Chimpanzees given a test on self-awareness a red line was drawn on their
eyebrow and a mirror was presented here on the chimpanzees were still
focusing on if it was themselves or another chimpanzee, after realizing it
was themselves they noticed the unusual red line on their eyebrow and
therefore G.G Gallup concluded that even animals have awareness of
themselves not only us humans.

In case you have forgotten, to illustrate why it is nonsensical to try to

understand interactions between two factors by asking how much each
factor contributes. Think of a way on how art and the brain combine, we
sense the artistic capability of a person base on the talent given but to paint
a whole scenery one must have an on hand experience with the scenery
itself, thus experience and genes are a combination of what makes
something as a whole.

Human evolution was theorized by Charles Darwin, he described his theory

of evolution—the single most influential theory in the biological sciences.
Evolution influences the pool of behavior-influencing genes available to the
members of each species. The development of each individual’s nervous
system depends on the interaction of genes and experience. Experience
modifies the expression of an individual’s genetic program. As these two go
hand-in-hand species adapt to their surroundings and thus as they evolve
more their bodies are in a way adapting to the changes, when a bird is left
on an island with a bottled water e would use stones to fill the bottle and the
water will rise but as to do so the beak of the bird must adapt to the growing
change in the environment. As humans evolve the further we develop these
traits that define us from the different species under the primates. They say
that humans are at the top of the food chain thus we are the highest form of
mammals present of our time. Development is a state that is bad it a
survival of the fittest and to survive we must adapt to change.