Behavioural and Social Sciences

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Behavioural and Social Sciences
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Definitions

• Sociology -focuses on people in groups, the
  relationships between people and the social
  structures developed by people.
• Psychology focuses on individuals, studying
  their mental processes and behaviours.
• Anthropology concerns itself with human
  beings as a species and as members of
  different cultures.

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Two divisions of Anthropology

• Cultural - different ways humans think and act in
  cultures around the world
• Physical humans as a biological species and how
  they interact with the environment origins and
  changes

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Anthropology How did we get here?

• Until the mid 1850s , most people believed that
  humans had always been how they were and had
  lived on Earth for more 6000 years.
• 1859 British biologist Charles Darwin published
  On the Origin of Species which argued that all
  life slowly evolved.
• 1871 he published The Descent of Man which
  focused on mans relationship to other creatures.

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DARWINS THEORY Survival of the Fittest

• All plants and animals evolve from a lower order
  to a more complex form.
• Only the strongest of the offspring will survive,
  reproduce and pass on their characteristics to
  the next generation
• Any characteristic which is not necessary to
  survival will gradually disappear.
• Basically, all life on earth began over a billion
  years ago as single one-celled organisms and
  evolved to more complex species.
• Therefore, humans evolved from the lower order of
  species, otherwise known as PRIMATES!

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Survival of living things will depend on

• Predators
• Disease
• Environmental
• conditions

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RESULT
Controversy!!!

• Contradicted the theory of Creation in the Bible
• Humans were related to a lower order of animals!
  NO WAY!!!
• Upsetting and insulting to believe that our
  ancestors were apes!
• Why is evolution Controversial Anyway?

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Britains Punch magazine, 1871
The Hornet, 1871
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What makes Humans so special?

• If Darwins theory is true, then humans evolved
  very slowly from the lower order of species
  called PRIMATES (Chimpanzee, baboon, gorilla,
  gibbon and monkeys)
• Difficulty of determining when primate ended and
  humans began in the evolutionary line
• As such, many anthropologists study these
  primates to finds links between them and humans.

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Connections with other species

• Jane Goodall
• Studied the behaviour of chimps in Nigeria
  starting in 1960 for over 10 years.
• She began to recognize personality and social
  characteristics
• Discovered that primates use tools(until then
  only humans)
• Very social creatures
• They show emotions
• Dian Fossey
• Studied the mountain gorilla in Rwanda, Africa