Confirmation Bias
Only perceiving information which supports your current opinion of an issue
Modern Misuse: What are the most common misconceptions of evolution in popular culture
- increasing complexity: species are becoming more complex over time
- improvement: species are improving over time
- evolution can happen in a single individual during its lifetime
- there is an evolutionary basis for race
- humans are somehow separate from, or better than, animals
Zeitgeist
The character or spirit of society during a particular era
from confirmation bias: the character of a society influences how it interprets and responds to new information
-victorian zeitgeist: might = right, white man = superiour, survival of the fittest
The White Man’s Burden
- poem
- The white man is “civilized” and it is his job to bring the “less civilized” races into civilization
- european view of the rest of the world (we are better and doing this for good)
Scientific Racism
- def: the search for empirical scientific evidence justifying racism
- White scientists used this to justify white supremacy
Malthusian Theory
- populations cannot expand exponentially
- resources(food, space) limit growth
Biometrics
- def: measurement range of biological features
- skull shape differences were used to justify white supremacy
Pater Family
- expected family norm (gender roles)
- oldest male was the head of the house and made ALL decisions
- Widespread toxic masculinity
Muscular Christianity
-christians must be paragons of physical prowess
Epigamic selection in the context of Victorian England
-Academics loved intrasexual selection : males competing over females, the strongest males being the most successful.
-Epigamic selection was scorned (how could females have the most important impact of sexual success in the male??)
Epigamic: the female didn’t choose the male, he won her over with his beautiful phenotype
Darwinism
Darwin: Only the fittest survive, resources are limiting
- Maine concepts
1. males compete for the right to mate with females (intrasexual selection)
2. Females can choose her mate in some species.
Survival of the Fittest
the fittest individuals survive
nothing about reproduction
Social Darwinism
- The application of natural selection to human society
- class warfare, applied to the concept of race
Eugenics
- the genetic approach to social darwinism
- def: to improve the genetic quality of the human race by excluding certain groups of people from passing on their genes
- animal domestication processes should be applied to humans
- duh all the eugenicists thought they were people with desirable traits
- biometrics can be linked to behaviour
- we could breed “better” people
- forced sterilizations
Better Baby Contests
def: government run contests to find the visually superior baby to display
- parents win a prize
Criminal Profiling
def: biometrics could be used to predict the likelihood of future criminal behaviour
- this is where the idea of a mug shot was created
Butler Act
prohibited the teaching of the evolution theor in all universities and public schools in TN
Scopes MonkeyTrial
- Scopes violated the Butler Act.
- Scopes was found guilty
Teach the Controversy
-promote the idea that creationism is on the same level of support as evolutionary theory, and both should be presented for the student to decide for themselves
Creation science
-supposedly scientific support for the christian creation
Young Earth
- god created everything
- but dinos and evolution occurred to
Victorian England: what were the themes?
- white man’s burden
- scientific racism
- rapid technological improvement: general perception that mankind was at the peak of civilization
- malthusian theory
- gender roles
- christianity and the bible were interpreted literally
Gender roles
- women were considered underdeveloped men
- education in women was linked to a loss of fertility
