I’ve always understood evolution through a biological approach that focuses on how characteristics of species change across generation. I believe that this idea of evolution has a lot to do with the successive generations and the heritable characteristics of the expressions of genes, which goes into the process of natural selection. Natural selection brings about evolution as the species develops over generations that carry and pass along genes that make them more successful in their environment; making them survive their environment and able to produce more offspring to carry it on.

Being a psychology major, I’ve learned a little bit about Evolutionary Psychology which is a theory said to explain the psychological traits passed along through natural selection in this process of evolution. Evolutionary psychology focuses on the patterns of behavior rather than the physical characteristics. Focusing on the adaptive behaviors and the behaviors that increase the reproductive success, hand in hand with natural selection, these successful behaviors are kept and passed on throughout generations.

Evolutionary psychology focuses on mental and psychological traits such as memory, perception, language, and the adaptations as products of natural selection. The aim is to explain people’s emotions, thoughts, and responses through the theory of evolution through natural selection. This approach can identify the instincts and intelligence that people have and gaining the advantages of them and giving them opportunity for longer life spans and better health. Evolutionary psychologist believes that psychological abilities; for example, social interaction skills are rooted in the neural circuits in the brain and that they are indeed inherited. Since these innate behavioral tendencies are inherited and passed along through culture and family influences these skills are instinctual and can be passed along. Although, there is a lot of vagueness in these evolutionary hypothesis and uncertainty.

Ive learned about evolutionary psychology briefly and while I do believe there can be some explanations gained from this field as to the evolution of human behavior over time, I’m still a little skeptical. I still struggle with the idea of nature vs nurture and I think, especially in psychology, its hard to distinguish when each applies and when to confirm the origin of behavior.

The PDF, Alters and Alters focuses on the biological aspect of evolution and instead of focusing on the characteristics of the person it focuses on the characteristics and behavior of atoms and their subatomic particles as it forms the basis of physical science. This approach to evolution, through biology, explains how organisms of today are the way they are and how evolution is used to make sense of the history of life and relationships among species. It also emphasizes the importance of looking at evolution through the lens of a scientist.

Although, the PDF does mention that evolution is a wide-reaching concept and can permeate through other disciplines like psychology. I think it’s important to recognize and identify all the ways we can approach the study of evolution and the influence of natural selection that can be understood in all different fields of discipline and through all of these approaches we can see different perspectives. The only thing I think can be a little complicated is if there is contradicting perspectives. All in all I think it’s best to use every approach to evolution to understand human development.