This week, the materials focused around our evolution and the primates that started it all. I really appreciated this weeks lectures and videos because this is not a topic I have gotten to study a lot in the past. Going to a Catholic high school and being a psychology major has kind of hindered my knowledge in this area, we do not speak much about evolution and I found this material to be highly informative. 

I did not previously realize that so many different primates gave us so much information about evolution.One thing that shocked me this week was how closely our vision is related to primates. I did not know they could see color because they need to be able to see through the trees. I thought most animals were color blind, just because dogs are. Another thing about vision I had not considered was depth perception. I guess I just take these things for granted being a human, but I did not realize some animals do not have this skill. It makes sense that primates would need this because of the trees as well. 

I loved the mention of the famous Harlow’s monkey experiment. As a psychology major, I am very familiar with this and its implications. It kind of cracked open the nature and nurture debate, and showed an important phenomenon. I think that this can be translated into humans also and how important nurture (either from a mother or another family member) can be. 

When reading about the dilution effect, it made me think of a few scenarios in human life. Thinking about bullies (or a predator), you are more likely to be bullied if the person sees you as a loner, or an easy target. People who are in groups are also safer in traumatic scenarios like natural disasters, or even shootings. Even in horror movies we see people who leave the group are always targeted by someone or something bad. 

I found Wrangham’s hypothesis to be intriguing as well. I did not realize there was so much variety in the organization of mating in primates. I can see how orangutan’s rely on resources scattered around just by the way they are built. They are much smaller than gorillas and can fly through the trees quickly- they can cover more ground. Gorillas are a lot bigger and could win in a fight but they are not as fast as Orangutans.  I also found it interesting that Gorillas take more than one mate but they are highly protective of them and their young. Being so protective over these offspring makes me think that they would only have a lifetime mate. 

I think we can better understand our own biology from studying these primates because we learn where we came from, and maybe why we did not evolve from certain primates. Studying them is informative and I think if we study the culture and personalities of primates, we can see these translate into they way that humans are today.