USC Social Psychology (MWF 1:30-2:30 class)

[kisjmsajme]

Thank you for your help!

welcome sir!!

[kisjmsajme]

salamat!
salamat!....knsa d.i ni?..hhahaa

welcome!!hehehe yenyen ni..

[regnauld]

One of the most important recent discoveries in palaeontology was that of Ida, the fossil of a primate from a very well known treasure trove of fossils, namely, the Messel Pit. She is the subject of the book — The Link: Uncovering Our Earliest Ancestor, by Colin Tudge. The primate fossil record is sparse — the earliest and most famous to have been studied so far is Lucy — the fossil discovered by Donald Johanson in 1974 in East Africa. Lucy, the closest to the missing link, was 3.2 million years old and had been the most decisive evidence for the fact that humans evolved from primates and that modern humans must have originated in Africa. Even Lucy was only 40 per cent complete.

A vital link to our earliest ancestor

[regnauld]

Who sang Lucy? 5 points

10 students will answer now! Bonus points! hehehe

[josheene_cavero]

welcome!!hehehe yenyen ni..

ahhh ikaw d.i na..."hello" thank u again. haha

[kisjmsajme]

Who sang Lucy? 5 points

10 students will answer now! Bonus points! hehehe

beatles!! hehehe

[regnauld]

beatles!! hehehe

I need 9 more!

[regnauld]

Just a point of discussion of man's nature!

Most people think that man (generally meaning woman and man) have an innate or inborn nature. This innate or inborn nature of man is the starting point of most religions. (I hope I am not stepping on some "religious" toes here). For example, the Christians believed that man by nature is sinful ( and there is a Saviour who can wash away man's sins if we let Him). The Jews, on the other hand, believe that man's innate nature is good ( and that is why they follow their torah ( an accumulation of some 600+ laws) to help man stay on the course of goodness, lest he fails to do so). The Hindus believe that man has an innate "soul" called Atman which is pure and good (and which he can achieve by practising a state of living called dharma.) The Buddhists believe this pureness but they named it the Buddha nature (and which they believe is external to man, but can be achieved by their practising the Noble 8-fold path). The Muslims believe man can access both heaven and hell ( and it is the Prophets that guide him to follow the right path.)


My point is not to debate religion nor to discuss what this nature really is, but to discuss how we think about our nature. Before we begin to discuss how we think, take this example below which shows how people thought about a certain discovery.


It was found that certain particles (referred to as organelles) in our cells, called mitochondria, have their own genetic material or DNA different from our nuclear DNA. This DNA made it possible to trace our mitochondria to see if we inherited them from our parents. It was found that we inherited our mitochondria almost entirely from our mothers and not our fathers. ( because mitochondria from sperm cells didn't enter the ovum during fertilisation, and most of which entered were also destroyed). This became a powerful tool which can trace our family tree through our mothers. (from Understanding Evolution, university of Berkeley)

An amazing conclusion was that if we could trace this lineage of our mothers, then grandmothers, then great grandmothers, and so on ... for about 50 or more generations, we all came from the same woman! There was great excitement at the time of this discovery (1987). People thought that this proved the existence of Eve. (so they called our "single" ancestral mother mitochondrial Eve.) However, later on scientists begin to argue that the actual nature of the experiment itself would have produced a single person at the end. Why? Let's take a group of people involved in the study. Call this group A. Then we trace this group to their mothers. This group of mothers will be called group B. Then we trace the group of mothers of these mothers (through their mitochondria) and call this group C. Definitely , group A will be largest, group B smaller and group C still smaller because C is the parent to B, and B is the parent to A. ( Parents are only 1 (in this case the mother only) whereas children can be more than 1). If we go on for many generations, we will reach this single individual mathematically. This is now referred to as mtMRCA (mitochondrial-Most Common Recent Ancestor) to us all, but did not prove whether there is one or more than one woman at that time when our lineages meet. Other scientists have the same idea for tracing men's inheritance through their Y chromosome ( since only fathers handed down Y chromosome to their sons) and soon discovered the Y Chromosomal Adam. They found three 'problems' with the thought or theory of Eve's discovery. 1. There were different 'Adams' and 'Eves' for different races.
2. 'Adam' lived approximately 48,000 years ago. 'Eve' lived approximately 93,000 years ago.
3. The oldest fossils of human origin known to man was the Kenyantropus (discovered by Louis Leaky in 2001) that dates back to 4.2 million years. 'Adam' and 'Eve' fell short of that by millions of years.


(Adam is now renamed Y-MRCA). It must be emphasized that these discoveries did not prove or disprove the theory of Adam and Eve. They just showed that we can inherit genes from our ancestors which can be traced back a certain number of generations. That's it. No more, no less. (The study actually showed our longest surviving family line that can be traced back through history by our present biological methodology. Some family lines die off (when there are no descendants from a pair of mates) and some continue as far as they can. What it didn't show was whether we descended from a pair or a group of individuals.)

Back to our Nature of Man. What I think is that our nature is what we think it is. If we think we have an innate good nature, than we have it. If we think our nature is otherwise, then it is. Our thinking defines our nature. For example, as a Biology teacher, if I think biology is boring then it will become so. But if I think Biology is interesting, then it will also become so. Be careful of what you think. You are what you think. Keep this in mind. Our environment affects our thoughts. If we want to be good, surround ourselves with goodness and good friends. If our friends are always negative to our thoughts, then we are in danger of being affected by their thoughts.

[daniellearellano]

Who sang Lucy? 5 points

10 students will answer now! Bonus points! hehehe

beatles sir...!..mga '60's pa daw na sir..ahahahah!,,
good morning sir!

[regnauld]

beatles sir...!..mga '60's pa daw na sir..ahahahah!,,
good morning sir!

7 students more!