Question

1. Intelligence is an adaptation to a knowledge-using, socially interdependent lifestyle--the “cognitive niche.”

True

False

2. What did Alfred Russel Wallace argue about the theory of evolution?

a. Wallace notoriously claimed that the theory of evolution by natural selection was adequate to explain human intelligence.

b. Wallace notoriously claimed that the theory of evolution by natural selection was inadequate to explain human intelligence.

3. In biology, a “niche” is sometimes defined as:

a. the role an organism occupies among its family.

b. the role an organism occupies in an ecosystem.

c. All of the above.

d. None of the above.

4.

Humans possess an ability of metaphorical abstraction, which allows them to co-opt faculties that originally evolved for physical problem-solving and social coordination, apply them to abstract subject matter, and combine them productively.

True or False

5. Where was the cradle of our species?

a. Asia

b. Eastern Africa

c. The New World

d. Western Europe

Answer 1

Ans1-True

Wallace’s apparent paradox can be dissolved with two hypotheses about human cognition. One is that intelligence is an adaptation to a knowledge-using, socially interdependent lifestyle, the “cognitive niche.” This embraces the ability to overcome the evolutionary fixed defenses of plants and animals by applications of reasoning, including weapons, traps, coordinated driving of game, and detoxification of plants.

The second hypothesis is that humans possess an ability of metaphorical abstraction, which allows them to co-opt faculties that originally evolved for physical problem solving and social coordination, apply them to abstract subject matter, and combine them productively. These abilities can help explain the emergence of abstract cognition without supernatural or exotic evolutionary forces and are in principle testable by analyses of statistical signs of selection in the human genome.(explanation for question 4)

Ans2-Wallace notoriously claimed that the theory of evolution by natural selection was inadequate to explain human intelligence.

Although Darwin insisted that human intelligence could be fully explained by the theory of evolution, the codiscoverer of natural selection, Alfred Russel Wallace, claimed that abstract intelligence was of no use to ancestral humans and could only be explained by intelligent design.

Ans3-the role an organism occupies in an ecosystem.

the niche of an organism is the functional role that it plays within an ecosystem. The niche (better refined as the 'ecological niche') is determined by the abiotic factors, which comprise of living features such as animals, plants and fungi, and biotic factors.

Ans 4-True

Ans5- Eastern Africa

The registered name of the site in the list of World Heritage sites is Fossil Hominid Sites of South Africa. According to existing archaeological and fossil evidence, the Cradle of Humankind is the Horn of Africa and along with East Africa it is often referred to as the Cradle of Humanity.