Overview of the Development Of

I. Introduction

There is little said about the prehistory of man and in what the people at that time believed in. Following the first beginnings of believing in supernatural were in the ancient times (3500 BC - 500) when the written and spoken word appeared, various civilizations established various beliefs in the creation of the world, gods, and man. Egyptians had their Egyptian polytheistic religion (their gods Atum, Ra, Amun, etc.), Greek also practice a polytheistic religion having gods for each occasion and virtue (which were later adopted by the Romans), Jews believe/d in Yahweh. Among the various Greek and Roman school of thoughts, the atomists in particular Titus Lucretius Carus, a poet and philosopher supported the idea of biological evolution.

The later rise of new monotheistic religions like Christianity and Islam gave a theological explanation of the creation of the world and man. The Book of Genesis in Judaism's Torah, the Christian Bible, and Islam's Qur'an all talk about Adam being the first man and Eve the first woman which God created out of Adams rib. The church dogma was the ultimate truth for centuries and everybody opposing to church believes (e.g. world and man is a creation of God and not evolution or something third) was convicted by the Inquisition.

During all these millions of years we have always led a struggle for life. The rise of naturalism (the doctrine claims that scientific laws and methods can be applicable to all natural phenomena, and it rejects any kind of divine intervention any phenomena) as a "philosophical perspective", Charles Darwin introduced the theory of natural selection- the survival of the fittest, and with it the first capstones for biology the later developed modern evolutionary psychology were laid.

Today the natural sciences proved that process of human development throughout several millions years and showed that we came out of the animal realm. The question is when this transition happened which still cannot be scientifically proved so far. However this is yet not to be answered. Since longer time the natural science looks for bones of our ancestors, for the missing connecting link, so that the crucial transition of animal to humans becomes recognizable.

In this paper I will concentrate on the aspect of evolutionary psychology and give an overview of how the man evolved according to evolution theory of Charles Darwin, which with time did not changed but it is continually modified because of the development of science and technology more information have become available- as argued by the evolutionary psychology followed with a reflection of a new thesis in evolution of man.

II. Charles Darwin (Natural and Sexual Selection)

Evolutionary psychology has its foundations build upon the theory of evolution introduced by Charles Darwin in his major work The Origin of Species. His theory of the evolution of man is based on means of natural and sexual selection explained later in text.

Charles Darwin was born February 12, 1809 in Shrewsbury, Shropshire, England, and as a young child he suffered the loss of his mother. In 1825 Darwin enrolled medicine at the University of Edinburgh where he becomes an active member of the naturalist society. Darwin was very influenced by the great thinkers of the time. Charles Lyell a British geologist and lawyer published his first book Principles of Geology where he argued that earth changes very slowly and over a long period of time. This view is referred to as uniformitarianism and played a central role in Darwin's thought (Viney, W. & Brett, D., 2003.). Both Lyell and Darwin were influenced by the Lamarckian concept of Inheritance of acquired characteristics, which states that the organisms adapt to their environment during their lifetime and pass these adaptations on to their offspring. Another influence came from his grandfather Erasmus Darwin, who suggested the ideas of the possibility of common descent, but unfortunately he offered no mechanism to explain it.

In 1827 Darwin quited the medical studies and began studying for clergy at Christ's College but soon, inspired by Reverend John Stevens Henslow a botany professor at Cambridge, he saw his future in the natural science. Therefore in 1830 he continues his studies at the Cambridge University and graduates a year after.

Darwin is associated with the development of structure and function, and he suggested that evolution has influence on patterns of behavior as well as on the anatomy of the body and on the physiological aspect. He believed that ideas of human behavior can eventually be explained in terms of evolutionary principles.

The most important research material for his studies he discovered during "the voyage of the Beagle", when he was invited to a two-year expedition tour of South America. The journey took him through South America, including the west coast, Galapagos Islands, from Tahiti to Australia, and after the Keeling Islands back home. The discoveries of his research led him to the assumptions that the civilization has evolved from a more primitive organisms. He found evidence for Lyell's indication of the gradual process of the continent emerging from the ocean. After almost five years spent on the journey (over three years on land and one and a half year on the sea) he returned back to England in 1836.

After his return he was working on his career and in 1839 he got married to his cousin Emma Wedgwood. In 1859 one of his major works On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life was published and became the greatest work and the capstone for further studies in evolutionary theory. In his theory Darwin states that the organisms most fit to reproduce will pass on their traits to their offspring. When there is a large variability of traits among the population and the size of population is environmentally conditioned, then those members of the population which are not completely adapted (this maladaptation is conditioned by the environment) reproduce less and will eventually die out, and those members which are adapted to the environment will reproduce more and more and will have a greater potential to survive. Therefore, as said by Darwin the preconditions for natural selection are:

- The members of a population are fit to reproduce and have random genetic* variations.

- There are always more individuals produced than the environment can support.

- Some individuals can better adapt to the environment which enables them to survive and reproduce better.

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