Zoology
Modified: 2023-08-14 (2:31 PM CDST)
-
Zoology is the study of the biology of animals.
- Animals behave, so
some zoologists study behavior in the context of biology.
- Humans are
animals too, so, strictly speaking, some zoologists study humans and
their behavior too. It
- is useful at this point to remind ourselves
that we are animals, and that the study of animals often generalizes
to human studies.
- Theoretically, zoology is dominated by the theory of evolution.
- Zoologists' nearly single-minded devotion to that theory makes
zoology quite different than psychology.
- Specifically, zoologists
tend to be much more likely to search for functional explanations of
behavior than are most psychologists.
- For example, the question of
why two sexes exist is one that has received considerable attention
in the literature of theoretical biology.
- The two sexes evolved from
a single sex, and then two sexes came to be the dominant pattern;
there are many more sexually reproducing species than there are
asexually reproducing ones.
- Theoretical questions about why two sexes evolved and then
succeeded so mightily are hotly debated.
- However, at least until
only very recently, most social psychologists studying human sexual
behavior would never have stopped to consider the question of why two
sexes exist.
- Recently, some social psychologists have been framing
their research questions in a more biological way, and they have
produced some very interesting research.
- Another difference between zoologists and psychologists is the
stature of Charles Darwin.
- In psychology, there is no person with the
equivalent intellectual stature that Darwin has in zoology.
- There are
good reasons for that difference.
- Darwin's theory transformed biology
and thus zoology nearly completely.
- Before Darwin, biology was mostly
concerned with collecting and counting specimens, and there was no
underlying theoretical foundation.
- After Darwin and his evolutionary
theory, the data in biology began to make theoretical sense.
- In other
words, Darwin gave biology and zoology its marching orders, and they
have been following those orders since 1859.
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