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Section 2 – Beginnings

Reflection papers involve applying your knowledge of information learned in the weeks lecture/class activities and reflecting on your own experiences and thoughts. Papers should be about 1-2 pages (double spaced).

Reflect on and explain your thoughts to the following questions:

• What are the pros and cons of receiving prenatal screening tests? Why might some parents decide not to have these tests? If you were having a child, would you consider prenatal screening tests? Why or why not?
• As medical technology continues to improve, a person may have the opportunity to design their own baby. Do you believe this is ethical? Why or why not?

You may NOT use AI (e.g., ChatGPT or similar) for this assignment. This is considered academic dishonesty and may result in a failing grade for the assignment!

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Discussion Topic: Discussion Post #2: BeginningsDiscussion Post #2: Beginnings

Which developmental theory makes the most sense to you and why? (Think: Freud, Erikson, Piaget, Social Cognitive (Skinner, Bandura); Ethological Theory; Ecological Theory). Give examples from your own life or other personal observations on development. What evidences do you see that support this theory?

Post your answer AND a substantial response (at least two sentences) to at least one other student’s post for full credit.

You may NOT use AI (e.g., ChatGPT or similar) for this assignment. This is considered academic dishonesty and may result in a failing grade for the assignment!

• the transcript:
• Kirsten Christensen (she/her)Hello, and welcome to this week’s lecture today we’re going to be talking about biological beginnings, which is the start of section two of our course and we will be having.
• This chapter and the next chapter are all probably in today’s lecture, and so this will be the only video for you to watch this week, but let’s go ahead and get started.
• So for our agenda we’re going to start off with the evolutionary perspective will really discuss that perspective on life span development.
• we’re then going to move into our genetic foundations and so we’ll describe what genes are and how they influence human development.
• we’ll talk a little bit about reproductive challenges and choices and then finally we’ll talk about some heredity environment interactions and how these two things kind of intermingle together to produce individual differences in development.
• So starting off with the evolutionary perspective, perhaps some of you have heard of the term natural selection.
• This is maybe something you might have come across in a biology course before this is really an evolutionary process by which individuals have a certain species that are the best adapted to their environment are the ones who survived and continue to leave the most offspring.
• adaptive behavior is behavior that promotes an organism survival in their natural habitat, and so this just allows an individual or a species to have the characteristics that they need in order to survive, whatever environment that they’re in.
• In terms of the evolutionary developmental psychology perspective, there are a lot of these concepts from evolutionary psychology that are really used and applied to human development, we might think of the example of humans and their problem solving skills.
• thinking that maybe problem solving skills might have developed in us more modernly as a result from early humans right meaning to find food right and to find nutrition.
• So there are ways in which the characteristics that we have now have evolved from earlier versions of ourselves and have built those skills.
• This perspective, often emphasizes the importance of adaptation and reproduction, to ensure survival right and to encourage our species continuing on us humans.
• And yeah basically believes that offspring that adapt and develop these adaptive behaviors have those self protective treats that help them survive.
• There is really this connection between this evolutionary perspective and lifespan development it believes that.
• There is kind of like a benefit from evolutionary selection, but that those benefits tend to decrease with age.
• And that natural selection primarily operates during the first half of life and during reproductive reproductive time.
• So one example of this would be Alzheimer’s right if Alzheimer’s disease developed in humans, while they were in their 20s right like 20 year olds of 20 year olds were getting Alzheimer’s.
• natural selection probably would have eliminated it a long time ago right because it’s not very adaptive it doesn’t really help with survival it’s really important to have an impact intact memory intact, cognition when you’re young.
• For the end of life when folks are maybe a little bit closer to death anyway.
• You know their biological systems are weakening anyway and there’s a need for more of those culturally based resources right like cognitive skills literacy.
• medical technology and literacy social support, and so we kind of see that the impact of natural selection really happens during the first half of life for humans and also during that reproductive time rather than later on in life.
• So there are a couple of criticisms of course of the evolutionary psychology perspective First, it does not adequately value, social and environmental factors right it’s very reliant on understanding biological paintings and development, and so it kind of misses that area of understanding.
• It also relies on after the fact explanations and actually cannot be tested scientifically right because it doesn’t really happen on a scale that lends itself to empirical study right research, study.
• So the ideas from evolutionary psychology or best tested by just studying specific genes in humans and other species and their links to treats and behaviors rather than kind of knowing from the get go whether those things are unfolding in a particular way.
• In addition, there’s this alternative bi directional perspective that environmental and biological conditions influence each other right kind of the idea of what we would call epigenetics.
• This would this perspective would state that evolution does not necessarily dictate behavior right doesn’t necessarily say what behavior will be, but that people use their biological capacities to produce these highly diverse cultures right.
• And so, with that we’re kind of saying that evolution, maybe isn’t the thing that’s dictating how humans behave it’s more of the fact that.
• You know those biological structures allowed for the use of tools right which enabled our ancestors to manipulate their environment and construct new environmental conditions right.
• And maybe those environmental conditions and innovations, maybe produced new social selection pressures right that led to the evolution of biological systems for consciousness for thought for language right so there’s this alternative perspective.
• Just to note that the benefits derived from evolutionary selection also decrease, as we age right, whereas the need for culture increases as we age, so this kind of relates back to what I was just saying a moment ago.
• As we age right our biology.
• And our health decline right they decrease.
• As a result of that are need for social support or need to be involved in culture to access.
• resources and social supports increases as we age so that’s something that you’re going to want to keep in mind throughout the course of the Semester as we’re talking through each one of these life stages, you will start to see how the biology.
• And the benefits from evolutionary selection kind of decline over time and how there’s this increased need for connection and
• kind of culture.
• So we’re going to get down to the kind of microscopic level of how we get created.
• This obviously is a very big number right, this is one in 20 million of an ounce 120 million of an ounce is how big we are when we first start as a single cell.
• So just taking a moment to really reflect on that and think about who we are now and how old you might be and how big you might be it’s pretty incredible.
• So again, perhaps this is some terminology that you’ve all come across before but we’re just going to talk pretty briefly about jeans and chromosomes so you can kind of understand how a human starts to develop how an embryo develops all of that.
• So we’ve got this
• This image here have a cell right and we’ve got our nucleus, and the Center.
• Within our nuclei there are things we call chromosomes right and chromosomes are these thread like structures that are located in that nucleus and they’re composed of DNA.
• In this top visual here right the actual cell right we have trillions of these in our bodies right and so each cell contains a nucleus that contains chromosomes those chromosomes right.
• Are the thing that contain DNA right and DNA is that stereotypical double helix that you see right, so it has the structure of a spiral staircase.
• And it really is the kind of instructions for our body right it contains our genetic code and our genes are those segments of DNA that helps cells right.
• reproduce and make critical proteins, so that we can continue to develop and survive so each gene has its own designated place on a particular chromosome.
• and researchers are are actually right now and have been for quite some time trying to discover whether specific locations of genes.
• Whether that location is linked to certain functions, whether it’s linked to certain outcomes developmental outcomes and abilities.
• So maybe some of you have heard of the human genome genome project, this was this massive research, study, where scientists were aiming to really map the complete genetic content of ourselves right, this is about 22,000 genes.
• And so what they kind of learned from that is that genes collaborate with each other and with other non genetic factors inside and outside of the body right to really kind of get a sense of what are these genes doing right what are they responsible for.
• And so, whenever a gene is actually expressed right is a matter of collaboration right certain genes are turned on or off as a result of environmental circumstances.
• mainly through a method called methylation right and that’s when tiny molecules attach themselves to the outside of the gene.
• Making that gene less capable of receiving and responding to other biochemical signals from the body so gene expression is pretty heavily affected by environment.
• hormones in the blood can also turn genes on or off and things like stress things like radiation exercise what you eat nutrition lack of sleep.
• These can all negatively influence gene expression, as well, so we see that, while there is this really strong biological component, we also have a pretty strong environmental component.
• which relates back to our debate of nature versus nurture right there’s a little bit of both going on, when it comes to our own development.
• So for genes and chromosomes right.
• All cells in the body, except sperm and egg how 46 chromosomes in 23 pairs again, perhaps this is some review information.
• From like our high school biology course maybe you may be familiar with this and they’re these two processes of my hostess and meiosis.
• mitosis is cellular reproduction, in which a cell’s nucleus duplicates itself into two new cells, so, if you remember back from this image, here we have our nucleus.
• mitosis is the process of that sells nucleus duplicating itself meiosis is cell division forming eggs and sperm, also known as what we call gametes.
• So we’ve got a little bit of explanation here so at fertilization right, this is the reproductive stage when the egg and sperm are refusing to create what we call a zygote right, this is like the very first stage of conception.
• we’ve then got
• the zygote right which is a single cell that was formed through that fertilization when 23 unprepared eight chromosomes and 23 imperative sperm chromosomes combine right.
• In twins right and identical twins or models I got it twins a single zygote will split into two by genetically identical.
• replica right it’ll produce into to have the exact same thing, but it becomes to humans right eventually in fraternal or dies I got a twins.
• Two different eggs are fertilized by different sperm right to create two non identical sites, but they are genetically as similar to each other as regular siblings would be right so they’re not sharing the exact same DNA and genetic code like a Mano psychotic twin boys right.
• So the difference is either, there are two goats or there’s one that split into.
• So when it comes to sources of variability.
• we’re really thinking about how individuals differ from one another right, so one example of how individuals may be different from one another.
• Is through what we call mutated genes right, and this is simply just a permanently altered segment of DNA, so, if you remember back to that DNA that’s our genetic information.
• that’s kind of the code book for our bodies there might be something slightly different or unusual about a gene which causes something to be presenting as different in in reality right.
• There are also what we call susceptibility genes right, these are genes that make an individual more vulnerable to specific diseases or accelerating aging aging.
• This could, for example, maybe you be maybe you have a susceptibility gene at toward a specific type of cancer right or a susceptibility gene toward specific.
• You know disease of some other kind right, so these genes just make you more susceptible to certain things.
• there’s also what we call longevity genes, and these are genes that make an individual less vulnerable to certain diseases and more likely to live to an older age.
• So you can kind of think of susceptibility genes and longevity genes as kind of opposites of one another and, if you think about the word longevity that just means length right.
• Which is why they kind of name it that because it.
• is associated with individuals living longer living to an older age.
• we’ve also got gino type right just the kind of broad definition is it’s a person’s genetic material.
• And then there’s the phenotype right it’s how that genotype is actually expressed in observed in physical characteristics and psychological characteristics right and these can be influenced by the Environment like we talked about before.
• So one example of this would be maybe my genotype is that I have really great potential to be really, really tall right let’s say both of my parents are six foot three.
• And six foot five, and I have a really high susceptibility to be tall right.
• But if I grew up in an environment where I don’t have proper nutrition, maybe I only grow to be five foot four right and so
• the phenotype is kind of how things look in reality – the genotype is that specific genetic code and there are lots of examples of how this can how this can play out right, we might have a gene for something, but just because we do.
• doesn’t mean that it will definitely be turned on or off right the environment also plays a really big role.
• So when it comes to these sources of variability we also want to talk a little bit about what we call chromosomal abnormalities.
• treatments for these abnormalities don’t necessarily erase the problem but they may improve an individual’s adaptive behavior they might improve quality of life for these folks.
• And so, some of these are just listed here as examples, there are obviously many, many chromosomal abnormalities that can exist, just because we have so many genes and chromosomes in our DNA.
• But some examples are down syndrome client filters syndrome fragile X syndrome Turner syndrome and X, Y y syndrome.
• So you can take a moment and pause it here, if you want to read into some of the descriptions what typical treatments or supports look like and then the incidence rate how common, these are.
• You know, some of these are much more rare than others, but some of these are much more common than others.
• We then have gene linked abnormality examples right So these are chromosomal abnormalities these are gene linked abnormalities.
• And the thing to know is that everybody carries DNA very variations that predispose them to serious physical disease or mental disorder right.
• Genes that are missing genes that are non functional genes that are mutated in some way can contribute to these disorders and there is a process of genetic testing right if you are a person who is pregnant, you can get genetic testing for your fetus.
• To see if there are any identifiable genetic flaws that exist and one reason why that can be helpful, is that medical professionals can then.
• Help predict an individual’s risk they can recommend best practices or healthy practices or lifestyle choices, and then they can potentially prescribe the safest and most effective treatments or drugs.
• So here we have also examples of these gene linked abnormalities these are probably many of these are probably familiar to you right cystic fibrosis diabetes hemophilia huntington’s.
• phenylketonuria, sickle cell, hemophilia, spinal bifida, Tay Sachs disease again, these are just some of the many examples that exist and, again, you can take a minute to just read the descriptions potential treatments or supports and then the incidence as well.
• So when it comes to reproductive challenges and choices, obviously, the process of having a baby, creating a fetus creating human eventually.
• comes with lots of decision making and potential challenges right so first one we’ll start off with is this pre diagnostic prenatal diagnostic testing and like I said before, this just indicates, whether a fetus is developing typically as we would expect it to.
• And so, this can be accomplished through ultrasound there could be brain imaging techniques and yosef teasers amniocentesis.
• Non invasive prenatal diagnosis diagnoses maternal blood screening there’s lots of different ways to get at this one image that we have on the slide here is fetal MRI.
• This is a method that is becoming increasingly used to diagnose fetal malformations but i’d love for you at all just take a minute to reflect a little bit if you were in the position of.
• Having a baby at some point or maybe you already do, or maybe you already have at some point.
• Would you want to be able to access full genetic testing a full genome analysis of your offspring, and why or why not, what do you think might be some of the potential benefits what might be some of the potential drawbacks or challenges… [Content truncated to 3000 words]