 Here we go, welcome to natural selection. This is talking about how our behavior, how natural selection is prepared, our behavior so to speak. And like I said, I'm getting quite ahead of myself here because this is about, what do you call it? This is about the operant conditioning or the instrumental conditioning, but it's still a relevant discussion. So in the picture, basically, just so you guys are aware, we do have natural selection, right? And I'm not talking about the sheep on the side of the hill, which you can't see, but it is there, right? So think for a moment about where that is. There's all sorts of different spots in this photo where you'll be able to see natural selection. And so I'll kind of give you a moment to think about it there. You can pause and go, hmm, there's natural selection going on where, a couple of different places, right? Number one, the rocks. It's the most obvious place. The rocks are distributed in a particular fashion. Notice the larger rocks are on top, smaller rocks as you go down underneath, right? The idea is, is that those are, that order, that pattern is naturally selected. So there's not an active sort of, organizing the beach in this particular way. That's not how natural selection works. It's more of a passive sort of thing. It's not an active agent doing the selecting unless you consider the environment an active agent. So anyway, so let's look at the three levels of natural selection, right? Species level, right off the bat, okay? This is pretty straightforward. This is the Darwin stuff that you're all aware of. This is really, really slow though, right? So we don't see changes on species level selection within our lifetime. Again, there's a bunch of myths about why evolution doesn't apply to humans. And first off, that's about the craziest statement you can make in terms of a scientific statement, right? It just makes no sense. So species level selection is that grand sort of, that's the stuff we think of when we think of natural selection when we think of evolution, right? Well, what this really does is it prepares us phylogenically, right? So we talk about the phylogeny and the ontogeny of behavior. Now that's a bit beyond the scope of this course, but basically the phylogeny of behavior. That's the behavior that you were born with, right? Those are your fixed action patterns, your modal action patterns, whatever you want to call them. And those are the things that those, you know, instincts and stuff like that, right? Humans and instincts, eh, not so much, but this stuff applies not just to humans, right? So the instinctual behavior of animals, that's phylogenic, right? We're not talking, so that's something that's been selected for through history and through evolution. Cultural level selection, we, in a sense, this one has not been directly observed. Now, a species level selection, there's no question that that exists. That's your, again, that's the stuff that Darwin was talking about, it's changed a little bit since Darwin, but the basics are still the same, right? So that one, there's no question about tons of evidence for that. Cultural level selection, not much evidence, but it's a different level. So let's look at the third level here in a second, but because that one does have a lot of evidence for it as well. So with cultural level selection, we're talking about how cultures change over time. The culture in the United States is not the same as what it was 20 years ago. So think about some of those differences. Think about some of the things that have changed just within your lifetime. So what do you remember as a kid? You know, what were the prevalent attitudes? What has changed in our culture? In my time, I've seen things like work ethic change. I've seen things like expectations change, like people's expectations of how the world works. I've seen that change. And that seems to be more of a cultural level thing, okay? Individual level selection, this one has a ton of evidence for it as well. So again, the first one, species level and individual level, these are the ones that have extraordinary amounts of data to support them, for the most part unarguable. Individual level selection, we talk about ontogeny. This is the selection of your behavior through consequences. I'm giving you a peep as to what's coming up, because what's coming up is this discussion about operant conditioning and instrumental conditioning, in other words, same thing. And what that really is, is talking about how behavior in your lifetime is selected just like species are selected, but by the consequences of your actions. So you do something that produces a consequence. It can be a positive thing. It can be a negative thing. It can be something added. It can be something removed. And your behavior is going to fluctuate, depending on that particular consequence. Again, that's what we're talking about in terms of operant behavior. Now the term operant literally means that the behavior is going to operate on the environment. Your behavior is going to do something. It's going to cause a change in the environment and that behavior, that environment in turn is going to change the probability of you engaging in that behavior in the future. It's going to maintain it. It's going to increase it. It's going to decrease it. That's what you got, right? So operant is about the behavior being operated on by the environment and the behavior operating on the environment as well. So it works both directions. In order for this to happen, what you need is variation. So just like with species level selection, you need variation. You need differences. You need genes to be different. You need to mix genes. Sexual reproduction is about the mixing of genes. If you don't have that, if you have asexual reproduction, then you've got like one organism and it splits into two and that type of thing, and when that splits into two, they're genetically identical. You don't have variation. So as a result, that lack of variation makes the organism very successful in its current environment, but you change that environment and the entire species can be wiped out. With behavior, it's the same thing. Individual level selection is behavior that's happening in your lifetime on a daily basis. This is the stuff that we choose to do, right? The variation, the different ways in which we do stuff, something like if you're trying to solve a math problem, for example. You work at it one way and it's not working, it's failing, and then all of a sudden you try something a little different and it works and you get the right answer. There was the variation that trying something a little different, and then that got reinforced. The first method that you were trying on the math problem that you weren't getting the right answer, that got punished, right? So punishment is going to reduce the behavior, reinforcement is going to strengthen one. So those are the three levels of natural selection. Again, we've got a ton of evidence for the first species. We've got a ton of evidence for the last individual, very little evidence for the cultural primarily because no one's just done the research. So the two of these, the first one Darwin, the third one is Skinner, right? So Skinner really came up with that selection by consequences. There's other people that talked about selection by consequences, Tharndyke and others as well, but Skinner was the one that really nailed it, right? He's the one that really kind of hammered it home and made it to true science. The cultural level was proposed by Skinner, but it was more a guess. He was just kind of going out on his day-to-day, just like, well, you know, I think this might be going on and it seems to fit. If cultural level of selection is correct, then you've got this beautiful process. Species, okay, grand, nice and slow, cultural, a little faster than species level selection, but still quite slow. And then individual level selection, which happens quick, right? It's happening on a daily basis and it's within an organism. So this really does, it fits nice. And one of the things that we look for in science is how different theories and different philosophies, how do they fit with the existing data? And it may be that, this is where Skinner got really excited, is that when he started talking about phylogenia and ontogenia behavior, and it's an article he wrote called the phylogenia and ontogenia behavior. When he wrote that article, it was almost like he was excited. It was like he discovered some magical thing. And that thing he discovered was how does behavior fit into the natural world? Not everyone understands this point. When you hear me say it, yeah, it makes sense, right? But it's a big point. If Skinner was right, then we filled a major gap. It's one of those missing links, so to speak. So we've now connected species level stuff to individual level stuff, and it's the same mechanism. Anything we know about nature, it likes to conserve its mechanisms. So things that work will get repeated, eyes work, brains work, arms work, fingers work, tails work. Those types of things get repeated across multiple species because they function. So the same thing might be happening here in terms of selection. Selection is a process that works. So you're probably going to see it in a lot of different areas. From the Rocky Beach to our individual behavior, how I'm doing lectures is being selected for, right? To your behavior of studying the material all the way up to the culture in which you live in and even at a species level. I hope that answers some questions about the natural selection stuff. There you go. Have a good one. Cheers.