Essential Definitions of Human Evolution and Culture

Key Concepts in Human Development and Society

Anthropogenesis

Science that studies humanity or the essence of the human being.

Bipedalism

The vertical position of the body resting on the feet.

Learned Behavior

Behaviors that are acquired through the practice or repetition of acts.

Culture

Derived from the Latin cultus (to cultivate). Culture encompasses everything that the individual acquires socially, constituting their nature. It includes:

• All production techniques.
• Activities, knowledge, procedures, values, and ideas that are produced and transmitted through social learning.
• Everything that humanity says or does in seeking its activities.

Species

Each of the groups that divide the genera of living things.

Ethnocentrism

The consideration of one's own culture as the sole criterion, and therefore superior, for interpreting the behavior of other groups, races, or societies.

Evolution

The transformation of living things throughout Earth's history, occurring as a slow and gradual development from simpler forms to more complex ones.

Cultural Evolution

A process much faster than biological evolution, consciously guided, and dependent on human will.

Fixism (Fixismo)

A theory opposed to evolutionism, asserting that human, animal, and plant forms are unchanged and therefore there is no evolution.

Hominization

The process that directly affects the anatomy of the human being, incorporating changes into the gene pool of the species.

Personal Identity

Individual feelings, with unique features distinguishing one person from others, forming an idea of what we are. It allows us to define ourselves and form an idea of our own being.

Social Identity

The roles that society assigns to the individual or that the individual awards to themselves. It allows defining and locating that person in relation to other individuals who share the same characteristics, creating a sense of group belonging.

Mutation

A small, permanent, and hereditary change in the structure of a gene that causes the appearance of new characteristics in the offspring.

Nature

Identified with everything that is owned by birth, having been genetically programmed into the biological being. The human being is a natural entity with characteristics essential to its development.

Neotheory (Neoteoría)

The plasticity or juvenile disposition of individuals in our species for development, involving a necessary framework of relationships with other human beings. (The original text's 'trma' was interpreted as 'framework' based on context.)

Racism

An attitude that regards an ethnic group as inferior to one's own.