Foundations of Sociology and Human Development

1. What is scientific knowledge?

• A set of rules about how to establish science.

2. What is the experimental method?

• A method of separating out causal factors.

3. Define sociobiology

• A combination of sociological and biological reflections that theorize a genetic basis for human behavior.

4. How long ago did humanlike creatures appear?

• Early tools: Discoveries of tools with skeletons have been dated from 2.3 to 1.6 million years ago.
• Later findings: Discoveries of tools with skeletons have been dated from 400,000 to 100,000 years ago.

5. What three abilities gave humans advantages?

• Only humans can think and reason, communicate, and use tools.

6. What changed humans from hunters to settlers?

• Humans learned that they could exercise control over land and animals.

7. What is the most important problem in Western society?

• Conflict or war.

8. What is cultural evolution?

• The name given to a long process of change.

9. The relationship between culture and society

• Even though the personality of each individual is in large measure molded by society, it is clear that society can have no existence apart from the people who constitute it.

10. Why has the world population grown?

• The development of large communities and towns.

11. What are the costs of pollution?

• The costs involve restrictions on individual actions, and the relocation of industry and jobs.

12. What is the Industrial Revolution?

• The sum of all changes in economic and social organization characterized by the replacement of hand tools with power-driven machines.

13. Will widespread robotics cause unemployment?

• True.

14. Where does funding for expensive technology come from?

• Government.