ANTHRO 124P
Human Behavioral Ecology
Description: (Formerly numbered 124A.) Lecture, three hours; discussion, one hour (when scheduled). Recommended requisite: course 1 or Life Sciences 1 or 7B. Survey of research in human behavioral ecology. Review of natural and sexual selection, kin selection, and reciprocal altruism. Emphasis on current empirical studies of modern human behavior from evolutionary perspective, including social organization, sexual division of labor, parenting strategies, conflict, and cooperation. P/NP or letter grading.
Units: 4.0
Units: 4.0
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Most Helpful Review
I have to disagree with most of the reviews here. I found Professor Scelza's lectures entirely uninspiring. While she does put a lot of information into her slides there are a number of problems with her lectures. First, the module I took (Human Behavioral Ecology) involved quite a number of fairly abstract quantitative models for explaining human behaviour. However, as these were presented on an extremely broad scale: they were made assumptions about hunter gatherer societies in general - it became quite difficult to conceive of how they actually manifested in the real world (HG societies being hugely varied and not complying with extremely basic statistical models). Had she introduced a concept - e.g. methods of hunting in a particular society, and then demonstrated how a particular model could be applied to that situation, I would have stayed engaged with the class. As it was, she would simply talk in an extremely abstract fashion rarely displaying any applicability to the models in question. The fact that a good 90% of lectures involved Professor Scelza simply reading out slides, the dull nature of the content kind of inspires you to stay at home. I think the fact that only around a quarter of enrolled students were ever in a lecture at any one time is testament to the level of engagement felt overall. So, if like me, you do well writing papers - i.e. understanding concepts and demonstrating that knowledge by expanding on the basic points from lectures, you will hate this module - there is no continuous assessment. If however, you enjoy learning content and then repeating it parrot fashion in multiple choice exams then go right ahead, just prepare yourself for some dull hours in the lecture theatre.
I have to disagree with most of the reviews here. I found Professor Scelza's lectures entirely uninspiring. While she does put a lot of information into her slides there are a number of problems with her lectures. First, the module I took (Human Behavioral Ecology) involved quite a number of fairly abstract quantitative models for explaining human behaviour. However, as these were presented on an extremely broad scale: they were made assumptions about hunter gatherer societies in general - it became quite difficult to conceive of how they actually manifested in the real world (HG societies being hugely varied and not complying with extremely basic statistical models). Had she introduced a concept - e.g. methods of hunting in a particular society, and then demonstrated how a particular model could be applied to that situation, I would have stayed engaged with the class. As it was, she would simply talk in an extremely abstract fashion rarely displaying any applicability to the models in question. The fact that a good 90% of lectures involved Professor Scelza simply reading out slides, the dull nature of the content kind of inspires you to stay at home. I think the fact that only around a quarter of enrolled students were ever in a lecture at any one time is testament to the level of engagement felt overall. So, if like me, you do well writing papers - i.e. understanding concepts and demonstrating that knowledge by expanding on the basic points from lectures, you will hate this module - there is no continuous assessment. If however, you enjoy learning content and then repeating it parrot fashion in multiple choice exams then go right ahead, just prepare yourself for some dull hours in the lecture theatre.
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