Courtship Behaviour I Intraspecific Relationships

Courtship behaviour is the term used to define mate-selection rituals. It displays a set of behaviours through which an animal attempts to attract a mate. The displays enable individuals to present their traits, such as size, colour, plumage, or abilities to a possible mate. These rituals are usually carried out by a male of the species and the female judges and either selects or rejects him based on the display. Courtship behaviours allow the female to select the best mate with the best features to pass on to the next generations. However, sometimes the female will select based on what they simply find attractive. An example of this is peacocks and peahens. Peacocks will display their tails and feathers while creating a rattling sound and showing off the bright iridescent colour of their tail. The female will then choose to mate with the peacock with the brightest and longest tail. They do this because a bright and well-groomed tail shows that the peacock is in good health. While the length and colour will show that the peacock has been able to survive predation for a long enough time to want to reproduce now. It shows that the peacock has the ability to survive and protect. The males have great reproductive success as they will be able to successfully attract females with their tails. The females will not be affected as they are the ones selecting the male. However, one situation where the females will be affected is if the numbers of peacocks decline due to predation (the survival rate of peacocks also decrease).     

Ethical principles: The Rights Approach

 Rights Approach

Ethical approaches are a rule or foundation that guides an individual/groups thinking about ethical matters. This has five fundamental approaches which are often referred to as the ethical decision-making frameworks.  The five approaches are virtue, utilitarian, Fairness or justice, the common good and the rights approach.

The rights approach states that an action or policy is only truly right if those affected by the decisions have freely and knowingly consented to treatment after being thoroughly informed about the consequences of the decisions. This means that can not be used as an instrument for moving forward to achieve another goal. 

In class, we had to make superheroes using playdough to visualise the principle of the rights approach. 

The hero (Dr Cure) is a scientist that wants to try a new medication to test its workability. Those in purple are patients who have come forward to be tested. However, before the trials begin, Dr Cure is thoroughly informing the patients about the positive and negative consequences that can be caused by taking the treatment. After listening to him, the patients have different attitudes towards trialling the medication now. This shows the right approach as patients have to be aware of everything that could affect them before they can agree to partake in the tests.

  

Abstract of a human evolution article

 "Lucy's Baby" - Worlds Oldest Child by James Owen

Lucy's baby was discovered in East Africa in an area known as the Cradle of Humanity. The skeleton belongs to the human species Australopithecus afarensis. The skeletal remains were found completed with a completed skull, full cranium and mandible. The baby also had an intact face. With further research into the teeth enamel, small fingers and other features, they found that the baby was approximately 3 years old when she died. She is named after the first ever found A. afarensis species, Lucy. However, Lucy's baby is known to be hundreds of thousands of years older than Lucy. She was known to live 3.3 million years ago while Lucy lived 3.2 million years ago. The finding of a baby helped provide significant insight into how human ancestors used to live. The finding did also arise further questions about when hominins actually became bipedal.