Papers by Camilo J . Cela-Conde
Evolution, genetics, and systematics
Oxford University Press eBooks, May 18, 2017
This chapter starts with the general principles of the theory of evolution by natural selection a... more This chapter starts with the general principles of the theory of evolution by natural selection advanced by Darwin and the Mendelian theory of heredity. Next comes consideration of the “new-Darwinian synthesis” or “synthetic theory,” which integrates both precedents into what has become the current paradigm of the life sciences. Molecular evolution and population genetics follow, including epigenetic processes. Next, special models of selection are considered, such as sexual selection and the models that account for altruistic behavior. After the mechanisms of speciation, the main concepts of systematics are explored, which facilitate understanding of different traits. The chapter finally explores the fundamental concepts of taxonomy and the methods from phenetics to cladistics, that makes it possible to evaluate the diversity of organisms and the methods for dating the fossil record.
Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, Mar 1, 2017
Adversus Liberales: The Right to Excellence and Distributive Justice
Springer eBooks, 1987
So far I have referred to the four levels which the moral phenomenon can be broken down into for ... more So far I have referred to the four levels which the moral phenomenon can be broken down into for the purposes of studying its relation with certain causally explicable determinants. In this chapter I am going to abandon this shall we say formal perspective in order to make clear some of the consequences of using a theory of ethics like the one proposed, and their significance for certain theses about the relation between biology and morals as stated by Hayek. The ideological content of determinism in moral matters as proposed by sociobiology has probably had the greatest echo within the critiques and commentaries by specialists from the social sciences, or simply by philosophers. So far I have not referred to these aspects, since as I have already maintained they seem to me to be paradigmatically separable from the body of theory itself and peripheral to its acceptance or denial. Moreover, within the theory discussed here there is a sufficient level of beta-moral autonomy to allow the idea of moral behaviour based exclusively on instinctive impulses to be left aside. By the same token, I must point out that if Social Darwinism today seems worthless, it is due to its scant explanatory value and not because it might lead to fascist-type excesses.
Bringing It All Together
Oxford University Press eBooks, Nov 18, 2021
The main goal of the article “The Neural Foundations of Aesthetic Appreciation” was to bring toge... more The main goal of the article “The Neural Foundations of Aesthetic Appreciation” was to bring together the available evidence on the neural underpinnings of aesthetics from neuroimaging and neurology and offer an integral interpretative model. The authors relate how they wanted to explain how aesthetic appreciation was related to brain activity and why some studies had found that activity in some regions and other studies had found it in other regions. The authors proposed that there might be at least two stages of appreciation. The first stage is the formation of an initial impression. It involves perceptual processes interacting with attentional control signals and is mediated by a fronto-parieto-occipital network. The second stage is a deeper evaluation of the image and involves affective processes, searching for meaning, recalling personal experiences, and activating knowledge stored in memory.
Psicothema, Dec 31, 2005
Proyecto académico sin fines de lucro, desarrollado bajo la iniciativa de acceso abierto
Processes in Human Evolution
Oxford University Press eBooks, May 18, 2017
Processes in Human Evolution is a fully reconsidered treatment of Human Evolution, the previous b... more Processes in Human Evolution is a fully reconsidered treatment of Human Evolution, the previous book by the same authors published by OUP in 2007. The major discoveries of the last decade have necessitated a completely revised view of how to understand human evolution, incorporating the advances in genetics, paleontology, ecology, archaeology, geography, and climate science. The genera Sahelanthropus, Ardipithecus, Orrorin, Australopithecus, Paranthropus, and Homo are analyzed in detail. Particular attention is given to the population migrations necessary to understand the origin and dispersion of the different genera and species in each continent. It becomes apparent that some of the accepted species may be just isolated populations and that the distinctive features of Homo sapiens may have been shared by other ancestors. The evolutionary process takes into account the features of the lithic cultures and their impact on the evolution of the cognitive capacities. The outcome is a new model about the evolution of symbolism. Processes in Human Evolution is intended as a primary textbook for university courses on human evolution. It may be used, as well, as supplementary reading in advanced undergraduate and graduate courses. It is also eminently suited for general-interest readers seeking a readable but up-to-date and fairly inclusive treatment of human origins and evolution.
Human Evolution, Jul 1, 1998
Australopithecus afarensis) as well as their descendants (such as, Paranthropus robustus). Even a... more Australopithecus afarensis) as well as their descendants (such as, Paranthropus robustus). Even agreeing that it is not possible to group great apes in one family and humans in another, some authors keep using the traditional "hominid" concept (see , for instance). Consequently, great confusion exists, which is becoming more and more general, and it is now necessary to clearly establish an author's meaning when she/he uses the term "hominid" (see, for instance, Tobias, 1991). The Philosophy of Science usually distinguishes between two different strategies that may be used to explain phenomena. On the one hand, the naturalistic (or scientific) way, that explains events like the movement of planets using particular concepts with a technical import~ and, on the other hand, the common (or folk) way, that explains the same events using more general concepts with a common-sense import. This two-fold epistemological point of view has been very useful in avoiding misinterpretations. It successfully led to a kind of "technical/common-sense" distinction in several fields, such as Cognitive Psychology , Philosophy of Knowledge , Generative Linguistics , and Evolutionary Epistemology . Having this distinction in mind, what kind of concept is "hominid"? Is its import technical or common-sense? As Loring Brace wrote, "The term 'hominid' is a colloquial version of the technical term Hominidae, the taxonomic family to which human beings belong" (Brace, 1965, p. 78). When trying to define it in a more technical way, Brace says that "the term 'hominid' is generally used to mean 'taxonomically included within the family which harbors human beings proper'". This is not much more than a tautology. However, Brace gives a very good example of a commonsense concept when writing: "the term 'pongid' is generally used to designate anything that is more ape-like than man-like" (!965, p. 78). The common-sense use of "hominid" (i.e., "anything that is more man-like than apelike") is obviously a reflection of the technical taxonomy proposed by Simpson (1931). Thus, up to the arrival of Goodman's molecular studies, the technical meaning and the commonsense meaning coincided. However, a technical taxonomy of the family Hominidae including African great apes, and even orangutans, collides head on with this formerly held technical/ common-sense import of "hominid". This is not enough to disqualify the recent proposal of a broader family Hominidae including all (or part) of the great apes. Very often, scientific proposals force us to discard one or the other previous, technical or common-sense, terminologies. Nevertheless, the new technical proposals must be strong enough to induce us to discard previous terms. Is the new technical import of "hominid", including the great apes in the family Hominidae, well enough founded to cancel out the former terminology? The minimum requirement to establish a plausible taxon is the existence of a monophyletic group defined by its derived traits. This is true if we give the name of "hominids" to presentday humans and their ancestors who are not ancestors of great apes, or if we propose a family that consists of humans and great apes. In both cases we need to indicate what synapomorphies are those which justify this grouping. There are many proposals about what these derived traits are, when we use the traditional meaning of "hominids". As is well known, Le Gros Clark (1955) gave 19 such traits but Pilbeam (1968) based the criterion to classify "Ramapithecus" as a hominid on only two of them. reduced Le Gros Clark's traits to just seven, not all of them being synapomorphies shared b~aIF~0~nids. However,
The Delta-Moral Level: Gods and Genes
Springer eBooks, 1987
Ultimate goals are present in the cultural heritage of a human group, as are all other positive n... more Ultimate goals are present in the cultural heritage of a human group, as are all other positive norms. Just as it is obvious that not all groups have identical normative codes, it is clear that they do not all invoke the same supreme values. Even so, there is reason for granting separate treatment to ultimate ends and reserving a complete level of the moral phenomenon for them. That reason has to do with the manner in which moral language is used. R. M. Hare has placed special stress on how moral judgment is necessarily linked to its possibilities of universalization, and how that is achieved through an implicit or explicit task of reasoning (1963, pp. 86 ff.). To maintain a moral judgment implies that the person who makes it can offer reasons for defending it. If someone holds that abortion is an ethically reprehensible act, he might be required to explain why, and thus begin a chain of reasons which can lead, for example, to maintaining that, in this way, the life of a person is terminated and as such it is always a condemnable act.
On the phylogeny of human morality (ten years later)
Human Evolution, Apr 1, 1990
On Genes, Gods and Tyrants
Springer eBooks, 1987
NeuroImage, Oct 1, 2014
To explain the biological foundations of art appreciation is to explain one of our species' disti... more To explain the biological foundations of art appreciation is to explain one of our species' distinctive traits. Previous neuroimaging and electrophysiological studies have pointed to the prefrontal and the parietal cortex as two critical regions mediating esthetic appreciation of visual art. In this study, we applied transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) over the left prefrontal cortex and the right posterior parietal cortex while participants were evaluating whether they liked, and by how much, a particular painting. By depolarizing cell membranes in the targeted regions, TMS transiently interferes with the activity of specific cortical areas, which allows clarifying their role in a given task. Our results show that both regions play a fundamental role in mediating esthetic appreciation. Critically though, the effects of TMS varied depending on the type of art considered (i.e. representational vs. abstract) and on participants' a-priori inclination toward one or the other.
Brain and Cognition, Apr 1, 2015
Nómadas: Critical Journal of Social and Juridical Sciences, 2007
Resumen.-Este artículo propone una explicación sobre el Derecho, que atraviesa las escalas de esp... more Resumen.-Este artículo propone una explicación sobre el Derecho, que atraviesa las escalas de espacio, tiempo y complejidad, uniendo los aparentemente irreconciliables hechos de lo social y lo natural, integrando la percepción de una red normativa, de una estrategia social adaptativa, que ciertamente se creó y existe en función de sus contribuciones a la supervivencia y al éxito reproductor durante un largo período de nuestra historia evolutiva, esto es, resolver problemas evolutivos recurrentes en especies esencialmente sociales como la nuestra que, por otra parte, no habría conseguido prosperar biológicamente.
Oxford University Press eBooks, Jun 1, 2015
The capacity for producing aesthetic items is also universal: painters, dancers, and musicians ar... more The capacity for producing aesthetic items is also universal: painters, dancers, and musicians are not restricted to any culture or historical epoch. However, appreciating aesthetic attributes-what we may call "beauty"-goes beyond producing them in at least two aspects. First, "artists" (producers) make up a small fraction of human groups; on the contrary, "spectators" are numerous. Second, it is possible to appreciate aesthetic qualities in natural objects and events, such as sunsets on a beach, whales' songs, or flights of birds. These natural aesthetic items have no author. We cannot establish the phylogenetic appearance of the human competence for appreciating beauty. Neither fossil nor archaeological records contain evidences enough to ascertain the appearance of such capacity. It is not possible to ascertain whether spectators with ability enough for appreciating landscapes, dances, or songs did exist in previous human species. Producing beauty seems less elusive, though its origin is also difficult to establish. Regarding artworks, Paleolithic polychromies, for instance, are too developed an example of the presence of artisans. Some traces of early artists' work should exist. How can we detect them? In a previous work (Cela-Conde and Ayala, 2007), we have extensively examined early evidences of decorative, artistic, or symbolic object. We will not repeat again the arguments in favor of the eventually symbolic condition of burials, for instance. Since we are now interested in the coevolution of art and the brain, we will change the focus, searching for items of proof of mental correlates that might speak in favor of a capacity for appreciating beauty. 1 Neuroaesthetics Beyond some valuable precedents, such as Ramachandran and Zeki's ideas on art and the brain, the empirical field of neuroaesthetics started in 2004, when three different studies offered the first accounts of the activation of brain areas during aesthetic appreciation. Vartanian and Goel found brain activity related to preference for artworks in the right caudate nucleus, the left cingulate sulcus, and the bilateral fusiform gyri (Vartanian and Goel, 2004). Kawabata and Zeki identified activity in the medial orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) for Beautiful, compared with Ugly, stimuli, and also in the anterior cingulate gyrus in Beautiful vs Neutral stimuli (Kawabata and Zeki, 2004). In turn, Cela-Conde and collaborators found increased activity for Beautiful stimuli, compared with Not-beautiful, in the left prefrontal dorsolateral cortex (Cela-Conde et al., 2004). Since 2004, many related investigations have been published. Due to the different cognitive tasks asked of the participants, a large part of the brain has been identified as activated when aesthetic appreciation occurs (see Table 1).
Sistemática de la humanidad Palma 2000: Grupo Internacional de Trabajo Sobre la Sistemática de la Paleontología Humana
Systematics of Humankind. Statement from Palma 2000: An international Working Group on Systematics in Human Paleontology
Which brain networks related to art perception are we talking about?: Comment on "Move me, astonish me… delight my eyes and brain: The Vienna Integrated Model of top-down and bottom-up processes in Art Perception (VIMAP) and corresponding affective, evaluative, and neurophysiological correlates" ...
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Papers by Camilo J . Cela-Conde