The notion of freedom

This new idea implied a new concept of human freedom, i.e. people independently making their own lives using their own judgment. Initially, this concept appeared rather paradoxical; thus, Jean-Jacques Rousseau wrote, "People are born free, but are everywhere in chains". A big breakthrough was the French Revolution of 1789, which inspired a lot of new philosophical thought. In the philosophy of the German thinker Hegel, history radically recasts itself as the continual development of humanity towards ever-greater freedom, continually extending the limits of freedom. This philosophy is still religious and mystical however, insofar as Hegel sees history as culminating in the unity of God with the world, but at the same time, Hegel also affirmed and imputed a Logos or teleology to human history, and fully recognized that both evolutionary and revolutionary transformations took place in history. This was a hopeful philosophy, which in a rational way sees real progress occurring in history.

It was possible to detect human advances, as well as human regressions to an earlier state. In Hegel’s view, if something existed, it was rational. If it passed out of existence, that was because it had become irrational. This contained a very important idea, however poorly expressed, namely that history was not a fluke of fate (a kismet) but that it could be rationally understood ,’’ at least in principle.

Old Kingdom

The Old Kingdom is the name commonly given to that period in the 3rd millennium BC when Egypt attained its first continuous peak of civilization in complexity and achievement – this was the first of three so-called "Kingdom" periods, which mark the high points of civilization in the lower Nile Valley (the others being Middle Kingdom and the New Kingdom).

The term itself was coined by nineteenth century historians and the distinction between the Old Kingdom and the Early Dynastic Period is not one which would have been recognized by Ancient Egyptians. Not only was the last king of the Early Dynastic Period related to the first two kings of the Old Kingdom, but the 'capital', the royal residence, remained at Ineb-Hedg, the Ancient Egyptian name for Memphis. The basic justification for a separation between the two periods is the revolutionary change in architecture accompanied by the effects on Egyptian society and economy of large-scale building projects.

The Old Kingdom is most commonly regarded as spanning the period of time when Egypt was ruled by the Third Dynasty through to the Sixth Dynasty (2686 BC – 2134 BC). Many Egyptologists also include the Memphite Seventh and Eighth Dynasties in the Old Kingdom as a continuation of the administration centralized at Memphis. The Old Kingdom was followed by a period of disunity and relative cultural decline referred to by Egyptologists as the First Intermediate Period.

The royal capital of Egypt during the Old Kingdom was located at Memphis, where Djoser established his court. The Old Kingdom is perhaps best known, however, for the large number of pyramids, which were constructed at this time as pharaonic burial places. For this reason, the Old Kingdom is frequently referred to as "the Age of the Pyramids."

Phenotypic variation

Phenotypic variation (due to underlying heritable genetic variation) is a fundamental prerequisite for evolution by natural selection. It is the living organism as a whole that contributes (or not) to the next generation, so natural selection affects the genetic structure of a population indirectly via the contribution of phenotypes. Without phenotypic variation, there would be no evolution by natural selection.

The interaction between genotype and phenotype has often been conceptualized by the following relationship:

genotype + environment → phenotype

A slightly more nuanced version of the relationships is:

genotype + environment + random-variation → phenotype

Genotypes often have great flexibility in the modification and expression of phenotypes, in many organisms these phenotypes are very different under varying environmental conditions. The plant Hieracium umbellatum is found growing in two different habitats in Sweden. One habitat is rocky, sea-side cliffs, where the plants are bushy with broad leaves and expanded inflorescences; the other is among sand dunes where the plants grow prostrate with narrow leaves and compact inflorescences. These habitats alternate along the coast of Sweden and the habitat that the seeds of Hieracium umbellatum land in, determine the phenotype that grows.[4]

An example of random variation in Drosophila flies is the number of ommatidia, which may vary (randomly) between left and right eyes in a single individual as much as they do between different genotypes overall, or between clones raised in different environments.

A phenotype is any detectable characteristic of an organism (i.e., structural, biochemical, physiological, and behavioral) determined by an interaction between its genotype and environment (of this distinction).

According to the autopoietic notion of living systems by Humberto Maturana, the phenotype is epigenetically being constructed throughout ontogeny, and we as observers make the distinctions that define any particular trait at any particular state of the organism's life cycle.

The idea of the phenotype has been generalized by Richard Dawkins in The Extended Phenotype to mean all the effects a gene has on the outside world that may influence its chances of being replicated. These can be effects on the organism in which the gene resides, the environment, or other organisms. For instance, a beaver dam might be considered a phenotype of beaver genes, the same way beaver's powerful incisor teeth are phenotype expressions of their genes. Dawkins also cites the effect of an organism on the behaviour of another organism, such as the devoted nurturing of a cuckoo by a parent clearly of a different species as an example of the extended phenotype.

The concept of phenotype can be extended to variations below the level of the gene that affect an organism's fitness. For example, silent mutations that do not change the corresponding amino acid sequence of a gene may change the frequency of guanine-cytosine base pairs (GC content). These base pairs have a higher thermal stability (melting point, see also DNA-DNA hybridization) than adenine-thymine, a property that might convey, among organisms living in high-temperature environments, a selective advantage on variants enriched in GC content.

Oldowan

Oldowan (earlier spelled Olduwan or sometimes Oldawan) is an anthropological designation for an industrial complex of stone tools used by prehistoric hominins of the Lower Paleolithic. The Oldowan is the first known industrial complex in prehistory. It takes its name from Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania, where many Oldowan tools have been discovered. In the current archaeological technical chronology the Oldowan is also called "mode one" preceding "mode two," or Acheulean technology.

Sometimes Oldowan tools are called "core tools," "pebble tools," or "choppers." These terms have generally been abandoned because they are not accurate or apply to more than one tradition. Oldowan tools are not necessarily cores, pebbles, or bifaces, and comprise more than hand-axes; moreover, those terms could apply equally to Acheulean tools, whereas "Oldowan" is more specific.

Oldowan tool use is estimated to have begun about 2.5 million years ago (mya), lasting to as late as 0.5 mya. For about 1 million years exclusively Oldowan sites are found. After 1.5 mya. Acheulean sites make their appearance in the archaeological record, but this does not mean Oldowan sites are no longer found. It is thought that Oldowan tools were produced by several species of hominins ranging from Australopithecus to early Homo.

"Oldowan" therefore does not properly refer to a culture, but to a very simple tradition of tool manufacture that was in use for a long time.