User:Tomcolls/The evolution of learning

At some point or points in the evolution of life on earth, some organisms became capable of learning. The capacity to learn diversified over time, leading to the emergence organisms with the ability to learn and pass on complex behaviours.

Evolutionary learning timeline
It is often assumed that fixed forms of behaviour are evolutionarily prior to learned behaviour, but this is open to debate.

The most basic form of learning, habituation, is observable in all animals,(ref?) and other organisms (ref). It can be estimated that organisms began to habituate to their environments (when?)

It has been argued that many evolutionary advances in learning, from habituation through to reading and writing, were dependent on previous forms of learning having evolved. .

The most basic form of memetic learning can be observed in (what)(when).

Effect on genetic evolution
Ways in which the emergence of learning affected genetic evolution include the Baldwin effect