Introduction Flashcards
Eugenics
aims to improve the genetic quality of the human population throuogh selective breeding
Anthropology
cross cultural differences explained by innate differences
Cultural relativity
people’s behavior needs to be understood in terms of their culture
Ethology
explain animal behavior with the help of Darwin’s natural selection theory & adaptation
Dynamic view
explanation of current form in terms of a historical sequence
Static view
explanation of the current form of species
Proximate view
how an individual organism’s structures function?
Evolutionary view
Why a species evolved the structures it has?
Ontogeny
developmental explanations for changes in individuals, from DNA to their current form
Mechanism
mechanistic explanations for how an organism’s structures work
Phylogeny
the history of the evolution of sequential changes in a species over many generations
Adaptation
a specific trait that solves a reproductive or survival problem in the current environment
Instinct
a series of predictable, genetically programmed, adaptive, species-specific behaviors for fixed action patterns, a precise stimulating signal is needed
Behaviorism
every animal has the same general learning capacities
Human ethology
cross-cultural comparison studies
Sociobiology
the systematic study of the biological basis of all social behavior
Heritable variation
individuals within any given population tend to differ from each other in terms of their physical appearance and behavioral reactions, these differences are passed on to their offspring
Ability of overpopulation
every species has the ability to grow in number so large that it exceeds the biological carrying capacity of its containing natural ecological system
The stability of populations
populations tend to maintain a relative stability in their number
Natural selection
constant adaptation to the environment
Adaptive
a feature or trait that facilitates one’s survival and or reproductive success
Epigenetics
environmental effects changing your gene expressions
Functional adaptation
due to the continuity of environmental pressures the trait remained adaptive
Obsolete adaptation
due to changes in environmental pressures the trait is no longer adaptive
Exaptation
a feature that performs a function but that was not produced by natueal selection for its current use
Dysfunctional byproduct
it doesn’t increase the fitness and is not the product of natural selection
Poligenetic nature
many of our features or traits are developed through the interactions of multiple genes
Melodaptive
decreases an individuals chances of survival and or reproduction
Stabilizing selection
purifying, gets rid of the extreme phenotypes in the populations, flavors the intermediate variants
Direntional selection
an extreme phenotype is favored over other phenotype
Genetic drift
the allele frequency of the new population doesn’t resemble that of the original, bigger population
The bottleneck effect
due to some changes in the environment the size of the population decreases dramatically
The founder effect
a very small number of individuals from a larger population establish a new population
