Lecture 6: Evolution and Genetics

Question 1

creationism

Answer 1

•part of biblical worldview assuming that God created the universe and all living things

Question 2

catastrophism

Answer 2

•developed as an alternative attempt to make sense of the fossil record; sought to explain today’s species

Question 3

evolutionism

Answer 3

•assumes that existing animal species evolved gradually out of common ancestors

Question 4

uniformitarianism

Answer 4

•states that the present is the key to the past
(natural occurrences)
the theory that changes in the earth’s crust during geological history have resulted from the action of continuous and uniform processes.

Question 5

Darwin / Wallace and Natural Selection

Answer 5

Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace
1.There is variation within a population
2.There is competition for strategic resources
3.Because of particular variations, some organisms are more likely to survive and reproduce than others
4.Over time, the less fit organisms are replaced
by more adaptive forms

Question 6

Lamarckianism vs Darwinism

Answer 6

•Darwin and Lamarck were both scientists who tried to understand evolution. Lamarck’s theory of evolution was based around how organisms (e.g. animals, plants) change during their lifetime, and then pass these changes onto their offspring. … Darwin’s theory became accepted because it had more evidence that supported it.

Question 7

Mendelian Genetics

Answer 7

•studies the way in which chromosomes transmit gene across the generations
The father of genetics
Austrian monk-did experiments with pea plants to find out that heredity is determined by discrete, individual
units (genes)
Looked at the inheritance of contrasting traits in pea plants (Tall and short; smooth and wrinkled green and yellow).
Some traits are dominant, while others are recessive

Question 8

Population Genetics

Answer 8

•investigates natural selection and other causes of genetic variation, stability, and change in breeding populations

Question 9

Gene

Answer 9

•a unit of heredity which is transferred from a parent to offspring and is held to determine some characteristic of the offspring

Question 10

Allele

Answer 10

•Biochemically different forms of a given gene

Question 11

Recessive/Dominant Genes

Answer 11

For a recessive allele to produce a recessive phenotype, the individual must have two copies, one from each parent. An individual with one dominant and one recessive allele for a gene will have the dominant phenotype.

Question 12

Heterozygous vs Homozygous

Answer 12

•Possessing two different alleles of the same gene (e.g. Tt or tT)

Possessing two identical alleles of the same gene (e.g. TT or tt)

Question 13

Genotype/Phenotype

Answer 13

•set of genes that it carries

all of its observable characteristics — which are influenced both by its genotype and by the environment

Question 14

Independent Assortment

Answer 14

•chromosomes are inherited independently of one another

Question 15

Gene Pool

Answer 15

•Exchange of genetic material between populations of the same species

Question 16

Mechanisms of Genetic Evolution

Answer 16

•Natural Selection, Genetic Drift, Mutations and Gene Flow

Question 17

Melanin

Answer 17

•a dark brown to black pigment occurring in the hair, skin, and iris of the eye in people and animals. It is responsible for tanning of skin exposed to sunlight

Question 18

Haplogroup

Answer 18

•haplotype is a group of alleles in an organism that are inherited together from a single parent, and a haplogroup is a group of similar haplotypes that share a common ancestor with a single-nucleotide polymorphism mutation.

Question 19

Skin Color and Environment

Answer 19

•Since strong sun exposure damages the body, the solution was to evolve skin that was permanently dark so as to protect against the sun’s more damaging rays. Melanin, the skin’s brown pigment, is a natural sunscreen that protects tropical peoples from the many harmful effects of ultraviolet (UV) rays

Question 20

Rickets and Vitamin D

Answer 20

•Vitamin D is needed for the metabolism of calcium and phosphorus in the body, which, in turn affects how calcium is deposited in the bones; thus it is considered essential for proper bone development and growth. Major symptoms of vitamin D deficiency rickets include bone disease, restlessness, and slow growth.

Question 21

Phenotypical Adaptation

Answer 21

•When adaptive changes occur during an individual’s lifetime
Made possible by our biological plasticity, mostly our ability to change in response to the environments we
encounter as we grow (lactose tolerance/intolerance)

Question 22

Allen’s Rule

Answer 22

•Relative size of protruding body parts increases with average temperature

Question 23

Bergmann’s Rule

Answer 23

•The smaller of two bodies similar in shape sheds heat more effectively

Question 24

Thompson’s Rule

Answer 24

•Nose length increases in colder and drier climates.

Question 25

Sickle-Cell Anemia and Malaria

Answer 25

• Sickle cell anemia is an inherited form of anemia — a condition in which there aren’t enough healthy red blood cells to carry adequate oxygen throughout your body
• individuals who are carriers for the sickle cell disease (with one sickle gene and one normal hemoglobin gene, also known as sickle cell trait) have some protective advantage against malaria. As a result, the frequencies of sickle cell carriers are high in malaria-endemic areas.

Question 26

Blood type and Disease

Answer 26

•Type A Blood - Smallpox

Type O Blood- Bubonic plague and syphilis

Question 27

Smallpox

Answer 27

•Smallpox was an infectious disease caused by one of two virus variants, variola major and variola minor. The last naturally occurring case was diagnosed in October 1977 and the World Health Organization (WHO) certified the global eradication of the disease in 1980

Question 28

Race: The Power of Illusion

Answer 28

• racial markers(skin color, hair) mean nothing without social implementation
• USA was racialized from the beginning, so newcomers had to fit in
• immigrants often work the hardest, poorest paying jobs
• in 1910, 58 percent of mine and factory workers were immigrants
• explained as “natural consequences of their race”
• Davenport wrote about the fears of immigrants (racist)
• lynching in Alabama; even Jews were lynched for killing white women
• Zangwill wrote that god would “melt together all the desirable races to make white Americans”
• 1790 law stated only free white immigrants could become natural citizen
• who is defined as black? different among states 1/8,1/16,…. could walk across lines and change race
• US court ruled that Armenians were legally white
• Ozawa fought for citizenship. 1) his skin was white 2) it shouldn’t matter. US court ruled he was not white bc he was not caucasian.
• Indians were classified as caucasian, US court flipped on itself and ruled that white does not consider science
• South asians who were naturalized before verdict were stripped of rights.
• Japanese land was seized and sold to white farmers
• end of WW2, veterans needed homes, govt created Federal Housing Administration to put ~20 percent down and banks financed the rest
• allowed average person to own a home.
• Levittown was a potato farm turned suburban area 65 bucks/month
• soldiers fought in segregated ranks and returned home searching for equality: Levittown was not ready to sell to AA yet
• FHA said the presence of AA families would diminish value
• race was as much a factor in real estate assessment as the actual property (hazardous/unstable were red lined)
• therefore, most mortgages went to white neighborhoods
• less than 2 percent of housing funding went to AA communities
• being white now meant living in the suburbs (weird utopia of people ignorant of living in a multicolored world)
• public housing projects centered AA in the city
• Johnson signed fair housing act removing racial terms from FHA. whites moved to largely white neighborhoods
• Roosevelt newspapers played on the fears of white homeowners to move asap and then the house was resold at higher price to AA
• whites leaving caused housing value to decrease overall
• banks made it easy for white neighborhood value to increase, and oppositely for AA
• Roosevelt now seen as dumping ground
• why are things still separated? consequence of structure

Question 29

DNA

Answer 29

(Deoxyribonucleic Acid)

Question 30

random genetic drift

Answer 30

Change in allele frequency that occurs by chance