DEFINITIONS
What does the term 'anthropology literally mean?
Study of human biological and cultural difference.
What was Plato's concept of the 'eidos'?
The ideal/true type of a thing located in a higher realm.
In ABO blood typing, which allele is recessive?
O.
What is a 'gene pool'?
The aggregate of all genetic material in a breeding population.
What is the role of melanin in human skin color variation?
Brown pigment that acts as a natural sunscreen by blocking UV radiations.
Which subfield of anthropology focuses on language and its relationship to thought and culture?
Linguistic Anthropology
What are vestigial structures ans why are they significant to evolution?
Structures with no current function that are holdovers from ancestors -- clues.
What is the role of mRNA in protein sythensis?
To guide protein production by the ribosome with information from the DNA.
In a population of 5,000 with 1,800 EE, 2,400 Ee, and 800 ee individuals, what is the frequency of the E allele?
0.6
Why does the sickle cell allele (S) remain common in parts of West Africa?
Heterozygotes (AS) have resistance to malaria, giving them a reproductive advantage in malarial environments.
Science poses and responds to which type of question?
'How' questions.
What did Lamarck propose as the mechanism of evolution?
Inheritance of acquired characteristics.
What is the key difference between mitosis and meiosis?
Mitosis, 2 identical diploid daughter cells; Meiosis, 4 haploid gametes.
What is the Founder Effect?
Loss of genetic variation when a population is founded by a small, non-random sample of parent population.
What are the three levels of biological responses to environmental stress?
Genetic, physiological, developmental.
What is Parsimony (Occam's Razor) in science?
The use the simplest model with the fewest assumptions.
What is 'uniformitarianism'?
The idea that one natural process has operated throughout all of the universal history.
Why do mutations in somatic cells have no evolutionary significance?
They are not passed on to offspring.
What is genetic drift?
Random loss of alleles in a population due to a chance, more pronounced in small populations.
What is a balanced polymorphism?
A situation where gene frequencies remains stable over time due to heterozygote advantage.
What is an 'epistemology'?
A way of knowing, a framework for developing knowledge.
Superfecundity, limited resources, and stable population sizes
What is the difference between a genotype and phenotype?
Genotype is the unique allele combination; phenotype is the observable trait.
Which Hardy-Wienberg assumption does gene flow violate?
All matings occur within the population.
Why does the concept of 'race' fail as a unit of biological analysis?
Variation is continuous and discordant -- different traits don't vary together -- making discrete racial cateogries misleading.