Intro to Bio Anth
These are the four subfields of Anthropology
1) Cultural Anthropology, 2) Archaeology, 3) Linguistic Anthropology, 4) Biological Anthropology
This term states that species change over time both phenotypically (physical traits) and genetically, leading to changes in species and eventually to new and different species. It is a process that deals with biological change over time seen in descent of organisms with modifications.
What is the Theory of Evolution?
These are the two types of cells composing all living organisms. One consisting of DNA inside a plasma membrane with no membrane bound organelles, and the other consisting of DNA contained within a nucleus, and possessing membrane-bound organelles (Must specify which is which)
What are Prokaryotes and Eukaryotes?
These are the four ways that species evolve.
What are Natural selection, Mutation, Gene flow, Genetic drift?
This word originates from the Greek words anthropos (meaning human) and logos (meaning "study of").
What is Anthropology?
Human Biology and Primatology are two areas of study that are integral in Biological Anthropology, which consist of these four subfields.
Forensic Anthropology, Paleoanthropology, Osteology/Skeletal Biology, and Paleopathology.
This is the driving mechanism of evolution, which states that is process where features that increase the likelihood of the survival of an organism tend to proliferate in future generations, because those organisms that lack these features do not survive to pass their features down to future generations
***Environment (which changes over time) determines whether or not a feature will increase an organism's chances for survival.
What is Natural Selection?
This is a structure composed of nucleic acids and proteins (DNA) that carries the genetic information of an organism. Humans have 46 of these, while Pigeons have 80.
What is a chromosome?
This mechanism spurs evolution and is random usually occurring when there is a genetic bottleneck, or a very small population of individuals in a breeding population or deme.
What is Genetic Drift?
Derived from the Greek pan, meaning all, and genos, meaning kind or offspring, this word refers to "a unit of heredity that is transferred from a parent to offspring and is held to determine some characteristic of the offspring." More technically it is "a distinct sequence of nucleotides forming part of a chromosome, the order of which determines the order of monomers in a polypeptide or nucleic acid molecule which a cell (or virus) may synthesize."
What is a gene?
This mode of inquiry involves utilizing deductive reasoning by gathering empirical evidence (evidence that is verified through observation, usually via experimentation) to test hypotheses, eliminating all possible answers, until as few answers as possible remain. The remaining possible answers form a theory, which is also known as a scientific fact.
What is the scientific method?
These are Darwin's three postulates, made by observation, making evolution by means of natural selection inevitable.
These are the four nitrogenous bases that make up the coded part of DNA and help determine (through sequences of three known as codons) the construction of the proteins within your body. It is through mistranslation of these bases that mutations occur at some point in the replication of their DNA strands that mutations occur. Bonus points for which bases pair with each other.
What are Adenine, Thymine, Cytosine, and Guanine.
These are three types of Natural selection (Bonus points for naming an other type).
What are Directional, stabilizing, and disruptive...
Bonus: Sexual and Diversifying.
Originating from the Greek word taxis, meaning arrangement, and anomia meaning method, this word refers to a method of classifying or arranging organisms in a way that shows the varying degrees to which the organisms are “related.”
What is taxonomy?
This term refers to the study of the skeleton.
What is Osteology?
This early Theory of Evolution held that species changed by the inheritance of acquired characteristics. It held that the frequent use of any organ strengthens, develops, and enlarges that organ, and those strengths/growth are then passed to offspring. According to this theory evolutionary change took place within life of a single individual.
What is Lamarckianism?
There are polypeptide chains of amino acids and are categorized into two types in your body: structural and functional depending whether or not they make up a physical characteristic or perform a function (i.e. enzyme, hormone, antibody, etc.)
What are proteins?
This offers a genetic way of determining whether or not evolution is occurring based on changes in allele frequency within a population. It states that genetic equilibrium is occurring if allele frequencies are constant over time, and evolution is occurring if there is a change in allele frequency, specifically evolution is occurring with respect to a particular gene. Allele frequency is based on the mathematical expansion that appears as p2 + 2pq + q2=1 for a gene with only two alleles.
What is the Hardy-Weinberg law of Equilibrium?
Taken from the Latin word meaning "appearance, form or beauty," this word is used to categorize different organisms from one another. It is an arbitrary classification, which varies depending on your theoretical standpoint, i.e. ecological vs biological.
What is species (the latin is also species from specere)?
This is what Biological anthropologists do.
Study humans as biological creatures, where we came from, how we evolved, and how our human biology acts upon and is influenced by culture, leading to insights about our evolutionary history. Biological Anthropologists ask biological evolutionary questions as they pertain to the way that human society is shaped and functions.
These are Darwin's four dilemmas, or questions about how evolution operates that he was not able to answer. Bonus points for answers about how they were resolved.
The combination of polygenic traits, pleiotropy, and heredity, helps answer this or these dilemma(s) of Darwin's.
What is the third dilemma: How are complex structures formed; and the fourth dilemma: How do you reconcile seemingly disadvantageous traits with survival of the fittest?...You can include other dilemmas here...
These are the three ways that DT Max proposed that could lead to directed human evolution in the future.
1) Technological implants (cultural manipulation of human bodies) 2) Living in different environments (Climate change, space colonization) 3) Genetic modification (scientific modification of human genomes) via CRISPR and IVF.
From the latin word meaning to unroll, this term is used to describe the notion of "giving rise to," or "develop." It is a fundamental concept in Biological Anthropology.
What is evolution?