Anthropology Exam 1

• Anthropology studies humankind, integrating sociology, economics, political science, history, psychology, and biology.
• Anthropology has four subfields: cultural anthropology, linguistic anthropology, archaeology, and biological anthropology.
• Cultural anthropology includes urban and medical anthropology.
• Linguistic anthropology focuses on language.
• Archaeology studies artifacts.
• Biological anthropology studies human biology.
• Three major criteria of anthropology are evolutionary, comparative, and holistic perspectives.
• Evolutionary anthropology examines descent with modification from common ancestors and unbroken chains of descent.
• Comparative anthropology gains knowledge by looking at similarities and differences between groups, cultures, or species.
• Holistic anthropology understands phenomena by looking at it in its entirety, emphasizing interrelationships.
• A primate is a group of mammals comprising prosimians like lemurs, monkeys, apes, and humans.
• A species is a group of similarly looking organisms capable of interbreeding.
• An evolutionary tree diagrams evolutionary relationships among species or groups of species.
• A hominin is a bipedal member of the evolutionary lineage leading to modern humans, including one living and many extinct species.
• Specializations within biological anthropology include anthropological genetics, human biology, paleoanthropology, primate paleontology, primatology, and forensic anthropology.
• Anthropological genetics studies inherited traits with primary data in transmission and population genetics.
• Human biology studies human variation with respect to evolution and physiology, using modern human traits and features as primary data.
• Paleoanthropology is the interdisciplinary study of human origins, also known as "human paleontology," with fossil human ancestors as primary data.
• Primate Paleontology interdisciplinary study of primate origins in paleontological framework, with focus on fossil non-human primates
• Primatology studies non-human primates, usually in the wild, and is referred to as “primate behavioral ecology" and living non-human primates are the primary data .
• Forensic anthropology applies anthropological techniques to solve unexplained deaths, using genetic and anatomical evidence as primary data.

Explaining the World

• The three major ways of explaining the world are religion, philosophy, and science.
• Religion involves beliefs, teachings, and practices concerned with supernatural beings, powers, and forces.
• Philosophy searches for understanding by mostly speculative and/or logical reasoning, generally not observational.
• Science is a systematic search for understanding using empirical observation and testing.
• Science differentiates itself by seeking a natural explanation of the world, focusing on a rigorous, systematic, and empirical understanding of the material world.
• Major criteria of science include testability, cumulative nature, fallibility, repeatability, logical framework, universality, empirical basis, and predictive power.
• Testability requires making testable statements about phenomena.
• Science is cumulative, building on previous hypotheses and ideas.
• Fallibility allows for deeming hypotheses and predictions "wrong".
• Repeatability ensures others can verify findings.
• Logic uses inductive/deductive frameworks to form hypotheses.
• Universality means any scientist can perform the study, regardless of country.
• Empirical evidence uses data that can be seen and verified.
• Predictive power draws from theories to state and test what might occur.

Scientific Method

• The scientific method is a research method where a problem is identified, a hypothesis is stated, and tested through data collection and analysis.
• If a hypothesis is verified, it becomes corroborated; if falsified, it is rejected.
• There are four steps to the scientific method: hypothesis, prediction, verification, and observation.
• The independent variable is the manipulated factor in an experiment.
• The dependent variable is the measured factor.

Evolution and Darwin's Influencers

• Early ideas about nature involved the Great Chain of Being, a vertical arrangement of species on a scale of better-than, worse-than.
• Taxonomy is the science of classifying nature.
• John Ray proposed interbreeding organisms be called "species" and similar groups of species be called "genera," advocating fixity of species.
• Carl Linnaeus added "class" and "order," establishing a simple and universal classification scheme but classified humans into different groups.
• George du Buffon suggested species were not completely fixed, with a dynamic relationship between organisms and the environment, believing the world was old.
• Erasmus Darwin proposed the idea of the origin of species through evolution in "zoonomia," suggesting common ancestry and life in the sea without a mechanism for evolution.
• Jean-Baptiste de Lamarck developed the theory of evolution by inheritance of acquired characteristics (first mechanistic theory of change), emphasizing heritability.
• Charles Lyell suggested many fossils showed gradual change over long periods of time, "deep time," and introduced "uniformitarianism".
• Thomas Malthus noted populations have the potential to increase faster than resources, leading to intense competition.
• Charles Darwin was a naturalist who first studied medicine.
• Darwin traveled to South America and the Galapagos Islands to develop his theory of evolution by natural selection.
• Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection states that individuals within a population vary, most variation is heritable, there is a struggle for existence, and variation in traits allow some to survive and reproduce better.
• Problems with Darwin's theory included explaining variation's existence or maintenance, the rate of species evolution and speciation, and the persistence of maladaptive traits.
• Animals possessing traits that benefit their survival or reproduction will out-reproduce animals that don't have those same traits which leads to adaptations.

Key Concepts

• Adaptation is a feature or trait that evolved via natural selection to perform a specific task that directly or ultimately leads to reproduction or survivorship Fitness is the relative ability to survive and reproduce
• Heritability is the extent to which offspring resemble their parents

Sexual Selection Theory

• Sexual selection indicates traits of an organism are either adaptations or neutral with respect to fitness.
• Sexual selection theory describes evolutionary change that occurs because of variation in the ability to acquire mates.
• Intrasexual selection, or male-male competition, involves acquiring mates by preventing rivals from mating.
• Intersexual selection, or female choice, involves acquiring mates by attracting them.
• Sexual dimorphism refers to differences among the sexes due to sexual selection.
• Male-male competition can cause dimorphic male traits like large body size and large canines.
• DNA molecules cause inheritance.
• A cell is the basic unit of life in all living organisms.
• Eukaryotic cells make up humans.
• DNA is found within the mitochondria and nucleus of eukaryotic cells.
• Gametes are cells used for reproduction.
• Somatic cells are cells that comprise body tissues.
• Chromosomes are located inside the nucleus and composed of DNA molecules and associated proteins.
• DNA is carried within a chromosome.
• A karyotype is a visual representation of an individual's complete set of chromosomes, organized by size and shape.
• Humans have 46 chromosomes in 23 pairs.
• Autosomes are DNA on autosomes that make proteins governing all physical characteristics except sex determination.
• Sex chromosomes are those chromosomes generally associated with specifying sex determination.
• Females have 2 X chromosomes, and males have 1 X and 1 Y chromosome.
• Nucleotides are units that DNA comes in and are comprised of ATCG: Adenine, Thymine, Cytosine, Guanine
• A pairs with T; C pairs with G
• DNA can be either coding or non-coding and is coding if it can translate into a protein sequence.
• Triplets of nucleotides are called codons and they code for a single amino acid.
• The relationship between DNA triplets and amino acids is defined as the genetic code

Protein Creation

• Information from DNA is transcribed into messenger RNA in the nucleus
• Messenger RNA leaves the nucleus, joins up with ribosomal RNA and transfer RNA to make a protein.
• When a gene makes a protein this is formally known as "gene expression” or protein synthesis
• A portion of DNA that specifies a protein is known as a gene
• Mutations are the ultimate source of genetic variation and must appear in gametes to be inherited.
• Mitosis is cell division occuring in somatic cells.
• Mitosis produces two diploid cells from one diploid cell.
• Meiosis is the sperm/egg making process.
• Haploid have a single chromosome from the pair in the cell.
• Genetic material is exchanged between homologous chromosomes in a process called recombination.
• A zygote forms when 2 haloid gametes (egg from mom, sperm from dad) unite.
• Zygotes divide and eventually the cells differentiate to form an embryo.
• Gene is the entire sequence of DNA bases responsible for the synthesis of a protein.
• Locus is location on a chromosome where homologous genes are located.
• Alleles are alternate forms of the DNA sequence at a locus (can be used synonymously with “gene”).
• Heterozygous is having different alleles (different DNA sequences) at a particular locus.
• Homozygous is having the same alleles (same DNA sequence) at a particular locus.
• Genotype is the genetic comparison (or DNA sequences or types of alleles) at a specific locus.
• Phenotype is the observable trait that is expressed by the genotype.
• A dominant trait CAN be expressed from a heterozygous locus or from a homozygous locus.
• A recessive trait is the one that CANT be expressed in a heterozygous locus.

Population Genetics and Evolution

• Requires 2 copies of the same allele to produce their phenotype.
• Population genetics concerns the genetics of populations.
• Population genetics is concerned with the frequency of particular genes and genotypes in a population.
• Transmission genetics concerns expected ratios of offspring genotypes, given the genotypes of the parents.
• A population is a community of individuals within a species where mates are usually found.
• Frequency is the proportion of all objects.
• Evolution is a change in gene frequency from one generation to the next in a population.
• Genes are the lowest level for tracking changes in population.
• New genes can enter a population through mutation and migration.
• Factors that cause evolution are mutation, migration, and circumstances that can be non-random or random.
• Introducing new genetic variations in a population can cause evolution.
• Migration is the movement of individuals from one population to another.
• Natural (or sexual) selection is a non-random process.
• Fitness is the ability of the mice to blend into their environment.
• The selection pressure would be the eagles eating the highly visible mice.
• The adaptation that can occur is a shift in the fur color towards blond provides better camouflage in the sandy desert environment
• Genetic drift refers to changes in gene frequencies due to a random factor.
• "Genetic" specifically refers to gene frequency.
• "Drift" specifically refers to the fact that the genes at a particular locus will change in frequency at whim.
• The Founder Effect are rare individuals become prevalent due to disproportionate frequencies in an initial breeding population.
• Environment can enhance or constrain traits.
• Environmental influences such as sunlight can affect dimple size
• Pleiotropy happens when a single gene influences multiple, seemingly unrelated traits.
• Many traits have clear categories and are controlled by a single locus, these traits are called discrete.
• Some traits are continuous and results in no clearly defined categories of phenotypes, instead the phenotypes overlap
• Continuous traits are built using many loci that all contribute to the same trait.
• If a continuous trait is plotted in a population, the result would be a Bell-Shaped distribution.
• Polygenic Traits are common contimuous traits amongst humans.
• Directional selection occurs when selection eliminated the unfit "non-tall" individuals.
• Stabilizing Selection occurs when selection eliminates the unfit “non-average” individuals
• Disruptive selection occurs when selection eliminates the unfit “average” individuals