Reading...
Play button
Play button
Use LEFT and RIGHT arrow keys to navigate between flashcards;
Use UP and DOWN arrow keys to flip the card;
H to show hint;
A reads text to speech;
84 Cards in this Set
- Front
- Back
|
Culture
|
- Sets of learned behaviors and ideas that humans acquire as members of society. Humans use culture to adapt to and transform the world in which they live.
- It is LEARNED, not genetically inherited as was thought in the past. (I.e. The Spanish Influenza of 1918 killed millions across the world, only those who could adapt biologically survived. There are ways to adapt culturally by way of washing our hands, getting the flu shot, wearing masks, etc.) - It is “that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, law, morals, custom, and any other capabilities acquired by man as a member of society” (E.B. Tylor 1871) - By the age of five or six children have been ENCULTURED, taught language and customs. By adulthood, we are encultured to the point where we can survive and adapt. - It is mostly ADAPTIVE. - It is INTEGRATED (change in one area will often change other parts of culture). (I.e. Our technologies are ahead of our ethics. In the eugenics movement from 1928-1970 in Alberta we had the technology to sterilize individuals deemed “defective”. One change affected culture.) - It is constantly CHANGING. (I.e. We speak a different language than our grandparents, sometimes literally.) - It is TACIT (not formally taught, but shared). (I.e. Eye contact, distance from a person in a conversation, etc.) |
|
|
Ethnocentrism
|
- Ethno (culture) centrism (centered on that culture); judging another culture NEGATIVELY, and solely in the context of one’s own culture. (I.e. Dehumanization is an extreme form of ethnocentrism.)
- The opinion that one's way of life is natural or correct and, indeed, the only true way of being fully human. - Hinders understanding and new experiences. - Creates prejudice & hatred. |
|
|
Cultural Relativism
|
- The understanding that cultures differ and must be understood objectively IN THEIR OWN CONTEXT.
- Does not mean "absolute acceptance of everything". - Understanding another culture in its own terms sympathetically enough so that the culture appears to be a coherent and meaningful design for living. - Step back from what you think you “know” and look through another’s eyes. - An honest attempt to see why people do what they do FROM THEIR POINT OF VIEW, without prejudice. - “Melville Herskovits (1973) … observed that this precept calls for a “tough-minded” attitude to try to understand the Other’s point of view, however repugnant it is to us, without allowing our own to distort our observations and conclusions about him. This ideal may be almost impossible to achieve in reality, but the ideal is one that we need to strive for, nonetheless.” (Middleton 2003:6) |
|
|
Human Agency
|
- The exercise of at least some control over their lives by human beings.
- The way people struggle, often against great odds, to exercise some control over their lives. |
|
|
Holism
|
- Perspective on the human condition that assumes that mind and body, individuals and society, and individuals and the environment interpenetrate and even define one another.
- A characteristic of the anthropological perspective that describes, at the highest and most inclusive level, how anthropology tries to integrate all that is known about human beings and their activities. |
|
|
Female Circumcision (FGM - Female Genital Mutilation / FGC - Female Genital Cutting)
|
- Stage I remove all or part of the clitoris (or hood)
- Stage II “ + all or part of the labia - Stage III “ + infibulation (sew) - Stage IV “ + other… - Reasons include: proof of strength, cleanliness, deter from sex, avoid pregnancy, kinship + power, etc. - Impacts: Immediate – death, infection (HIV/AIDs), etc. Long term – sterility, menstruation problems, miscarriages, death, pain, fear of sex, scar tissue, etc. |
|
|
Male Circumcision (MGM - Male Genital Mutilation / MGC - Male Genital Cutting)
|
- Why?
Religion (particularly Jewish), early age (memories), hygiene, etc. |
|
|
Coevolution
|
- The dialectical relationship between biological processes an symbolic cultural processes, in which each makes up an important part of the environment to which the other must adapt.
|
|
|
Ethnology
|
- The study of learned and shared behaviors.
- Part of cultural anthropology. - The comparative study of two or more cultures. |
|
|
Evolution
|
- A characteristic of the anthropological perspective that requires anthropologists to place their observations about human nature, human society, or the human past in a temporal framework that takes into consideration change over time.
|
|
|
Biocultural Organisms
|
- Organisms (in this case, human beings) whose defining features are codetermined by biological and cultural factors.
|
|
|
Sex
|
- Observable physical characteristics that distinguish two kinds of humans, females and males, needed for biological reproduction.
|
|
|
Gender
|
- The cultural construction of beliefs and behaviors considered appropriate for each sex.
|
|
|
Ethnography
|
- An anthropologist's written or filmed description of a particular culture.
|
|
|
Human Rights
|
- Powers, privileges, or material resources to which people everywhere, by virtue of being human, are justly entitled.
|
|
|
Multiculturalism
|
- Living permanently in settings surrounded by people with cultural backgrounds different from one's own and struggling to define with them the degree to which the cultural beliefs and practices of different groups should or should not be accorded respect and recognition by the wider society.
|
|
|
The "Grey" Area of Human Rights
|
- UN Declaration of Human Rights.
|
|
|
Assumptions
|
- Basic, unquestioned understandings about the way the world works.
|
|
|
Hypotheses
|
- Statements that assert a particular connection between fact and interpretation.
|
|
|
Testability
|
- The ability of scientific hypotheses to be matched against nature to see whether they are confirmed or refuted.
|
|
|
Scientific Theory
|
- A coherently organized series of testable hypotheses used to explain a body of material evidence.
|
|
|
Evolutionary Theory
|
- The set of testable hypotheses that assert that living organisms can change over time and give rise to new kinds of organisms, with the result that all organisms ultimately share a common ancestry.
|
|
|
Evolution
|
- The process of change over time.
- Gradualism X - Punctual equilibrium (stresses) Bursts of intense change associated with certain periods - Evolution is a change through time - Natural selection is the process by which change occurs Context dependent - There is no absolute good trait - Skin color and height are directional - Human head size is normalizing - Balancing selection keeps something in the population that wouldn’t normally be positive because of a third trait (i.e. malaria and sickle cell anemia) |
|
|
Essentialism
|
- The belief, derived from Plato, in fixed ideas, or "forms," that exist perfect and unchanging in eternity. Actual objects in the temporal world, such as cows or horses, are seen as imperfect material realizations of the ideal form that defined their kind.
- Essential differences between classes, each step down less divine than God. |
|
|
Great Chain of Being
|
- A comprehensive framework for interpreting the world, based on Aristotelian principles an elaborated during the Middle Ages, in which every kind of living organism was linked to every other kind in an enormous, divinely created chain. An organism differed from the other kinds immediately above it and below it on the chain by the least possible degree.
|
|
|
Taxonomy
|
- A classification; in biology, the classification of various kinds of organisms.
|
|
|
Genus
|
- The level of the Linnaean taxonomy in which different species are grouped together on the basis of their similarities to one another.
|
|
|
Species
|
- (1) For Linnaeus, a Platonic "natural kind" defined in terms of its essence.
- (2) For modern biologists, a reproductive community of populations (reproductively isolated from others) that occupies a specific niche in nature. - SPECIATION (the appearance of a new species) i.e. Horse + donkey = mule (infertile – hybrid) - SPECIES NORMALLY reproduce to produce VIABLE, FERTILE young - Natural selection will carve off parts of a population until they are reproductively isolated, they cannot interbreed anymore due to the environment. |
|
|
Catastrophism
|
- The notion that natural disasters, such as floods, are responsible for the extinction of species, which are then replaced by new species.
- George Cuvier's explanation for fossils of animals from the Ice Age? (“Well Noah’s Ark wiped them out…”) |
|
|
Uniformitarianism
|
- The notion that an understanding of current processes can be used to reconstruct the past history of the earth, based on the assumption that the same gradual processes of erosion and uplift that change the earth's surface today has also been at work in the past.
|
|
|
Transformational Evolution
|
- Also called LAMARCKIAN EVOLUTION, it assumes essentialist species and a uniform environment. Each individual member of a species transforms itself to meet the challenges of a changed environment through the laws of use and disuse and the inheritance of acquired characters.
- Lamarck proposed that ANIMALS CHANGE, inheritance of acquired traits (alleles) |
|
|
Common Origin
|
- Darwin's claim that similar living species must all have had a common ancestor.
|
|
|
Natural Selection
|
- A two-step, mechanist explanation of how descent with modification takes place:
(1) Every generation, variant individuals are generated within a species due to genetic mutation, and (2) Those variant individuals best suited to the current environment survive and produce ore offspring than other variants. - 3 principles include: (1) Variation in all individuals in a species (i.e. recombination, mutations), (2) Heritability of traits, (3) DIFFERENTIAL REPRODUCTIVE SUCCESS (adaptive individuals often win competitions for resources; they survive and/or reproduce more, with their offspring likely to inherit favorable traits) - Alfred Russell Wallace & Charles Darwin - outcome of processes that alter the frequency of alleles over time in a population - traits that give an advantage in survival and reproduction should increase over time - adaptive, neutral and maladaptive traits in a given environment - directional, normalizing, balancing selection |
|
|
Variational Evolution
|
- The Darwinian theory of evolution, which assumes that variant members of a species respond differently to environmental challenges. Those variants that are more successful ("fitter") survive and reproduce more offspring, who inherit the traits that made their parents fit.
|
|
|
Adaptation
|
- The shaping of useful features of an organism by natural selection for the function they now perform.
- Long-term, genetic changes that increase favorable genes in a population over many generations. - Examples include body size and shape (clinal variation): Bergmann’s rule (temperature : body size) Allen’s rule (temperature : length of limbs) Influence of environment (diet & temperature) |
|
|
Mendelian Inheritance (genetics)
|
- The view that heredity is based on nonblending, single-particle genetic inheritance.
- (Gregor Mendel), experimented with pea plants Alleles (variations of genes), homozygous, heterozygous Dominant Recessive Genotype Phenotype (observable) Principle of segregation and principle of independent assortment |
|
|
Principle of Segregation
|
- A principle of Mendelian inheritance in which an individual gets one particle (gene) for each trait (i.e., one half of the required pair) from each parent.
|
|
|
Principle of Independent Assortment
|
- A principle of Mendelian inheritance in which each pair of particles (genes) separates independently of every other pair when germ cells (egg and sperm) are formed.
|
|
|
Genetics
|
- The scientific study of biological heredity.
|
|
|
Homozygous
|
- Describes a fertilized egg that receives the same particle (or allele) from each parent for a particular trait.
|
|
|
Heterozygous
|
- Describes a fertilized egg that receives a different particle (or allele) from each parent for the same trait.
|
|
|
Gene
|
- Portion or portions of the DNA molecule that code for proteins that shape phenotypic traits.
|
|
|
Alleles
|
- All the different forms that a particular gene might take.
|
|
|
Chromosomes
|
- Sets of paired bodies that in the nucleus of cells that are made of DNA and contain the hereditary genetic information that organisms pass on to their offspring.
|
|
|
Mitosis
|
- The way body cells make copies of themselves. The pairs of chromosomes in the nucleus of the cell duplicate and line up along the center of the cell. The cell then divides, each daughter cell taking one full set of paired chromosomes.
|
|
|
Meiosis
|
- The way sex cells make copies of themselves, which begins like mitosis, with chromosomes duplication and the formation of two daughter cells. However, each daughter cell then divides again without chromosome duplication and, as a result, contains only a single set of chromosomes rather than the paired set typical of body cells.
|
|
|
Linkage
|
- An inheritance pattern in which unrelated phenotypic traits regularly occur together because the genes responsible for those co-occuring traits are passed on together on the same chromosome.
|
|
|
Crossing Over
|
- The phenomenon that occurs when part of one chromosome breaks off and reattaches itself to a different chromosome during meiosis; also called INCOMPLETE LINKAGE.
|
|
|
Discontinuous Variation
|
- A pattern of phenotypic variation in which the phenotype (i.e. flower color) exhibits sharp breaks from one member of the population to the next.
- When traits appear in patches with no specific lines between areas (i.e. No gradation in between populations, less common due to geographic or cultural boundaries) |
|
|
Polgygeny
|
- The phenomenon whereby many genes are responsible for producing a phenotypic trait, such as skin color.
|
|
|
Clinal (continuous) Variation
|
- A pattern of variation involving polygeny in which phenotypic traits grade imperceptibly from one member of the population to another without sharp breaks.
- Gradual change over a geographic area (i.e. frequency of yellow-brown hair in Australia) |
|
|
Pleiotropy
|
- The phenomenon whereby a single gene may affect more than one phenotypic trait.
|
|
|
Mutation
|
- The creation of a new allele for a gene when the portion of the DNA molecule to which it corresponds is suddenly altered.
- Only way that new alleles are introduced, heat of sex cells can produce mutations (i.e. Wear boxers instead of briefs so the testicles stay at the correct temperature > before reproduction), UV can also produce skin cancer. |
|
|
DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid)
|
- The structure that carries the genetic heritage of an organism as a kind of blueprint for the organism's construction and development.
|
|
|
Genome
|
- The sum total of all the genetic information about an organism, carried on the chromosomes in the cell nucleus.
|
|
|
Genotype
|
- The genetic information about particular biological traits encoded in an organism's DNA.
|
|
|
Phenotype
|
- The observable, measurable overt characteristics of an organism.
|
|
|
Norm of Reaction
|
- Tables / graphs discussing genes, your genetic code can be expressed differently in different environments, displays the possible phenotypic OUTCOMES for a genotype in DIFFERENT ENVIRONMENTS.
|
|
|
3 Fundamentals from Creationist to Evolutionist
|
- (1) TRANSFORMATIONAL EVOLUTION: Lamarck proposed that ANIMALS CHANGE, inheritance of acquired traits (alleles) *Change*
- (2) Ussher October, 4004 B.C., Not enough time for evolution, UNIFORMITARIANISM (Charles Lyell, geological principles / processes same today as they always were) *Time for change* - (3) Population of humans grows exponentially 1, 2, 4, 16, 16^2, (16^2)^2 Food grows arithmetically 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7… *Pressure to force the change* |
|
|
Gene Flow
|
- Different populations with different alleles get together (i.e. British isles were full of short people until Vikings from Scandinavia come in with taller, blonder traits) > mating – Scots are Vikings, red heads used to be darker.
|
|
|
Genetic Drift
|
- Caused randomly (i.e. People with a certain set of traits are susceptible to a disease > recall zombie apocalypse), “founder” effect such as the mutiny near a Polynesian island where many crew members had blue eyes, so the founders of a race on this Polynesian island look Polynesian but have blue eyes.
|
|
|
Microevolution
|
- A subfield of evolutionary studies that devotes attention to SHORT-TERM evolutionary changes that occur within a given species over relatively few generations of ecological time.
|
|
|
Macroevolution
|
- A subfield of evolutionary studies that focuses on LONG-TERM evolutionary changes, especially the origins of new species and their diversification across space over millions of years of geological time.
|
|
|
Gene Pool
|
- All the genes in the bodies of all members of a given species (or a population of a species).
|
|
|
Gene Frequency
|
- The frequency of occurrence of the variants of particular genes (i.e., of alleles) within the gene pool.
|
|
|
Population Genetics
|
- A field that uses statistical analysis to study short-term evolutionary change in large populations.
|
|
|
Polymorphous
|
- Describes alleles that come in a range of different forms.
|
|
|
Cline
|
- The gradual intergradation of genetic variation from population to population.
|
|
|
Plasticity
|
- Physiological flexibility that allows organisms to respond to environmental stresses, such as temperature changes.
|
|
|
Acclimatization
|
- A change in the way the body functions in response to physical stress, short-term physiological changes to adjust to changes in the environment (i.e. shivering, tanning), similar stimuli between acclimatization and adaptation however acclimatization takes place over one lifetime.
|
|
|
Anagenesis
|
- The slow, gradual transformation of a single species over time.
|
|
|
Phyletic Gradualism
|
- A theory arguing that one species gradually transforms itself into a new species over time, yet the actual boundary between species can never be detected and can only be drawn arbitrarily.
|
|
|
Cladogenesis
|
- The birth of a variety of descendant species from a single ancestral species.
|
|
|
Punctuated Equilibrium
|
- A theory claiming that most of evolutionary history has been characterized by relatively stable species coexisting in an equilibrium that is occasionally punctuated by sudden bursts of speciation, when extinctions are widespread ad many new species appear.
|
|
|
Species Selection
|
- A process in which natural selection is seen to operate among variant related species within a single genus, family, or order.
|
|
|
Modern Evolutionary Synthesis
|
- (1936-1947, around WWII), discovery of DNA.
|
|
|
Modern Genetics (What kind of factors contribute to who you are today?)
|
- Environment (physical / cultural) + genes + age + random “noise” (accidents / personal history) = you.
|
|
|
Human Variation (Issue: physical or cultural variation?)
|
- Caused by: Natural selection (i.e. skin color), environment (i.e. tanning), individual development (i.e. starvation), cultural and ethnic practices (i.e. stretched earlobes)
|
|
|
Why are South American peoples, although as close to the equator as African peoples, lighter in skin color?
|
- Because of migration, they settled later; African peoples are an older people.
|
|
|
Skin Color (clinal)
|
- Includes:
Hemoglobin, carotene & melanin (“brown-color”, built-in sunscreen, protects chemical folate and against spina bifida[destroyed by UV] – if you’re a woman with low reserves of folate and you have a child, the child may have neural tube defects; we can fix this by taking 1mg of folic acid a day) Gloger’s rule (climate : melanin) – all mammals that live close to the equator are darker in skin color than those who live farther away Sunlight, skin cancer, vitamin D (protects against Seasonal Affective Disorder [S.A.D], milk, cod liver oil, long-term low levels of Vitamin D in far northern regions can get rickets which twists bones), frostbite. |
|
|
Sickle (sickle shape as opposed to rolled up toque shape of red blood cell)-cell anemia (clinal)
|
- Includes:
Balancing selection results in heterozygous being more adaptive Affects young, reproductive females because they menstruate, lose blood and much needed iron. So why isn’t it gone? Because a certain amount is still necessary in populations to protect against malaria. Homozygous reduces life expectancy due to severe anemia or malaria. |
|
|
Susceptibility to Infectious Diseases
|
- Includes:
Tuberculosis (TB), measles, chicken pox, etc. “childhood diseases” and resistance Sedentary, large-scale societies |
|
|
Lactase Deficiency (lactose intolerance)
|
- Retention of lactase in adulthood
- Dairying cultures and protein - Default for most mammals |
|
|
Human Acclimatization / Adaptation Examples
|
- Hypoxia (altitude stress)
o Reduction in the amount of O2 in air o Increase in red blood cells to carry O2 o Larger chest capacity & lungs if it occurs during childhood development - Height |
