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23 Cards in this Set
- Front
- Back
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what is physical anthropology? |
study of human biological evolution and human bicultural evolution |
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what is a hypothesis? |
testable statement that potentially explains phenomena observed in the natural world |
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what is a scientific law? |
statement of irrefutable truth of some action or actions occurring in the natural world |
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what are the 6 big events in human evolution? |
1. bipedalism 2. nonhoning chewing 3. material culture and tools 4. speech 5. hunting 6. domesticated foods |
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what is the definition of "species"? |
group of related organisms that can interbreed and produce fertile, viable offspring |
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what is the definition of an "adaptation"? |
changes in physical structure, function, or behavior that allow an organism to survive and reproduce in a given environment |
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define "natural selection" |
process by which organisms preferentially survive and reproduce, thereby increasing the frequency of their features in the population |
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Proposed by Darwin, units of inheritane |
gemmules |
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what is a "gene" |
basic unit of inheritance, sequence of DNA on a chromosome, coded to produce a specific protein |
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what is an "allele" |
one or more alternative forms of a gene (dominant or recessive) |
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what is a "genotype" |
genetic makeup of an organism; combination of alleles for a given gene |
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what is a "phenotype" |
physically expression of the genotype, may be influenced by environment |
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what is a "mutation" |
random change in a gene or chromosome creating a new trait that may be advantageous, deleterious, or neutral in its effects on an organism |
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what is the only source of new genetic material? |
mutation |
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admixture, or exchange of alleles between two populations |
gene flow |
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random change in allele frequency from one generation to the next, with greater effect in small populations |
genetic drift |
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what is evolution? |
change over time - can be biological, cultural |
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what is biological evolution? |
change in gene frequency over time |
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what are some human physical imperfections that represents how evolution does NOT create imperfection |
1. weakly attached retinas 2. optic nerve in middle of retina 3. common passageway for air and food 4. upright posture 5. undersized knees in proportion to body |
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what is a human example of the biocultural feedback loop? |
larger brain sizes allowed cultural innovation, but then cultural innovation selected for larger brains |
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what are the underlying assumptions of science? (6) |
1. unknown is knowable and we are capable of knowing the unknown 2. there is order in nature 3. collective human intellect is capable of discovering this order 4. natural events have natural causes 5. natural laws do not change with time or distance 6. all humans perceive natural events in fundamentally the same way |
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what is the idea of "unifornitarianism"? |
Charles Lyell's idea that forces at work today were the same as ones at work throughout history |
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what is methodological naturalism? |
ground rule of science; supernatural explanations cannot be used in science because they are not testable |
