Download Michael Stallone Ryan Mongelluzo Physical ANthropology 4/ 6

Michael Stallone
Ryan Mongelluzo
Physical ANthropology
4/ 6/ 2014
Homework Assignment # 4
• Phylogeny : The study of evolutionary relationships among groups of organisms.
• Taxonomy : the process or system of describing the way in which different living things
are related by putting them in groups
• Analogous characters : have separate evolutionary origins, but are superficially similar
because they have both experienced natural. ex bird wings, and bat wings
• Homologous characters: characters in different organisms that are similar because
they were inherited from a common ancestor
• Derived characters: a trait that is shared by organisms with a recent common
ancestor, An adapted lineage that is passes along to descendants.
• Eugenics: the study or belief in the possibility of improving the qualities of the human
species or a human population, especially by such means as discouraging
reproduction by persons having genetic defects or presumed to have inheritable
undesirable traits or encouraging reproduction by persons presumed to have
inheritable desirable traits
• Cline: describes an ecotone in which a series of biocommunities display a continous
gradient.
• Life History: the schedule and duration of key events in organism’s lifetime are shaped
by natural selection to produce the largest number of surviving offspring
• Species: a class of individuals having some common characteristics or qualities
• Sexual dimorphism: the differences in appearance between males and females of the
same species that are caused by the inheritance of one or the other sexual pattern in
the genetic material
• Epiphysis: a part of process of a bone that ossifies seperately and later becomes
ankylosed to the main part of the bone
• Diaphysis: the shaft of a long bone
• Senescence: the gradual deterioration of function characteristic of most complex
lifeforms, arguably found in all biological kingdoms
• Homeostasis: the tendency of an organism or a cell to regulate its internal conditions,
usually by a system of feeback controls, to stabilize health and functioning
• Menopause: the permanent end of menstruation and fertility.
1. Is race a valid, biologically meaningful concept? Why or Why not?
- No race is not a biologically meaningful concept. Race isn’t biologically determined, its
actually socially constructed. People created race, there is not a gene that determines
it. All humans are 99.9 % similar.
2. How does human life history (prenatal stage, infancy, childhood, juvenile stage,
adolescence, adulthood, old age) shed light on the interaction between genes and
the environment?
- Human life history sheds life on the interaction between genes and the environment by
showing us how humans genes develop over time and mature.