ANTH-110 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Human Skin Color, Polygenism, Genetic Drift
11 Jan 2017
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January 26, 2016
Example midterm question: How did de Buffon differ from his contemporaries in his
approach to explaining human variation?
My answer: De Buffon recognized that there was lots of variation but he did not
classify it in permanent classes. He thought that human variation was normal and he
proposed different reasons for changes within a species. He thought that climate,
what people ate and people’s lifestyles could affect their biology. Scientist decided to
take Linnaeus’ approach to change and ignored de Buffon’s method.
(ugh’s answer: Unlike most of his contemporaries in the th century, de Buffon did
not believe that human variation was essential or static. Instead, he believed that
human variation existed on a continuum that was produced by humans changing as
they moved around the globe. Specifically, he hypothesized that climate, food and
cultural conditions such as slavery could change humans. Unfortunately, because he
could not demonstrate this…… online
Example midterm question: What are the evolutionary forces that have influenced
the global distribution of human skin colour.
My answer:
(ugh’s answer: )n the th-19th centuries skin colour was commonly considered to
be an essentialist trait of typological races (e.g., Linneus, US Polygenists, etc), but we
now know that pigmentation is a product of natural selection over thousands of
generations. Specifically, in high UV environmants, such as around the equator, dark
coloured skin increased an individuals reproductive success…….. online
a. Biology’s New Synthesis ’s-’s
Natural Selection + Mendel’s Genetics + Population Genetics ’s-
’
Mendel was good at predicting things that would happen with 4 or 5 plants
Forces of evolution
Genetic Drift – change in a population due to a random statistic sampling affect
Natural Theory of Molecular Evolution (Kimura 1968)
Most observed genetic variation is not due to natural selection, but rather is neutral
and influenced mostly by drift and mutation. Kimura thought that these to things
were more important in creating variation rather than natural selection.
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