PSYC 385 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Coevolution, Heritability
22 Jun 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
Psyc 385 – Lecture 5 notes
Can we draw any implications for evolutionary theories of human behavior from our
brief look at the descent of anatomically modern humans?
Line between culture and biology is heuristic; not independent sources
Evolutionary theory: we have social modules; gene culture co-evolution: we
can’t include all social factors in one module
Genetic support for Out of Africa theory
Easily observable traits (i.e. skin color, hair structure) are the result of a
number of genes not few genes with big effects
So, where are what is the “genetic code”?
Q10: There is a genetic code in the mapping from particular codons in RNA to
their corresponding amino acids (ex. CGA } Arg and AUC })
Simple example of phenotypic variation
Heritability estimate for height in large sample of
European well-nourished men is about .80
After controlling for environmental influences (i.e. European, well-nourished,
men) everything else is due to the phenotype (?)
Relating Genotypes and phenotypes
Aulchenko et al. (2009): Best genetic markers accounted
for a miniscule 3.8% of the variance in height
Galton’s Method (1886): 40%! Galton simply took average
deviation of the 2 parents from the population average
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
