ANTA01H3 Lecture Notes - Lecture 10: Sickle-Cell Disease, Selective Breeding, Brain Size
Document Summary
Human variation and adaption: phenotypically we are a diverse species, africa is the birth place of humanity, europe- larger cranial capacity, canine fossa, larger brains. Historical views of human variation: ancient egyptians defined people based on the color of there skin, eugenics- started by darwin, means good genes at birth. Selective breeding with people with good genes and selective breeding with people with bad genes. German gene pool, such as gay people, disable people etc. The concept of race: since the 1600s, race has been used to refer to culturally-defined groups. Race is used as a biological term, but has enormous social significance. All black people have this kind of skin and this type of hair etc. We do not see that because there is variation within a race: there is so much gene flow between populations, most variation is within the races than between them. African americans have poor health compared to white americans.
