PSYCH 3F03 Chapter Notes - Chapter 1: Overproduction, Mutation, Assistive Technology
3 Mar 2017
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Document Summary
Struggle for existence: only a tiny fraction of individuals will reproduce, do not survive to produce offspring of their own. Populations have the capacity to increase in numbers exponentially, 2n. Most offspring that are produced to our siblings and parents than those we"re not related to. Any variation that is not inherited is unimportant to us; we are more similar. Two step process: first, the origin of variation by random mutation, and second, the non-random sorting of variation due to its effects on survival and reproduction. Darwinian fitness: a measure of the total reproductive output of an organism with a particular genotype. Traits are only considered important if they influence reproduction. Evolution is a two step process: first, the generation of new variation by mutation and recombination, second determines which randomly generated variants will persist into the next generation. Small advantages can create beneficial mutation to increase proportion over many generations.
