ANTH 5 Chapter Notes - Chapter 1: Human Genome, Mutation, Cosmic Ray
Document Summary
Natural selection = designer of all living things. Natural state of matter is chaos, not order (entropy) Living things are the opposite - highly ordered, highly non-random. : replacing one nucleic acid (acgt) for another out of the 3. 3 billion nucleic acids humans have could possibly kill you. Not much tolerance for disorder down at the level of genes. : camouflage allows blending into very specific environment. Theory is strengthened when it accurately predicts observations. Theory is disproved when their predictions turn out to be false. Adaptation: fit between the organism and its environment. Passing down of genes like passing down of recipes in cookbooks. Genes are potentially immortal bc they survive the death of the parents. Process of throwing away what doesn"t work and holding onto what does work. Human genome: (cid:1006)(cid:1005),5(cid:1004)(cid:1004) genes (cid:1007). (cid:1007) (cid:271)illion nu(cid:272)leotides. Mutations caused by physicals forces (cosmic radiation, environmental toxins) Mutation (not natural selection) creates new genetic recipes.
