Deck 3: Genetics and Evolution

Question 1

If we think of the history of the universe in terms of 12 months,the history of humanlike primates would have taken up only about __________.

A) 90 minutes
B) 3 hours
C) 10 minutes
D) 1 hour

Answer 1

90 minutes

Question 2

What happens to a species when environments change?

A) Different traits will become adaptive.
B) They will all go extinct and be replaced by new species.
C) They will grow bigger in response to the environmental change.
D) There is no change in a species' evolution.

Answer 2

Different traits will become adaptive.

Question 3

Which pair of scientists is famous for discovering the structure of the DNA molecule?

A) Watson and Crick
B) Darwin and Wallace
C) Lyell and Cuvier
D) Malthus and Marx

Answer 3

Watson and Crick

Question 4

Gregor Mendel was a pioneer in the field of __________.

A) genetics
B) physics
C) chemistry
D) medicine

Question 5

What does Darwinian evolution maintain about the evolutionary relationship between humans and monkeys?

A) Humans and monkeys are descended from a common ancestor that lived long ago.
B) Humans are direct descendents of monkeys.
C) Humans and monkeys are only related to the extent that they are both mammals.
D) Humans and monkeys are not biologically related at all.

Question 6

Who classified plants and animals into a systema naturae,which led to the taxonomic system we use today?

A) Carolus Linnaeus
B) Charles Darwin
C) Aristotle
D) Jean-Baptiste Lamarck

Question 7

Mendel's units of heredity were what we now call __________.

A) genes
B) chromosomes
C) DNA
D) gametes

Question 8

In 1859,Charles Darwin published __________.

A) The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection
B) The Descent of Man
C) The Voyage of the Beagle
D) Fauna of the Galapagos Island

Question 9

Which of these statements is true regarding human chromosomes?

A) Egg and sperm cells have 23 chromosomes, while all other body cells contain 46.
B) All body cells divide through a process called meiosis.
C) Chromosomes divide only once in a person's lifetime.
D) Children receive all of their chromosomes from either their mother or their father.

Question 10

What is a dominant trait?

A) one which is always expressed in the presence of another variant
B) one which is repressed by the presence of another variant
C) a trait that is most common in a population
D) a trait that is less common in a population

Question 11

Modern-looking humans evolved about __________ years ago.

A) 100,000
B) 1,000,000
C) 500,000
D) 10,000

Question 12

Natural selection cannot account for the variation in frequency of __________ traits.

A) neutral
B) adaptive
C) maladaptive
D) unusual

Question 13

Where does protein synthesis take place?

A) at the ribosome
B) in the nucleus
C) in the mitochondria
D) outside the cell

Question 14

Which scientist developed a theory of evolution by way of natural selection at about the same time as Darwin?

A) Alfred Russel Wallace
B) Charles Lyell
C) Thomas Huxley
D) Georges Cuvier

Question 15

The main process that increases the frequency of adaptive traits through time is called __________.

A) natural selection
B) catastrophism
C) uniformitarianism
D) ontogeny

Question 16

__________ is the exchange of sections of chromosomes between one chromosome and another.

A) Crossing-over
B) Speciation
C) Mutation
D) Segregation

Question 17

Which base is present in RNA but not in DNA?

A) uracil
B) adenine
C) thymine
D) cytosine

Question 18

Charles Darwin was not the first person to discuss evolutionary processes,but he is famous because he __________.

A) was the first to provide a comprehensive, well-documented explanation of natural selection
B) studied apes extensively and began to draw comparisons with human biology
C) was among the first scientists to explain how traits are passed from one generation to the next
D) was able to see that environment played no role in evolution

Question 19

If two alleles for a trait are the same,the organism is __________ for the trait.

A) homozygous
B) heterozygous
C) monozygous
D) bizygous

Question 20

The observable appearance of a pea plant is called its __________.

A) phenotype
B) stereotype
C) prototype
D) genotype

Question 21

Which of these organisms would be highest on Macrobius' "chain of being"?

A) humans
B) apes
C) birds
D) cows

Question 22

The fields of __________ and __________ involve the application of evolutionary principles to the behavior of animals.

A) sociobiology; behavioral ecology
B) biochemistry; neuroanatomy
C) anatomy; physiology
D) botany; ecology

Question 23

Why are most traits not simply a matter of dominant and recessive inheritance?

A) Most traits are influenced by the activity of many different genes.
B) You inherit most of your traits from one parent, regardless of whether they are dominant or recessive.
C) Dominance is an out-of-date concept that does not apply to any known human traits.
D) A trait can be both dominant and recessive in certain circumstances.

Question 24

What is the focus of molecular anthropology?

A) genetic mutations
B) bioengineering
C) recombination
D) genes and behavior

Question 25

Which of these is an example of hybridization?

A) a wolf and a dog mate and have a healthy litter of pups
B) an isolated population has different gene frequencies that the wider population
C) individuals with maladaptive traits reproduce less frequently than other individuals
D) horses and donkeys can reproduce, but the offspring is usually infertile

Question 26

__________ is the only way to produce variation in species that reproduce asexually.

A) Mutation
B) Crossing-over
C) Segregation
D) Genetic drift

Question 27

What process provides a possible explanation for the higher frequency of type O blood in Native American populations than in other groups?

A) founder effect
B) segregation
C) recombination
D) hybridization

Question 28

What does messenger RNA do?

A) It copies the information on DNA for use in protein synthesis.
B) It tells the cell when it is time to divide.
C) It stays inside the nucleus to direct DNA replication.
D) It determines which genes will be expressed in the DNA.

Question 29

Which of these is an example of Lamarckian inheritance of acquired characteristics?

A) Giraffes have long necks as a result of stretching to reach the leaves on tall trees.
B) Male lions have manes to attract female lions and to scare off rival males.
C) Penguins cannot fly, but have adapted their wings for swimming.
D) Generations of inbreeding have created health problems in many domestic dog breeds.

Question 30

Which common rebuttal against evolutionary theory relates back to Paley's "divine watchmaker" argument?

A) The eye is too complex an organ to have evolved gradually.
B) There are no transitional fossils.
C) The earth is not old enough to allow for such evolutionary change.
D) People have stopped evolving.

Question 31

Which of these is a simple trait,coded with one pair of alleles?

A) pea color
B) hair color
C) height
D) blood type

Question 32

Which of these is an example of a maladaptive trait?

A) Humans are prone to back pain and varicose veins because we walk upright.
B) Horses have specialized toes to give them both strength and speed.
C) Dogs have developed the ability to read human social cues.
D) Many bird species can now mimic the sounds of human technology.

Question 33

The idea of "dual inheritance" sees human behavior as deriving from both __________ and __________.

A) culture; genetics
B) the environment; history
C) history; culture
D) genetics; the environment

Question 34

Which of these is an example of normalizing selection?

A) birth weight in babies
B) color change in moths
C) increased canine size in baboons
D) bigger brain size in humans

Question 35

Which of these is a core principle of natural selection?

A) differential reproductive success
B) decreasing biodiversity
C) linear progression
D) increasing body size

Question 36

Natural selection operates on an individual's __________.

A) phenotype
B) genotype
C) haplotype
D) karyotype

Question 37

Founder effect is a variety of __________.

A) genetic drift
B) mutation
C) gene flow
D) recombination

Question 38

Charles Darwin's theory of evolution suggests that __________.

A) one species could, over time, evolve into another
B) inheritance plays no role in evolution
C) acquired characteristics are a key factor in evolution
D) modern primates will eventually evolve into humans

Question 39

What is the creationist argument against macroevolution?

A) Living organisms are so complex that random processes, such as natural selection, could never have created them.
B) There is no way to scientifically observe biological changes in populations over time.
C) Scientists push evolutionary theory for political, not scholarly, purposes.
D) Creation scientists have discredited the concept of macroevolution through rigorous scientific testing.

Question 40

Which of these structures is the smallest?

A) allele
B) gene
C) chromosome
D) cell

Question 41

What is the difference between microevolution and macroevolution?

A) Microevolution refers to change within species; macroevolution refers to the production of new species.
B) Microevolution refers to small changes within a species; macroevolution refers to major changes within a species.
C) Microevolution refers to changes in microorganisms; macroevolution refers to changes in bigger species.
D) Microevolution is accepted by evolutionary scholars; macroevolution is accepted by creationists.

Question 42

What is sociobiology? How does it explain the evolution of behavioral traits?

Question 43

What consideration must be taken into account when determining whether or not a trait is adaptive?

A) the particular environment
B) cognitive abilities associated with the trait
C) how common the trait is in other species
D) whether the trait is biological or behavioral

Question 44

Distinguish between an allele and a gene.

A) Alleles are one member of a pair of genes.
B) Genes are long strings of proteins that make up an allele.
C) Alleles are dominant, and genes are recessive.
D) Genes are made up of hundreds of alleles each.

Question 45

Explain the difference between simple traits,which are either dominant or recessive,and more complex,polygenic traits.Which are more common in humans,and why?

Question 46

How did Cuvier's theory of catastrophism conflict with early evolutionary thinking?

A) It held that disasters, like floods or earthquakes, completely wiped out species, and new ones were created to replace them.
B) It maintains that, were species to develop as described in Darwinian evolution, it would be catastrophic for their survival.
C) Catastrophism argues that all species are doomed to extinction, regardless of their relative fitness to their environment.
D) Catastrophism recognizes no impact of the environment on a species' chance for survival.

Question 47

Scholars who support punctuated equilibrium disagree with what traditional idea in evolution?

A) species evolve slowly over time
B) one species can evolve into another
C) evolution is closely linked to the environment
D) evolution depends on inheritance of genes

Question 48

Why do brothers and sisters not look exactly alike?

A) Each fertilized egg gets a random assortment of genes from the mother and the father.
B) While the egg cells all contain identical genetic material, the sperm cells have a great deal of variation.
C) Siblings have the same genetic combination, but their different environments when growing up cause them to look differently.
D) Boys tend to get more genetic material from their father, and girls tend to get most of their genetic material from their mother.

Question 49

Darwin was not the first to propose the idea of evolution of species.Outline the scholarly influences that led up to Darwin's unified theory of evolution through natural selection.

Question 50

What are the major sources of variability? How does each operate to change gene frequencies in a population?

Question 51

How do we know that genetic mutations are not always bad?

A) They are relatively frequent, but often have little to no effect.
B) They occur so rarely that their impact on the population is negligible.
C) We routinely analyze cells for mutations through simple blood tests.
D) All regularly occurring mutations have now been found and classified.

Question 52

In what circumstances can natural selection be observed? What do these observations tell us about evolution?

Question 53

When gene flow occurs,its effect is opposite that of genetic drift,because gene flow __________.

A) tends to decrease the genetic differences between populations
B) creates more homogeneous populations than genetic drift
C) is driven by unusually high mutation rates
D) causes replication of undesirable traits instead of desirable ones

Question 54

In what way has the sociobiological approach aroused controversy in anthropology?

A) The emphasis in sociobiology is on genes, rather than experience, as a determinant of human behavior.
B) Sociobiology is a social science working with biological concepts.
C) Sociobiology considers cultural traditions, where anthropologists tend to ignore them.
D) Many scholars find the sociobiological approach too post-modern and interpretive.

Question 55

What evidence do scientists need to show that observed changes are actually due to natural selection?

A) experimental manipulation of a population
B) statistical significance
C) notes and observations
D) detailed drawings of changes over time