ANTHR101 Lecture Notes - Lecture 7: Lactose Intolerance, Dual Inheritance Theory

• School: University of Alberta
• Department: Anthropology
• Course: ANTHR101
• Professor: Francois Larose

Document Summary

Biocultural evolution: our culture influences our biological evolution and affects the development of our cultures. Lactose intolerance as humans began to domesticate animals: body proportion differentiates across climates to preserve or release body heat. The real difference between human populations is the frequency of alleles, not whether they are present or not: problems with classification of human diversity, units of classification (geographical, ethnic, breeding populations, europeans, africans etc. Always been contact between populations creating an ambiguous classification of populations. Always gene flow between populations and therefore classifications are blurred: how many and which traits should be used to classify humans into groups, don"t have to be visible. Depends on your reason for classification why you classify individuals into specific groups. Classifications are always arbitrary: units of classification are dynamic entities and breeding populations change consistently over time. Many differences between individuals that we cannot see: races are no more than cultural constructions based on arbitrary characteristics.