Darwinian Detectives: Revealing the Natural History of Genes and GenomesBiology is often viewed today as a bipartisan field, with molecular level genetics guiding us into the future and natural history (including ecology, evolution, and conservation biology,) chaining us to a descriptive scientific past. In Darwinian Detectives, Norman Johnson bridges this divide, revealing how the tried and true tools of natural history make sense of the newest genomic discoveries. Molecular scientists exploring newly sequenced genomes have stumbled upon quite a few surprises, including that only one to ten percent of the genetic material of animals actually codes for genes. What does the remaining 90-99% of the genome do? Why do some organisms have a much lower genome size than their close relatives? What were the genetic changes that were associated with us becoming human? As molecular biologists uncover these and other new mysteries, evolutionary geneticists are searching for answers to such questions. Norman Johnson captures the excitement of the hunt for our own genetic history. Through lively anecdotes, he explores how researchers detect natural selection acting on genes and what this genetic information tells us about human origins. |
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Page vii
... Biology remains based on some type of creationism, as it was before Darwin published his theory of evolution, but ... biologists work out that the sickling is usually due to a single amino acid change in the string of amino acids that ...
... Biology remains based on some type of creationism, as it was before Darwin published his theory of evolution, but ... biologists work out that the sickling is usually due to a single amino acid change in the string of amino acids that ...
Page viii
... biologists who are the detectives, the Columbos, the Miss Marples, often older or eccentric, driving ancient vehicles and muttering to themselves about things that the cops on the molecular biology beat find baffling. This engaging ...
... biologists who are the detectives, the Columbos, the Miss Marples, often older or eccentric, driving ancient vehicles and muttering to themselves about things that the cops on the molecular biology beat find baffling. This engaging ...
Page ix
... biology patrolman or a fossil bounty hunter, and we have a new theory explaining a mystery of life. Sometimes this theory is shot down soon after it ... biology, mysteries that only evolutionary biologists have the hubris to try Foreword ix.
... biology patrolman or a fossil bounty hunter, and we have a new theory explaining a mystery of life. Sometimes this theory is shot down soon after it ... biology, mysteries that only evolutionary biologists have the hubris to try Foreword ix.
Page x
... biologists have the hubris to try to solve. Like the cosmologists of physics or the theorists of quantum mechanics, evolutionary biologists delight in paradoxes and puzzles, organisms that shouldn't exist, and genes that seem to defy ...
... biologists have the hubris to try to solve. Like the cosmologists of physics or the theorists of quantum mechanics, evolutionary biologists delight in paradoxes and puzzles, organisms that shouldn't exist, and genes that seem to defy ...
Page xi
... biology and medicine. In large part, this revolution has come from great dramatic leaps in the ability of scientists to ascertain the genetic information present in the sequences of DNA molecules. Although we have understood that DNA is ...
... biology and medicine. In large part, this revolution has come from great dramatic leaps in the ability of scientists to ascertain the genetic information present in the sequences of DNA molecules. Although we have understood that DNA is ...
Contents
Why Evolution Still Matters | 3 |
2 Why Intelligent Design Is Not Science | 17 |
Natural Selection | 37 |
Human Origins and Evolution | 83 |
Notes | 185 |
Glossary | 197 |
201 | |
213 | |
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Common terms and phrases
Africa amino acid balancing selection Behe billion nucleotides biology bonobos brain breeds changes chapter chimps chromosome clicks closest relatives colleagues complex correlated Darwin Darwinian deleterious detect disease divergence DNA sequences dogs domesticated effective population size effective population sizes estimate evidence evolutionary biologists evolutionary geneticists evolve exists females FOXP frequency function genes genetic drift genetic variants genome size haplotypes hemoglobin heterozygotes Homo homozygotes human genome human lineage humans and chimpanzees humans and Neanderthals hypothesis individuals insects intelligent design introns Kimura language less maize males mammals mitochondrial DNA mitochondrial Eve modern humans molecular evolution molecules mtDNA natural selection Neanderthals negative selection neutral theory nucleotides occurred organisms origins patterns plants polymorphism positive selection protein pufferfish recent common ancestor regulatory region replacement researchers result scientific scientists silent sites similar species teosinte traits transposable elements vertebrates virus Y chromosome Y-chromosome Y-chromosome Adam