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 viii
... less intelligent handmaidens to chemists and physicists. It is this challenge that has been taken up by evolutionary biologists above all other biologists. Exploring secular forces behind the machinery of life is a relatively new ...
... less intelligent handmaidens to chemists and physicists. It is this challenge that has been taken up by evolutionary biologists above all other biologists. Exploring secular forces behind the machinery of life is a relatively new ...
Page xi
... Less heralded is another revolution: a boon in genetics and biotechnology that has changed the landscape of biology and medicine. In large part, this revolution has come from great dramatic leaps in the ability of scientists to ...
... Less heralded is another revolution: a boon in genetics and biotechnology that has changed the landscape of biology and medicine. In large part, this revolution has come from great dramatic leaps in the ability of scientists to ...
Page xii
... less attention and funding for research. Geneticists and molecular biologists often dismiss these older fields with the pejorative label “natural history.” When challenged, those studying ecology and evolution often counter with ...
... less attention and funding for research. Geneticists and molecular biologists often dismiss these older fields with the pejorative label “natural history.” When challenged, those studying ecology and evolution often counter with ...
Page 6
... less than adequately effective against the new flu. The principles of evolutionary genetics are used to predict what the next year's flu will look like, and potentially to ascertain whether a radically different and thus more deadly ...
... less than adequately effective against the new flu. The principles of evolutionary genetics are used to predict what the next year's flu will look like, and potentially to ascertain whether a radically different and thus more deadly ...
Page 7
... less after their introduction. This resistance has resulted in tens of thousands of deaths every year in the United States alone. In addition to the human toll, bacterial resistance to antibiotics costs Americans tens of billions of ...
... less after their introduction. This resistance has resulted in tens of thousands of deaths every year in the United States alone. In addition to the human toll, bacterial resistance to antibiotics costs Americans tens of billions of ...
Contents
3 | |
2 Why Intelligent Design Is Not Science | 17 |
Natural Selection | 37 |
Human Origins and Evolution | 83 |
Notes | 185 |
Glossary | 197 |
References | 201 |
Index | 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