Thursday, February 24, 2011

blog #4

Describe the three types of selection: directional, stabilizing and disruptive and give an example of each in your own words.


Stabilizing is when natural selection works against the two extremes of a trait to make the population more uniform. Stabilizing selection might work on the birth weighof human babies to keep them at an intermediate weight, because babies that are too big or too small have less chance of being born healthy.


Directional selection is a type of selection works to select the extreme of one trait. In a population of plants, flowers with the brightest color are selected for in order to attract the most pollinators.


Disruptive type of selection selects against the mean of the population.If there are two types of seeds to eat for a population of birds, either of two different beak shapes (sharp or blunt) might be selected for, but a beak that's the average of the two shapes might not be particularly good at eating either seed, so it would be selected against.
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Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Blog # 2 Why is fossil record hard to interpret?

View ImageFossils are hard to interpret because they take long time to form.  Takes hundreds or even thousands of millions of years to form one.  Thats why fossils are so rare and expensive.  They're hard to find also since most of them vanish or is bury deep.  The animals that are extinct are the ones we learn from.  Like dinosaurs they're hard to find.View Image

blog #3

Microevolution is a change in gene frequency within a population. It is evolution resulting from a succession of relatively small genetic variations that often cause the formation of new subspecies. There are 5 ways microevolution can occur: mutations, selection, migration, genetic drift and nonrandom mating!  Thats what microevolution is and how it occurs.
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Thursday, February 3, 2011

Semester 2: blog 1


Why is the theory of evolution still a theory and not a law?

 Theories can NEVER become laws. And laws can NEVER become theories. A law is a fact. A theory is an explanation for facts. A theory is an EXPLANATION for observed facts. A good theory explains many facts. A law is a fact that is observed to be universally true. Note that laws are OBSERVED to be true, not proven to be true. A LAW DESCRIBES A FACT.  A THEORY EXPLAINS MANY FACTS.

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