Anthro2050 1st Edition Lecture 8 Outline of Last Lecture I Sexual Selection Continued II Humans and Sexual Selection Outline of Current Lecture I Mate Preference II Genetics Current Lecture Mate Preference Many studies have been done that ask humans what traits they prefer in the opposite sex when looking for a mate Cross culturally and over time males and females have both expressed preferences towards traits that express personality nice interesting to talk to mutual attraction and interest respect etc Cross culturally females tended to rank higher a preference for traits in males that show that the male can provide for a family and will stay and invest in a family affluent good job prospects likes children cares for family etc Cross culturally males tended to rank higher a preference for traits in females that indicate fertility health and a long reproductive cycle good looks clear skin and eyes certain waist to hip ratio indicating fertility cooking abilities youth etc Culture and modern media has slightly altered some of these trait preferences today versus how they were in say the nineteen thirties Cross culturally and in both sexes there has been a decrease in the importance of chastity in a mate increase in importance of physical appearance increase in importance of the financial prospects of females with a decrease in the importance of domestic skills and a major increase in the importance of romantic love and attraction in a relationship Genetics These notes represent a detailed interpretation of the professor s lecture GradeBuddy is best used as a supplement to your own notes not as a substitute a major problem for evolutionary scientists in Darwin s time and before was trying to figure out how traits were passed from generation to generation without much knowledge of genetics In the middle ages the theory was that in the head of the sperm there was a tiny fetus already there and when the sperm logged in the uterus wall it expanded and the baby grew later there was a theory of blending inheritance where the traits of the mother and father just randomly blended together like taking two cans of paint and splashing them against a wall Darwin thought that all of the cells in the body shed off things called gemmels that travelled to your reproductive organs and passed information from there A monk named Mendel lead the way to our knowledge of modern genetics with some very detailed experiments at his monastery involving 34 varieties of 28 000 pea plants He noticed that some plants had different characteristics i e some peas were yellow and round and others green and wrinkly Mendel combined pea plants with different traits and took extremely detailed notes of how the traits were distributed over several generations The first generation would have only one set of traits but the following generations would start to show some of the other traits Mendel figured out that some traits were dominant and masked other recessive traits Gene a unit of inheritance which occurs at a specific place on a chromosome that provides specific information about a trait Allele the alternate forms of a specific gene resulting in variation Some traits are ruled by several genes and or alleles causing a wider variation than if they were ruled by only one i e skin hair and eye colors Dominant the allele that prevents the expression of the variation When talking about genetics is often shown in upper case letters YY Recessive the allele that holds a variation of the dominant trait often expressed in lower case letters yy If a person has one dominant allele and one recessive the dominant trait will show but the recessive trait can be passed on to offspring Yy If a person has only the recessive allele the recessive trait will show yy Genotype the genetic code for your alleles YY Yy or yy Phenotype the way your traits are physically expressed Mendel s Law of Segregation genes occur in individuals as pairs and during the production of sex cells the pairs split allowing new pairings and combinations of genes at fertilization