Questions: Part 2

Chp. 4: Making the New from the Old

1. How does Carroll compare “normal” color vision in humans to color blindness and the vision in other mammals?  What are the anatomical and molecular differences in these vision differences?

2. How do new capabilities evolve?  How do different environments apply differing selective pressure on animals for color vision? In other words, why is color vision different in the forest than in the oceans?

3. How are gene location, gene duplication, and amino acid sequence relevant to the proteins an organism expresses?

Chp. 5: Fossil Genes: Broken Pieces of Yesterday's Life

1. What do "fossil" genes tell us about the history of a species?  Provide an example and describe why a lack of natural selection can allow 'broken' genes to be inherited.

2. How do human olfactory genes demonstrate the concept of “fossilized genes?”

3. Carroll uses the idea of “Use it or lose it” to explain that natural selection drives evolution and not a drive toward “progress” or an underlying “design” for living things.  What does Carroll mean by “Use it or lose it”?

Chp. 6: Déjà Vu: How and Why Evolution Repeats Itself

1.  Why do unrelated species evolve common adaptations?  Provide a specific example and explain how this trait evolved by convergent evolution.

2. Why is it easier to see that the pancreatic enzyme similarities seen in cows and colobus monkeys evolved through convergence, but it is more challenging to see this pattern full color vision in howler monkeys and apes? How is this challenge resolved?

3. How does convergence that occurs from “similar means to similar ends” produce very different results from “different means to similar ends?”  Give specific examples to explain your point.

Chp. 7: Our Flesh and Blood: Arms Races, the Human Race, and Natural Selection

1. How has an “evolutionary arms race” lead to the evolution of a docile newt that secretes enough toxins to kill several large healthy human beings?

2. Provide an example of natural selection and describe how mutations can be a source for new adaptations.

Part 1 Questions

Preface - Beyond Any Reasonable Doubts

1. What do you think S. Carroll means by, “We are clearly more comfortable with DNA’s applications than with its implications”?  Explain.

Chapter 1 - Introductions: The Bloodless Fish of the Bouvet Islands

1. Describe several specific adaptations to the arctic ecosystem shown by the icefish?

2. Explain how icefish have evolved unusual adaptations through the process of variation, selection, and time.

3. How do DNA and other molecular data reveal evidence of evolution?

Chapter 2 - The Everyday Math of Evolution: Chance, Selection, and Time

1. How did Darwin use selective breeding to develop his theory? What was he ignorant about when developing his ideas with peers like Huxley?

2. Describe several ways in which mathematics is used as a tool to explain evolution.

3. Explain how rock pocket mice evolve around ancient lava flows in the Southwestern U.S. through the process of variation, selection, and time.

Chapter 3 - Immortal Genes: Running in Place for Eons

1. Explain how some DNA is coding and some is non-coding?  What is the significance of of each type of DNA?

2. Why do you suppose some genes are “immortal” while others become “fossils”?

3. What does DNA reveal the evolutionary relationships of eukaryotes and the different types of prokaryotes?