1. How do explain the fact that, while humans and chimps only differ in about 1% of total nucleotides, they obviously differ much more than 1% in bodies, brains, behavior, and ecology? How can so little genetic difference allow for such profound physical difference? (There's a short paragraph on this on page 365, but I want you to use your developing evolutionary understanding to explain why a 1% modification to a complex piece of machinery like a human, chimp, or a car for that matter, could cause massive changes in abilities, looks, etc.)
2. Upper Paleolithic peoples [Homo sapiens] were better able to cope with their environment than the Neanderthals were. What are some of the main reasons for this?
3. Summarize two or three of the ways in which genetic data contributes to our growing understanding of what has happened to Homo sapiens in the last 200,000 years.
4. Suppose you planted two raised box tomato gardens. Box A produced plants that were 3 feet tall from which you got 12 tomatoes a week, while box B produced 2 foot tall plants from which 7 tomatoes were harvested. Can you confidently say that Box A was seeded with genetically superior seeds? Why or why not?
5. Write a brief explanation of how a population could go from lactose intolerant to lactose tolerant. Remember, this is an evolutionary shift, not just a single lifetime experience, so be sure to frame your answer in the context of forces operating throughout many generation (especially natural selection).
6. Critically evaluate the following claim: People from India are members of the Asian race. Use information from pages 388-393 in your response. Hint: this isn't actually a question about people from India, but rather a question about the race concept itself.
7. A) why is close inbreeding too costly for sexually reproducing organisms to engage in? B) How do animals, including humans, avoid mating with close relatives? C) What evidence suggests that humans have evolved psychological predispositions (instincts) to avoid close interbreeding? D) How do evolutionary explanations for inbreeding avoidance differ other explanations offered in the past century?