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Human evolutionary genetics studies how one human genome differs from another human genome, the evolutionary past that gave rise to the human genome, and its current effects. Differences between genomes have anthropological, medical, historical and forensic implications and applications. Genetic data can provide important insights into human ...
Evolution is the change in the heritable characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. [1] [2] It occurs when evolutionary processes such as natural selection and genetic drift act on genetic variation, resulting in certain characteristics becoming more or less common within a population over successive generations. [3]
Comparing a given gene with that of other species enables geneticists to determine whether it is rapidly evolving in humans alone. For example, while human DNA is on average 98% identical to chimp DNA, the so-called Human Accelerated Region 1 , involved in the development of the brain, is only 85% similar. [2]
The evidence on which scientific accounts of human evolution are based comes from many fields of natural science. The main source of knowledge about the evolutionary process has traditionally been the fossil record, but since the development of genetics beginning in the 1970s, DNA analysis has come to occupy a place of comparable importance.
Evidence for the evolution of Homo sapiens from a common ancestor with chimpanzees is found in the number of chromosomes in humans as compared to all other members of Hominidae. All hominidae have 24 pairs of chromosomes, except humans, who have only 23 pairs. Human chromosome 2 is a result of an end-to-end fusion of two ancestral chromosomes ...
In the so-called modern synthesis of the early 20th century, between 1918 and 1930 Ronald Fisher brought together Darwin's theory of evolution, with its insistence on natural selection, heredity, and variation, and Gregor Mendel's laws of genetics into a coherent structure for evolutionary biology. Biologists assumed that an organism was a ...
Molecular anthropology, also known as genetic anthropology, is the study of how molecular biology has contributed to the understanding of human evolution. [1] This field of anthropology examines evolutionary links between ancient and modern human populations, as well as between contemporary species.
Human evolution (origins of society and culture) – Transition of human species to anthropologically modern behavior; Inversion (evolutionary biology) – Hypothesis in developmental biology; Mosaic evolution – Evolution of characters at various rates both within and between species