Chapter 9 Discussion Questions

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1. Imagine that you sit on the Supreme Court and are hearing a case in which it is argued that creation science should be taught in public schools alongside evolution as a legitimate alternative scientific explanation of biological diversity. What is the best case that lawyers might make for and against this proposition? How would you vote and why?

2. Will a dominant allele that is lethal be removed from a large population as a result of natural selection? What factors might prevent this from happening? What if the lethal allele is recessive?

3. In a large, randomly mating population with no forces acting to change gene frequencies, the frequency of homozygous recessive individuals for the characteristic of extra-long eyelashes is 90 per 1,000 or .09. What percent of the population carries this desirable trait but displays the dominant phenotype, short eyelashes? Would the frequency of the extra-long eyelash allele increase, decrease, or remain the same if long-lashed individuals preferentially mated with each other and no one else?