Alright. Let's take a look at this example. It says modern biologists agree that species are not fixed entities. But sometimes, typological ways of speaking and describing organisms are used. Of the following statements, mark those that you think are more aligned with typological thinking with a t.
Mark those that you think are more aligned with population thinking with a p. Alright. So we're gonna read these statements. Just wanna know, all these statements are true. There's nothing, sort of, inherently wrong with these statements.
But some of them just, sort of, lean more towards describing the world in a population viewpoint, and some lean more to describing the world from a typological viewpoint. So let's take a look. Our first one here says that the normal height for a human female is 5 foot 5 inches tall. What do you think? Typological or population viewpoint?
Well, that word "normal" keys me into that typological viewpoint. We have sort of one thing that is normal and variation outside of that we consider abnormal. Now the average height for a female, at least in the United States, is about 5 foot 5 inches tall. But it's perfectly normal to be 5 feet tall or 5 foot 10. Right?
That variation is expected in the population. And this statement doesn't sort of include that viewpoint that includes that variation. So this is definitely a typological way of describing at describing average height. Alright. Our next statement here is mature white oak trees often live for more than 200 years with rare examples living more than 400 years.
Alright. What do you think? Is that more of a typological or population thinking type statement? Well, does it include the variation? Yeah.
it really does. Right? They often live this long, so they don't always. Some of them even live over that over 400 years. But it's not giving me sort of a type and saying different from that is wrong.
It's just saying this is what we see out there. This is really more of a population statement because it's taking that variation into account. Alright. Our next one. The eastern gray squirrel is a rodent with uniform gray fur weighing between 406-600 grams.
What do you think? Population or typological thinking? Well, I'll ask you this. If you found a gray squirrel that didn't have uniform gray fur, would it still be a gray squirrel? I mean, I think so.
It's part of that species. If you found one that weighed 350 grams or 650 grams, would it still be a gray squirrel? Yeah. It would. Right?
So this is really a typological way of thinking. It's giving us sort of a narrow species definition. Now identifying species, we often talk this way because it gives us sort of one thing to look for, but it is more of a typological way of talking. Our next one says that a jaguar or leopard with abnormally dark coloration is called a black panther. What do you think?
Typological or population? Well, jaguars or leopards that have black fur and don't have the normal spots, that's what we do call a black panther. But that variation is normal. Right? That variation is out there in nature, and it's just a type of cat that is part of that species.
In this statement, it says that that's sort of an abnormal dark coloration. Whenever we see something abnormal, that's really a typological way of thinking. We have sort of a normal jaguar and the abnormal one. Well, black panthers, those are just part of the variation that you see in leopards and jaguars. Alright.
Our final statement here says that the mean length of a birch tree leaf is 7 plus or minus 2 and a half centimeters. What do you think? Population or typological type thinking? Well, when I look at this, the mean length, that's an average. But in this average too, it's giving me the variation, plus or minus 2 and a half centimeters.
So this statement is just sort of acknowledging that this average is a statistic. This average came from measuring a lot of birch leaves out there. And so this is a population way of thinking. Right? It is describing the variation.
Even though it's just giving us an average, it's acknowledging that that average is, is made up of lots of different variation. Alright. So again, none of these are necessarily wrong statements, but we do want to practice thinking in a population viewpoint because that really, really helps us in understanding how evolution works. We're gonna practice a little bit more. I'll see you there.
