Biol 114 Week 4: Mendel's Laws and Probability

Probability

#of defined (or desired) events/ #of total events

Mutually Exclusive Events

are events that cannot happen at the same time. For example, an individual cannot get a head and a tail during a single coin flip.

Independent Events

events are those that are not affected by previous events, nor do the events affect each other. For example, if you were to flip two successive coins, the results from one toss should not affect the results of the other toss

Mendel’s Law of Segregation

In diploid organisms, alleles from the same gene separate from each other during meiosis and are passed into the gametes such that each gamete only gets one allele from each gene

Mendel’s Law of Independent Assortment

Alleles of one gene are passed to the gametes independently of the alleles of other genes, and that the process obeys the rules of random probability

Gambler’s Fallacy

the mistaken belief that if something happens more frequently than what is considered normal, then it will happen less frequently than normal in the future, even if the observer knows that the independent probability of that event occurring is already established