human variation and race blog

Human Variation & Race Blog

1) Heat negatively impacts our survival in many ways such as: as the earth grows mosquitoes will migrate further north and south spreading disease, warmer oceans mean stronger hurricanes, droughts and heat waves will be more common and water will become short in supply, the food supplies will be wiped out as the land becomes too dry for crops and animals wont survive, economic costs of treating diseases and rebuilding cities after natural disasters will do a lot of damage.

2)Individual differences in metabolism, hormone levels, physical activity, body size and shape all play a significant role in how efficiently an individual responds to hot climates. People evolve to meet environmental needs.

Cultural adaptation: People who live in warm areas have darker skin tone and body hair.

Developmental: higher skin temperature, good diet, physical shape.

Short term: sweating/sweat glands to lower body temperatures in the heat.

Facultative: someone living in warm climate may develop calluses on their feet.

3)The benefits of studying human variation is that by studying the various sample populations over periods of time we can evaluate the environmental stressors that affect populations.if we took one samplepopulation from one environment and moved them to an entriely different environment we would be able to notice and observe different types of adaptations for that specific environment.

4)Race could only be used to classify certain kinds of groups from certain geographic locations. We can see how a certain race of people have developed and evolved over time. This would be very useful in learning about your own culture or ancestors. Howver studying the environmental influences of a group is better because we can see patterns of human evolution to outside stressors. We can see how people adapt and change in different climate changes fir example.

Language Blog

Language Assignment Experiment

PART 1:

    * I found this assignment very difficult at first only because it's really hard to communicate with one another without using any form of language. The body language and facial expressions helped for my group to somewhat understand simple things.

    * My group had to alter the way they were communicating with me by asking lots of questions to see what I was refering to or what I meant by something. At first, I would try to answer things by pointing or gesturing to things but that was a bit difficult for the others to undestand what I was trying to make out. So then I decided to mix the gestures with drawings or pictures to help them understand. The drawings of symbols and pictures actually really helped them in the end. By that time we were able to communicate somewhat thoroughly with each other.however it was very time consuming.

    * People with down syndrome for example have difficulty speaking. They have to rely on non-verbal     skills such as gestures for longer than children do. They usually experience significant speech and language delay. They have difficulty learning grammar and with developing clear speech. For the most part they can understand certain things but it just takes some time for the thoughts to actually register in their head and like I said before, they use a lot of body language and gestures along with whatever they can pronounce to communicate with other individuals.Sometimes they even have to have someone there to help them understand and help them answer questions.

    Another example would be if a Deaf person came into contact with a hearing individual. The way a Deaf person would communicate with a hearing person would be through hand gestures, facial expressions, and body language. If that fails they usually resort to lipreading or writing things down.

PART 2:

   

    *Now this was actually more difficult because as you talk freely you are used to using facial expressions, hand gestures, and movements the whole time. Now that I could actually speak it was hard to remember to not move anything or not make facial expressions whatsoever as I was speaking. After every few minutes I would forget and my friends would have to remind me to not more or do anything. We tried this experiment more than once and that still didnt make a difference for me at least.

    *My partners would find it strange and awkward when I wasnt using any movements or putting any     emotion in my dialoque. It was actually kind of funny because it was so hard to not make any facial     expressions or move my hands especially because I tend to use a lot of gestures when I'm                 speaking.

    *Non-verbal communication plays a significant role in spoken language especially because since birth we rely solely on this way of comunication when we cant understand spoken language quite yet. Facial expressions and hand gestures are important because even before the sentence is uttered people are already looking for these signs to try and make sense of the message.These symbolic gestures help the hearer understand the speakers intentions or emotions.

    *There are people with impairments who have difficulty understanding body language. For example, those with Asperger syndrome, they have trouble understanding the meaning of what is being said. The benefit to being able to read body language is extremely helpful in  being able to understand the underlying meaning of things. Sometimes I think body language can affect you negatively when someone comes into a room with a negative energy  nobody will want to be around you. Or for example if you were to come to work and you're in a bad mood or you're sad it can affect the way you work or others around you.

Piltdown scandal

Piltdown was an archaelogical site in Sussex, England. It is known as the site where they found the missing link between apes and humans. IN 1908 a digger found a primates skull and in 1913 a jaw was found with canine teeth worn down like a human's. The community came to accept the idea that the fossil remains belonged to a single creature that had a human cranium and an ape's jaw. This was proof of Darwin's Theory of evolution. 40 yrs later Piltdown man turned out to be a fake. The skull was that of a modern human skull and the jaw was that of an ape but the teeth had just been filed down and both had been painted to look like ancient fossils.

  

The Piltdown forgery demonstrates the lack of critical thinking. So many scientists were fooled due to wishful thinking and cultural bias. Back then anthropologists believed that a man's brain must have developed to its human size before other changes occurred in human structure. They really wanted to believe that Britian was superior to other countries especially Germany. They wanted to prove the "Piltdown Man" existed and to prove the theory of evolution. People shut their minds to other evidence and continued to believe in Piltdown because it fitted their beliefs. The reason the Piltdown was not spotted earlier was because back then scientists weren't allowed to see the evidence which was locked up in the Museum. They didn't have the tools or the authority to examine the physical evidence at all. So they had to deal plaster molds and from that claim whether it was accurate or not. Also, back then scientists would've never thought that someone would actually be involved in such deception.

 

When the scientists looked at the fossils teeth through a magnifying glass they saw that the they had been diliberately filed down  to give them a unique wear pattern.And through chenical analysis and flourine tests proved that the jaw and the teeth were not even fossils just old bones. The bones were stained with chemicals and paint to make them look old.

 

The scientific community can really benefit from the research that has been done to reduce the consequences and likelihood of human error in scientific studies. Research shows that error occurs in all human endeavors whther you try hard to prevent errors from occurring or not, error exists. Many errors occur due to weak aspects of cognition. But there are always ways to get around this errors or find the root of the problem. I believe that human factors are the cause of a lot of scientific errors but without them I we wouldn't be able to prove or disprove certain hypothesis or theories. I believe you learn from your mistakes so where would this world be without human error?

 

What I have learned from this story is that credibilty and scientic reasearch is very important. We can't let preconceived ideas fool us. And specimens should be thoroughly examined and tested before anything else.