Human Variation & Race Blog

As we all know, 98.6 is the “normal” body temperature for human beings and is considered to be when our body is in homestasis, so for our body temperature to stray too far above or below can be detrimental to our health. There are a few reasons why as to why our bodies can change temperatures but one specific one can easily be the temperature of the atmosphere around you. Cold weather is an environmental stress that can negatively impacts the survival of humans by disturbing homeostasis. This is because in very cold climates, there is a danger of developing hypothermia (a life threatening drop in core body temperature to subnormal levels) that can result in death if body temperature reaches below 94 degrees for too long without being revived.

Short-term adaptation: “Shivering can cause a short-term warming effect. The increased muscle activity in shivering results in some heat production.”

Facultative adaptation: “A normal initial physiological response is the narrowing of blood vessels near skin surface (vasoconstriction).  This preserves core body heat by reducing peripheral blood flow but prolonged vasoconstriction can result in dangerous frostbite. As a consequence, the body's internal temperature regulating mechanism responds by dilating the peripheral blood vessels (vasodilation), thereby increasing the flow of warm blood near the skin surface.” Three other things that can contribute as the body response mechanisms are increased basal metabolic rate fat insulation of vital organs and long term change in blood flow patterns.

Developmental adaptations: “The American biologist Joel Allen noted that among warm-blooded animals, individuals in populations of the same species living in warm climates near the equator tend to have longer limbs than do populations living further away from the equator in colder environments. In such extremely cold environments, a stocky body with short appendages would be more efficient at maintaining body heat because it would have relatively less surface area compared to body mass.”

Cultural adaptations: “Our clothing and technologies that allow us to keep buildings warm in the winter and cool in the summer tend to offset the effects of natural selection now in shaping our bodies. Many people living in freezing climates drink alcohol to warm themselves but A much more effective cultural response to extremely cold temperatures is the use of insulating clothing, houses, and fires..People all over the world also adapt by limiting outdoor activities to warmer times of the day.  In some societies, sleeping in family groups with bodies pushed up against each other is also done in order to minimize heat loss during the cold months of the year. They traditionally consume large quantities of high calorie fatty foods This significantly increases the basal metabolic rate, which, in turn, results in the production of extra body heat.”

The benefits of studying human variation in this way is very beneficial because it shows us that the differences between people are usually not because of race and the things that set us apart are the environments that we live in and the way the our generations adapt to the places we live. Studying the environmental variances is much more effective than studying race because race is only something that society has made an idea of, in the eyes of science there is no such thing as race. We can more accurately tell the differences between people because of their environments than because of what we accumulate as the traits within a “race” which are usually invalid and spread across many variations of people.

I don’t feel that race is a good way to make sense of any biological or even physical differences because race is not something that is a valid source of reasoning, you cannot separate people within races based on traits because similar traits are seen throughout all variances of people. Looking at the person’s environment can explain much better the idea of natural selection and why certain traits are exhibited  in some generations and race cannot give any explanations.

Language Blog Post

“Engaging in a conversation for 15 minutes where I was not allowed to use any version of a symbolic language” and then another “15 minutes communicating without any physical embellishments” was a lot harder than I anticipated. I have played charades in the past but for some reason it was nothing like that. I thought that this would have been a fun kind of game like experience with my family, just like charades, but it ended up being to total opposite.

 I did this experiment with my sisters, brother, and fiancé and tell all had the same reaction. They all got frustrated with me. I was actually quite surprised at their reactions. I did try to make it seem more like a conversation than a game and I think that is what threw them off. I don’t know American Sign Language so I am not sure if some of my symbols might have been ASL, but even if it was my family wouldn’t have known. I must have been really horrible because they could not grasp anything I was attempting to portray. And even though I told them they could speak back to me, and they knew I wasn’t actually illiterate, they way in which they responded when they understood what I meant, was much more symbolic than normal. They enunciated their words more, they used more hand signals and facial expressions and their voice was heightened almost like because I couldn’t speak English I was def. It was quite fascinating.

In the strangest of ways, it almost did feel like my siblings and I were from two different worlds, meeting for the first time trying to interact with one another and in the way that they interacted with me, I could tell that they felt some type of superiority as in if this were a real situation they would feel more intelligent and have to speak to the person in a way where they feel like they were dumbing down their communication skills., it was all in their tone of the way they spoke to me. In my own opinion I definitely think that getting an extremely complex thought or idea across would be much easier to do in the culture that has developed language not just symbols because you can articulate your point in a more precise fashion. Although in almost every culture, no matter what the language is, you can communicate in some form or fashion with symbols and hand gestures. There are many people in our culture who have difficulty communicating with spoken language, such as babies, people who are def, people who cannot physically speak, people who speak different languages, people who posses mental retardation issues and maybe just people who are not well educated. People who can efficiently communicate through spoken language do often try and take on a different approach in the way they communicate with someone who has difficulty or who cannot at all communicate with spoken language. They try to use more hand gestures and symbols which is where Sign Language took on a whirlwind. 

In the second part of the experiment when we had to talk without any hand signals, vocal intonation, head, facial, or body movements, I did not last very long and I kept messing up and starting over again but after a while I just gave up. I actually thought it wouldn’t be so hard because I have had  many teachers in my past who has just sat there and addressed the class in what felt like was a rambling speech with the most monotone voice and no enthusiasm. I thought if they can do it so can I. I was wrong. I am a very vibrant, enthusiastic type of person, and I had never realized until this experiment, that I talk with my hands as the expression goes. At probably about the third time I had to end up sitting on my hands, to not move them. It is almost like all of those physical embellishments are what help people communicate their points more effectively, or at least that what it felt like to me.

My family looked as if they wanted to fall asleep by the 15^th word, but since I continued to mess up, it kept them laughing. I figure that was the only reason why they didn’t fall asleep. I purposely threw in some inappropriate words just to see if they would notice and it’s almost like they zoned out of the conversation, they couldn’t even tell me what I was talking about in the end. I think this just shows how signs in our spoken language are just as important as spoken language itself. Yes we can communicate without signs, but seeing as human’s attention spans nowadays are extremely short, we have to use the physical embellishments to keep people paying attention so that they can remember and care about what you just said when you’re done saying it. If there are people out there who cannot read body language, it is because in my opinion, the common sense part in their life’s development is missing, the interactions with other human beings aren’t happening. There is a huge advantage to being able to read body language, because after a while if you’re good at it, you can almost know what someone wants to say or doesn’t want to say or even can’t say without them saying a word. I don’t think there could ever be environmental conditions where not being able to read body language could be beneficial. The only situation I could maybe think of would be if someone was being interrogated for committing a crime, and if they were lying and the detective couldn’t read body language, that would then be good for the criminal.