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.