Josh Roper

1. The cold can affect human survival in many ways. It can cause specific health conditions that can cause death such as hypothermia. It can also cause indirect deaths such as house fires, accidents and injuries from falling.

2. An example of short-term adaptation for cold weather is the body producing goosebumps and the hairs on your body rising up. This helps your body insulate heat in response to the cold weather.

An example of a facultative trait would be the Eskimos having epicanthic folds on their eyes from snow storms and the glare the ice produces from the sun.

               

An example of developmental adaptations for cold weather would be people having a round and short body in order to retain as much heat as possible in cold weather specifically the Eskimos.

A cultural adaptation to cold weather is building a fire and gathering around it in order to stay warm in cold weather.

3. Some benefits that come from studying human variation through the perspective of environmental clines is that it allows us to learn from others on their actions rather than specifically their physical traits or what is presumed about them. Another benefit is that we can use these adaptations become more diverse as people. For example, if someone who lives in California were to learn and observe people from the artic, the California people could use there some of these tools and most likely survive in both hot and cold weather.

4. Eskimos are mainly known for surviving in the worse cold conditions. When we refer to them, we know they are born with the genetic traits that allow them to survive in the cold. Race can explain possible genetic adaptive traits but it does not cultural adaptations or short term traits. Environmental influences are better for understanding human variation because it does not base observations solely on physical traits but also on other factors.

Communication

I performed this experiment with my older brother and it was quite an interesting experience. The assignment was difficult because I had to do something that was quite out of the ordinary and something I was not used to. My brother had to alter his way of talking by making sure he would ask mostly yes or no questions because answering yes or no with a simple head movement is the easiest way to communicate. The most difficult part of this assignment was that my brother could not ask very descriptive or detailed questions because it was very hard for me to give him an easy to understand answer.

                My brother was in control of most of the conversations because he had to start all of the topics. It was mostly him asking questions and me acknowledging him through yes or no answers. As for a balance of power, my brother had most of the power because he was able to speak and I could not. It was hard for me start anything in the conversation because I usually rely on words to say what I am thinking and I did not know how to communicate without words.

                If there were two cultures, one who could communicate through language and one that could not, the ones who could speak would have the advantage. This is because in this instance, both groups of people can hear things but one is at a disadvantage because they cannot speak. If the non-speaking group does not understand something from the other group, it harder for them to explains their thoughts while the speaking group could explain in different words what they are trying to say. The speaking culture might even display attitudes of frustration towards the other group because they simply cannot understand everything they are trying to communicate. One situation where this occurs is when communicating with an infant. They do not have the ability to speak but they can express their feelings through crying or pointing at something.

                I used my big brother again to communicate without any body movements. The experience was much easier then not speaking because I was able to relay my thoughts. Although it was not as easy without the use of my hands, I simply used more words or used a certain tone to help him understand what I was trying to say. My brother did not believe it was too hard to understand me without body language because I was being very descriptive. One may believe that we use our body as a way of conveying emotions or out current moods, but I believe the tone of one’s voice can help relay what their current mood was.

                I do not think signs in our language are that important because we can still understand each other well enough without it. Through hand gestures and such, one could more easily tell one’s or maybe be able to point someone in the right direction when they are looking for something, but I do not think it is that important.

                A benefit to being able to read someone’s body language is that they can tell what one may be thinking without even talking to them. This can apply to maybe meeting a stranger for the first time or trying to talk to someone that does not want to talk to you. We experience both of these situations more often then we think.

                Children can have difficulty reading body language such as when their parents are highly stressed and they constantly ask for something. A situation where reading someone’s body language is not that beneficial is possibly when one has an encounter with a criminal. The criminal may seem to be nice at first but inside their minds they could want to bring you harm instead.

               

Piltdown Hoax

The Piltdown hoax was an event in the 1900s when fossils were discovered that seemed to reveal evidence of an unknown human. These remains were found by Charles Darwin and his team and at the time, became one of the biggest discoveries the world has ever seen. Later after Darwin’s death, scientists discovered the whole find to be a hoax and from there on scientists began to be suspicious and cautious of all scientific finds after that. The human faults that may come into play in this scenario is that some people have a high sense of pride in anything. Unfortunately, in the scientific world this can become a problem. In the scientific world, these prideful people will most likely do anything to get noticed; maybe even lie if they could get away with it. In the instance of the Piltdown man, Darwin stop providing consistent evidence after his find and there after the discovery became a hoax. The scientific process proved the Piltdown man to be a hoax because no evidence of the same nature of the Piltdown man was found after Charles Darwin’s death. This is one of the factors that may have rose suspicions about his discovery. It is not possible to remove the “human” factor from science because humans give science value. The point of discovering all of this information is to further mankind and create human culture for future generations. This is what makes humans different from other species because we find much value in our discoveries. The life lesson we can take from this event is to make sure one provide evidence for their finds and to provide consistent evidence from there on. If we follow all the steps of the scientific process, then we can always separate the fraudulent information from the truth.

Social Systems within Primates

Sifaka-lemurs(Prosimians/Strepsirhini representative)

-Most species live in Madagascar, The environment that they prefer is rainforestand they like to live at high elevations in trees. The climate is usually humid and warm, 

-They are herbivores so food is not too scarce most of the time also because they can live with each other, mostly deal with destruction of forest habitats by hunters

-Females take priority over males when feeding, they feed first and males get punished if they break this code

-They are usually social because they can mix with other lemur groups no problem and lemurs do not usually fight with lemurs

-They live in small groups up to 13 members.

-polyandry, males compete for females

-The groups change constantly because males move from group to group, often looking for female mates.

-The environment influences their social and mating patterns by allowing different lemur groups to mesh with each other. Because the trees are at high elevation, the only other life they see is other lemurs. Also there are many chances for mates due to the ability to move groups.

 

Spider Monkey(New World Monkey/Platyrrhini representative)

-They live in Central and South America in tropical forests in upper layers of rainforest.

-They are social animals that can live in groups of 35 or more.

-Considered the most intelligent new world monkeys.

-They are usually in danger from humans because they are often sought after as meat because of their large size

-They live by the system of fusion fission –a large loose group that breaks into small groups usually to forage food.

-They are polygamous-one female to many males.

-The environment influences them to be hostile towards other species especially humans, since they are hunted.

 

Olive Baboon(Old World Monkey/Cercopithecidae representative)

-They are savanna-dwelling creatures that live in wide plains of the grasslands, rainforests and desert.

-Adult females have sexual swellings near their genital areas that attract more males according to how large it is. These females tend to have babies more often.

-They can live in groups ranging from 15-150 with few males and many females.

-There is a social ranking system where females and daughters rank the highest and males are ranked depending on how long they have been in the group and who their female mate is.

-Males will fight other males for female partners and this can make them very violent.

-Females and males can create strong nonsexual bonds called “friendships.”

-Females may reproduce with many males while males tend to stick to one partner.

-Being able to live in different habitats allows for them to freely change groups and meets others with not as much risk. This also allows the species to have more variety and expand due to this diversity.

 

Lars Gibbon (Lesser ape/Hylobatidae representative)

-They live in primary lowland and submotane rainforest, mixed deciduous bamboo forest and seasonal evergreen forest.

-They can become isolated from each other due by large rivers in the area.

-Monogamous family pairs sometimes polyandry pairs

-Live in very small groups

-Monogamous

-Not as social because each family has its own territory

-The anti-social life means that they are not as diverse and the population is not as big. The seperation from rivers also causes this non-diversity.

 

Chimpanzee(Great ape/Hominidae representative)

-Can live in many different environments such as rainforest, mountain areas and savannahs.

-Omnivorous diet

-Their social system consists of beta males and one alpha male

-They develop socially complex relationships with each other.

-large multi male and multi-female social groupscalled communities

-The Alpha male is not necessarily the strongest or biggest but is actually the one who has convinced the most people through his political abilities.

-The ability to live many environments allows the species to become very diverse and this diversity has led to why the species is so intelligent and has a complex social system.