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.