1. Environmental stress such as heat can be very detrimental to the survival of humans. Dehydration is a major problem in areas where the temperature is above average. Heat not only affects humans directly but indirectly as well. Extreme heats have caused famines and drought which have threatened human survival in the past.
2. An example of a short term adaptation for humans against heat would be sweating.
A facultative adaptation would be a tan.
An example of a developmental adaptation would be skin color.
Last, an example of a cultural adaptation to heat would be different clothing.
3. The benefits of studying human variation is that we can discover why so many different human traits exists. Also it helps us identify some ways to fight against environmental stresses. Information such as this is useful because different areas have greater environmental factors to consider.
4. Race would show that skin color is just based on the pigmentation of your skin. This is just a result of a human trait variation that protects from the sun’s ultraviolet rays. Environmental influences on adaptations are a better way to understand human variation because it shows a wide variety of ways that a human could adapt to a certain stress.
Skin color is an adaptation to solar radiation, not to heat. Can you identify ways to adapt to heat in a facultative and a developmental way?
ReplyDeleteGood point on the benefit of learning how to address problems due to environmental stress. Studying these problems based upon race would get you nowhere.
I like your post, and yes heat is a killer. It's really bad to get dehydrated when its really hot, sweating a lot and feeling dizzy is a not good sign.
ReplyDeleteSkin color adapts to the sun which give us a better understanding of how they got their traits. Nevertheless different skin color shows were they come from and who is exposed to sunlight more depending where they live.
Daniel,
ReplyDeleteIn terms of telling us "where they come from" it really only tells you they came from somewhere with high solar radiation, if they have high melanin content. That could be equatorial or high altitude or desert. Too many options for skin color, from a racial perspective alone, to be very valuable information.
You are correct in some aspect with respect to why human variation is important. There are a vast amount of human traits thtat exist to adapt to environment factors. I like how certain ranges of temperatures and oxygen in the atmosphere, genes and the environment will work in conjunction with each other, communicating back and forth so to speak to create the right adaptations for an individual to survive in and with the environment.
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