Human Variation & Race
1. Heat is an environmental stress that negatively impacts the survival of humans by disturbing homeostasis. Most outdoor people can corporate with the heat while there are others who haven’t been really exposed to the sun, a lack of vitamin D. Many things can happen to you when your in the heat for some time. Heat exhaustion happens when you don’t hydrate yourself and your exposed to the sun for too long. Heat cramps are muscle spasms that result form loss of large amount of salt and water through exercise. The worst that can happen for being exposed to the heat for too long can be skin cancer.
2. Short Term
Sweating helps your body to cool off when its too hot. When sweating while exercising, it can be beneficial due to the fact that your pushing your body further.
Facultative
Vasodilation is something the body adapts to the heat in a facultative way. Blood makes its way to the surface or under the skin so that there will be less heat in the body to maintain a normal temperature.
Different types of bodies can react differently. With a body thats taller, it able to cool down faster because they have a great surface area. Having a shorter body wont cool down fast.
Cultural adaption to heat can be technology like fans or air conditioning. Another way can be wearing shorts and not wearing any dark cloths because it attracts the sun more.
3. The benefits of studying human variations can be being able to have a better look on how each different types of human bodies adapt to different environments. Understanding more ways how we can change the way of how certain environments live. Nothing can be huge because we can make cloths that’ll prevent us from sweating or help us to cool down better.
4. Race can not be explain in ways in similarities and differences of people. Everyone was brought up differently in different environments.
Okay on your opening section, with a couple of comments. Vitamin D absorption and skin cancer are issues with solar radiation stress, not heat stress. Additionally, while you've identified some of the final results that can arise from heat stress, can you explain why they happen? Why can't the human body function correctly above that optimum level of 98.6 degrees? What happens to the body's organs and circulatory system above that point? Think a little deeper on this issue to explain why it is so important for the body to adapt to heat stress.
ReplyDeleteYes, sweating is a short term adaptation. It actually doesn't matter if you are exercising or not... sweating is important as a means of maintaining your internal body temperature.
Good on vasodilation. Just understand that it isn't just taking the blood to the body surface. It is the fact that excess heat can be released through the skin as a result.
Good job on your developmental adaptation. This is explained by Bergmann's and Allen's rules, which are described in the resources in the assignment module.
Good cultural adaptation.
With regard to the benefits section, I follow your explanation, but that would only apply to the cultural adaptation, correct? I mean, can understanding how your body responds to heat stress by sweating, vasodilating and being longer and leaner help you sweat better, vasodilate better and grow longer and leaner? We have no say on that, so knowledge doesn't have a direct affect there. But can we use this information in other ways? Can understanding how the body responds to heat stress have medical implications? Can it help us make clothing and build homes that help release excess heat and keep us cooler? How can we actually apply this information?
I agree with your final conclusion, but this was a complex issue and needed a more in-depth explanation. How does everyone being brought up in different environments explain how race is ineffective in explaining human variation?
To answer this question, you first need to explore what race actually is. Race is not based in biology but is a social construct, based in beliefs and preconceptions, and used only to categorize humans into groups based upon external physical features, much like organizing a box of crayons by color. Race does not *cause* adaptations like environmental stress do, and without that causal relationship, you can't use race to explain adaptations. Race has no explanatory value over human variation.
Nice post, however I don't know if I can agree with your statement, "The worst that can happen for being exposed to the heat for too long can be skin cancer." The worst thing that can come from being exposed to heat for that long can be death. Everything else was fascinating and well put.
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing
I would have liked to see more elaboration on the concept of race. It's a really interesting subject, especially because it's a socially constructed thing. Consider Tiger Woods, he's seem as black and moves about the world as a black man because of his pigmentation. However, he's also Asian and white, but that's not something that is commonly acknowledged. Imagine if these arbitrary ways of thnking were applied scientifically. like, it would be difficult to be objective and you wouldn't always get the whole truth because people's complex ethnic makeup is often overlooked in an attempt to fit into a society's neat little box.
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