Week 5
1. One environmental stress negatively impacts the survival of humans by distributing homeostasis is heat. Of course humans do need heat, but to only a certain extent, with heat being an issue it can cause a lot of problems with dehydration becoming easier to have and the loss of water because it would be evaporated. To compound the issue if there is no water for humans then there is no water for wild life and plants for humans to also eat as well. Humans can live without water for a certain amount of time, very quickly will our bodies start to break down, we won't be able to produce enough sweat or urinate at times. Of course if this type of situation occurs there will not be any other outcome, but death for humans.
2. A short term way that humans have adapted to heat is by sweating. When humans are in heat for a period of time the heat stays trapped in the body, but then is released by certain glands or pores in the skin that release allowing the body to cool off a bit and to not over heat, and after getting out of the heat the human body stops the process.
A facultative way humans have adapted to heat is having the blood vessels in the human body open and releasing heat through it for a long period of time, that's how people are able to live in places where it is very humid.
A developmental way of humans adapting to heat is by their body structure, before it was said that the first humans used to use all four limbs to walk, exposing their backs to the sun, but now since they have evolved to only using two limbs the heat stress on the human body is reduced allowing humans to be cooled off faster and easier.
Lastly, a cultural way humans have adapted to heat is by technology and having tools cool humans off much faster. The use of portable fans allow humans travel with a source that can keep them cool at anytime.
3. The benefits of studying human variation this environmental cline is great because it shows how much humans can adapt and see the changes affect humans physically as well. Information like this is very useful to us because it teaches a lot about how humans act in their certain environment. This information can be useful in how humans used to be when it came to heat and how it was an adaptation change for how humans walked up right showed a major change in adaptation.
4. When trying to compare heat adaptation to how the human race adapts to heat, it doesn't work and is completely opposite of each other. Humans are all the same in what they do, but the only difference is what there environment is what makes them different. Humans living in a more heated environment adapt better to it and humans living in a more cooled environment tend to live better there as well, but that doesn't mean they can't all adapt to different environments, it would just take time is all. Explaining why humans are the way they are is because of the environment they live in.
Week 4
The Piltdown Hoax started in 1912 in a southern English town where a small village was called Piltdown. An amateur archeologist named Charles Dawson was digging in a gravel pit and came across to what he believed to be an ancient human skull. He then invited a man named Arthur Smith Woodward England's leading geologist at the natural history museum so they could discover more findings together. They then came a cross a skull jawbone what looks to be from human features. Arthur Smith Woodrow saw this as a major discovery. After the scientist community evaluating this had the same reaction as well and this would be the start of journey into evolution. In late 1912, Woodward announced the discovery publicly and immediately he and Dawson were credited for having found ancient human fossils in England. The discovery hit worldwide headlines as "The Piltdown Man", but doubt did come when Woodward only specialized in fish fossils not human ones. More doubts came along when scientist realized the canine features on the jawbone weren't human like and didn't date back that far in time. After a 40 year period on the Piltdown man fossil dominating the hoax was final revealed and led scientist all over the world in shock. Scientist dug deep into the case of the Piltdown men when other discoveries in Asia and Africa that the fossils they found didn't match the ones found in Piltdown. This was all happening before the reveal of the hoax. The reveal of the hoax came right after World War 2 when scientist had the technology to finally tell how old fossils really were. When tested by fluorine on the Piltdown fossils the results shocked scientists seeing as though the fossils were dated roughly 100,000 years ago, not that long at all. Scientist also noticed the teeth on the bone had been shaved down with scratch marks to give the look of human teeth, the same goes for the color on the jawbone, it had look liked it had been dyed to match the surrounding of the elements. After the entire hoax was cleared up it gave scientist all over the world the impression that anybody can create a hoax and that now they must keep their guard up in case of another event like this.
A fault that scientist have is the sign of pride, especially taken from English people. Sitings of human fossils have been found in other countries and when England felt they had a siting they felt to excited and prideful to investigate it a bit more, also to have denial that it might possibly be a fake. Another fault would be the lack of scientific technology itself. Remember that the hoax was not revealed until 40 years later, enough time to finally realize that the fossils were fake so the fault lies in technology itself and in that period of time scientist would only go with what they believe and see in an artifact to see if it's real or fake. A lot of lies were told in the hoax and of course that has been a human fault that has been around for centuries. The hoax indeed set scientist back in their studies by almost a decade and was a complete waste of their time.
An aspect in the scientific method that was positive in revealing the skull to be a fraud was the fluorine method used to examine how old the fossil could be. Another examination was looking at specific details on the canine of the fossil and the coloration to find anymore new information. The canine of the skull that were examined carefully showed markings that made scientist believed the teeth may have been shaved down using a sort of knife. The coloration on the skull itself seem to have been too recent in its age and to find that it was more to match the environment it was in, more like a camouflage. These methods weren't around back in the 1920's so many scientists had to observe closely only with their naked eye so not a lot of speculation occurred until the 1940's when scientific occurred and tools were used to help amplify what scientists were examining.
I think that having the human factor in science is greatly important not just because it sparks a lot of interest, but it hold so much information on how and what humans are linked to. Of course there is always going to be a chance of error dealing with humans, but that doesn't mean that's always going to be the problem. It may be confusing, but I think humans can see the key to all of this and humans aren't the only thing that has a chance for error. Machines are just as likely to have room for error because humans built machines and machines are only as smart as their creator.
A lesson that I would take from this historic event is to not let pride get in the way of the truth, never let a skeptical source be the reason for your finding and always look closely to the details. Human mistakes will happen, but whats worse is when the same mistake happens again.
Week 2
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Week 1
1) From the List of the individuals on Darwin's work that would have the most influence is Thomas Malthus. Seeing as though from his work that he published "An Essay On the Principle of Population" in 1798.
2) A contribution Thomas Malthus made to the scientific community was by combining the relationship between food supply and human population. He argued that humans don't overpopulate until the point of starvation, but they see the error of their ways and change their way of living so they can avoid further destitution to humanity. Malthus also argues that food supply does increase and that human population increases at a much faster rate, but there are ways that humans take to reduce the increase of population by having safe sex and producing more food.
3) One of the bullet points that mostly affect with Thomas Malthus' work was the resources are limited. With resources being limited it it makes it that much more harder for species to continue to their full nature instead of just being limited by the resources in their environment. In Thomas Malthus' essay "An Essay On the Principle of Population", he explained that species in their environment grow and reproduce at a much faster pace than what the environment can supply so only a select few can evolve from it and leaving the rest to die off.
4) I don't think Charles Darwin could of developed his theory of natural selection without the influences and ideas of Thomas Malthus because Malthus gave great evidence in his work that those finding are what inspired Darwin to be so fascinated in the first place, with Malthus as an inspiration, I believe Darwin wouldn't have been as interested in his evolution theories as much as he was.
5) The attitude of the church affected Charles Darwin because the Church was pretty much against all evidence that showed humans or any forms of species didn't come from God's creation but were apart of an evolution theory. Since the Church had so much power, it made it hard for Darwin to reveal his findings and had to hide them from the public until the right time came for him to publish his book "On the Origins of Species". It took Darwin about 23 years to finally publish his book and fully express his findings.
Work Cited:
http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/bios/Malthus.html
-Corey Sims
