Week 8 Racism Variation Blog Post

1.  The environmental stress that I wish to focus on is the cold, which can be very detrimental to the survival of humans if the conditions are extreme.  For example, humans are at risk of developing a condition known as hypothermia in extremely frigid climates, which means that their body temperatures have fallen far below the typical 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit.  In order to sustain life in the cold, one must have a high body mass that is capable of retaining heat so that it can survive.  However, regardless of a human's body mass, the cold can be devastating to the human body, as its effects can result in a person's body temperature altering, which is disturbing the process of homeostasis (homeostasis is responsible for maintaining body temperature at a steady level). 

2.  Humans have adapted to the cold in numerous ways.  The first of these is shivering, which is a short-term response that the body uses to temporarily heat itself up.   Another way the human body adapts to the cold is by increasing the amount of fat that insulates the important bodily organ, which reduces heat loss and maintains the body temperature; this is an example of a facultative adaptation.  In addition to these two methods, the human body heats itself genetically through the use of developmental adaptions, specifically ones that change the body shape so that it is compact and round enough to retain heat.  Finally, the body uses cultural adaptions, such as wearing clothing that is suitable for the frigid temperatures, as a means of staying warm.

3.  The benefits of studying human variation across various environmental stresses is important because it allows us to see how humans adapt to survive numerous stresses that they encounter.  This information can be useful because it gives us an idea of the traits that thrive in varying environmental stresses.  For example, the more stout and compact a person's body is, the more likely that individual is capable of surviving in cold weather; on the contrary, we know that this body type is not idea for living in warm conditions.

4.  Race has very little to do with the short term response addressed in #2 because people of all races shiver when they are cold in order to heat their bodies.  However, one could affiliate certain races with more fat covering their vital organs, which would associate that race with the facultative adaption I addressed.  The same can be said for the developmental trait, as one could suggest that a specific race is more likely to be rounder and more compact than others (again, not necessarily true but it can be used to understand the types of people who are more likely to thrive in cold weather).  Finally, the clothing worn by individuals can tell a lot about their culture as well as the climate, so heavier clothing on a group of people would suggest success in cold weather.  Of course, none of these relationships to race are as legitimate as linking these adaptations to traits that are common amongst any individual in these environments.  The fact is that a person of any race can survive in freezing climates so long as they possess the traits that are required to survive; this is why race is an inferior method of understanding human variation.