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Human Variation and Adaptation
In anthropology, it is said that the concept of race cannot be applied accurately to describe human variation. This is said because race is generally defined by the color of skin and where someone comes from, among other things. In other words, it is not a biological factor but a social one instead. That does not, however, make those of a different race a different species or a subspecies of humanity. There are still people who think this but there is no scientific, biological, or genetic evidence for it. Another reason to discount this argument is that it would be impossible to discuss human variation based on race because there are so many different racial characteristics, and many people of a particular race still look different from one another. All African-Americans do not have the same shade of skin color, nor do all Caucasians, all Latinos, or all people of the Asian race. There are many variations on the color of these individual's skin, hair, and eyes, among other characteristics such as height ranges, weight ranges, and facial characteristics.
While there are some commonalities among people of certain races that are seen as differences from people of other races, there is nothing at all to suggest that there are anthropological differences. This type of anthropology was popular for a time, and it mostly involved individuals who were trying to prove that one race was superior to another back in the nineteenth century. The data that helped them make their case was collected and the data that went against their case was rejected. By doing this, it looked as those Caucasians had larger skulls than African-Americans and they were therefore said to be more intelligent. However, the data were skewed and anthropologists of the present day know that skull size has nothing to do with intelligence and that all races are essentially equal from an overall standpoint with naturally-occurring variations that can be expected within any species.
It is not startling that some remarkable variation exists between the great apes as well as humans with regard to mental capabilities. Humans possess a lot higher intricate types of verbal communications compared to any other primates. Humans are the sole animal to make and apply symbols as a way to communicate with each other. Humans also have diverse as well as complex forms of social organizations compared to
Adaptations Mythology - Adaptations When watching the Coen Brothers' film Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?, it becomes immediately apparent that the film is meant to be a creative adaptation of The Odyssey by Homer. Rather than a straightforward mimicking of The Odyssey, however, the film makes use of Homer's plot to tell a very different story about escaped convicts in the southern United States in the late 1930s. The most obvious parallel between
This postmodern view of culture is applicable in the 20th century analyses and discussions introduced by Boyd and Richerson. In effect, the first assumption explicates how culture brings forth history, and in history, "qualitative different trajectories" occur: "...the dynamics of the system must be path dependent; isolated populations or societies must tend to diverge even when they start from the same initial condition and evolve in similar environments" (186). After
Ljl Human Development Human Development -- the Elderly The purpose of this paper is to examine human development from the perspective of sociocultural concepts regarding the elderly as well as from the healthcare provider's view and heatlh care services delivery in the elderly population. Generally, in terms of the elderly and the cognitive aging which is experienced one assumes that is purely a time of decline in the areas of memory, linguistics and
Bipedalism – Human Evolution Introduction Human evolution takes into account the biotic as well as cultural development of humans. Human philosophies of the manner in which evolution of man came to be is ascertained by beliefs that have been espoused by scientists and societies dating as back as 400 decades ago. Human species, scientifically referred to as homo sapiens has extremely evolved in the last number of billion years. There have been
Africa" to "Out of Beringia": Can Population Genetics Explain the Mechanisms underlying the formation of Distinct Cultures and Linguistic Groups? The "Out of Africa" Theory The "Out of Africa" theory has played a major influential role in how other population genetics studies are approached, conducted, and interpreted (reviewed in: Campbell & Tishkoff, 2010). According to this theory populations of anatomically modern (H. sapiens) humans left the African Continent sporadically over a