Brrrrrrr...

The cold is an environmental stress that disturbs the human body’s homeostatic temperature. When the internal temperature is cold and off balance, the body is more vulnerable to sickness due to less blood flow to extremities, therefore, less white blood cells to fight disease. Disruptions to the homeostatic temperature cause increases in blood pressure and impaired body functions. This is because nerve cells as well as muscles function at a slower rate in lower temperatures.

Humans, being the resourceful beings that we are, have adapted to this stress in a variety of different ways.

 A short term response is shivering, the rapid contraction and release of muscles to generate heat. 

A facultative adaptation is a vasoconstriction, the narrowing of blood vessels to reduce blood flow to the skin, therefore, reducing heat loss at the body’s surface.

 A developmental adaptation is a subcutaneous fat layer that acts as insulation for the body.

 A cultural adaptation is a high carbohydrate, high fat diet.

Studying human variation across environmental clines like this is beneficial because we can clearly see how the body is affected, for how long, and at what level. Physiological responses to environmental factors are controlled by genetics. Information from explorations like this can be useful when looking at cases of extreme coldness. For example, we can look at a person and be able to tell if they have been exposed to the cold for a long time or not. If they are shivering, they have recently been exposed, and if they have a layer of fat underneath the skin for body insulation, we might assume that they live in a cold environment permanently, like the Inuits.

You can use race to understand variation of the adaptations because it is commonly believed that cultural traits are associated with certain physical traits. Also, people of the same racial group occasionally live in similar environments and practice similar practices that might contribute to the variation. It allows us to look at interactions between culture and biology in adaptive characteristics.  Studying the effect environmental influences have on human variation is better than looking at race because anthropologists have found that there is more variation between different racial groups than within groups.  Races are also the result of the human need to simplify and organize complex ideas, and they are actually not very valuable to evolutionary science.

Language

Conversation without a version of symbolic language
I began the conversation with phrases and sentences that were simple to act out and easily identifiable such as "I love you" or" and "I sleep." The task was a bit frustrating because I am so used to expressing with my words and my actions, but I eventually used more body language and facial expressions to communicate. My responses remained fairly simple because I could convey difficult words without actually saying them. My partner, my sister, eventually began to ask me questions that she knew I would be able to answer easily with hand motions or body language, so I wouldn't get too stuck. The conversation overall, was a bit more basic with he content, but a lot more theatrical and gestural on my part because I had to convey tone, mood, attitude, opinion without speaking.

My sister was the one leading the conversation and changing topics, while I was mostly responding. She was able to come up with things to say quicker because of her use of words and would try and change the subject constantly, challenging me to figure out how I was going to communicate my answer. I believe that my sister definitely had the power in this conversation as she had more words at her disposal and did not have to think as hard about getting her point across. She could interrupt my "speech" way more effectively than I would be able to interrupt hers.She had the majority of the power as she was dictating the questions and topics, and I was responding.

The culture that uses language has the advantage of communicating complex ideas with their population because there are more opportunities as you have the ability to articulate exactly what you want to say. When you can't use words, the gestures may sometimes convey more than one thing. For example, "mad" and "frustrated" mean different things, but the gesture that one might use to show this could be interpreted either way. With speech, there is less opportunity for misinterpreting the point of what is being said. A speaking culture might view a culture that doesn't use symbolic language as possibly behind educationally or not as intelligent in the communication aspect. A modern culture that can speak is the American culture, but there are some people within that culture who are mute and do not speak.


Conversation without physical embellishment
At the start of the experiment, I talked slow so I could make sure that I didn't raise my volume or change my face. My natural conversation usually involves varying volumes, hand gestures, head movements, and more, so I felt that I had to be slow, deliberate, and more focused to break these tendencies. I found this task a bit more challenging than the first because there were so many more things to think about not doing. Before you just had to not talk, but now you have to not move, not get louder, not gesture with your hands. My voice was monotonous and the conversation became slightly more boring and dry overall because of the lack of personality and animation in my voice. My partner, in response, started to tone down her own body language to almost match mine. She did not have trouble understanding the words that I was saying, but she did have trouble understanding the intention of my words and how I was feeling. Many things sounded sarcastic and like I didn't have any interest in what I was saying.

This experiment shows that while words are important, the signs are crucial to communicating your intentions and feelings about what you are saying. It adds an emotional aspect to words and can let someone know if you are serious, joking, mad, sad, happy, and more. When you read someone's body language, you can often read their attitude on the subject they are speaking on. You can tell if they are open to challenge or completely closed off in their opinion. You can tell if they are shy or outgoing. When the body language is read along with speech, it shows the complete intention of what the speaker is trying to convey.

The adaptive benefit to possessing the ability to read body language is that it can help you judge someone's character or intentions. It can aid you in determining if a person is serious about their words or if they might be lying. Being able to accurately read people helps you to come up with better ways of talking them into getting what you need. It can also help you to detect lies, and therefore, be smarter about who you trust with your words, your safety, your health, your life.

People that might have difficulty reading body language are those who are blind. Not being able to ready someone's body language might be an advantage when making a speech in front of many people. It can be very distracting to see people in the audience falling asleep or having irritated body language. Not reading body language can sometimes help a person to stay focused on the task at hand and not be affected by the opinions of others. Body language may not give you reliable information when a person is manipulating you. They might have the understanding that certain body language can make them look non-threatening and possibly like they are in need of help. However, when they are purposefully manipulating their appearance, this provides false information as to what their real intentions are.