There is no greater link between humans and animals than through a human’s unique physical attributes chiseled by the globe’s diverse climates. The desert, plains, and rain forest encouraged human adaptation physically and physiologically. From continent to continent and region to region, the climate designed dynamic differences that are as beautiful as they are distinct.
An investigation of facial features, body structure, and behaviors may initially be viewed as a generalization of people, and as potentially racist to attempt such an assessment. This argument may hold merit if an analysis was to place one race as more evolved than another. However, with all animals, each characteristic is carefully constructed by the climate of origin. It would be no more racist than to compare the flaps of a flying squirrel to a squirrel that is only able to travel by scampering on its feet.
A genetic alteration is all that is needed to assist an animal or human to change, and with all occurring by chance, not the advancement of one race over another.
Associating human beings with animals may cause some uneasiness. It may feel negligent to place humans on the same level as animals. Humans travel by cars and airplanes. Animals move by their bodies’ force, and some help from nature in the waterways and wind. Humans communicate to each other from all over the globe and sometimes off the planet. Most animals have to be within close vicinity to one another, but some species like whales, prove that animals do not always need to be within miles of one another to communicate.
Humans use medicines to heal from injury. Animals also use medicines to ease discomforts. The link between animals and humans may be much closer than most want to accept. The most distinct difference between the two is a human’s ability to alter nature, something animals do not consistently perform in the same magnitude as humans.
Perhaps a quick review of Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution is the first step to comfort this uneasiness. In 1831, Darwin, an English naturalist, traveled to South America on the ship the Beagle, surveyed numerous coastal islands for the next five years. Darwin surveyed Galapagos Island in 1835, and a year later, he published his scientific papers on evolution. The theory concludes that the diversity of a species occurred by each individual species adapting to the environment through genetic mutation. When a mutation occurred that was favorable for the environment where the animal presided, the species passed those genes to offspring. Unfavorable genes phased out as the species either died too quickly to procreate, or were overwhelmed by the abundance of offspring with favorable genes.
Darwin’s theory has been used in the past to “prove” one race is more evolved over another. This perception of scientific study determined that because one group of humans showed more adaptation to a specific environment, they were more progressed thus inferring one group was superior. Also coined “scientific racism,” this perspective does not account for the unique environment each group of people originated from or currently reside in today. Each environment supplies different climates, availability of food, diversity of that food, demand on the body to live in a specific area, convenience of water, and many other factors a human must be able to cope with in order to survive.
Because animals are tailored to their environment, proving one animal more of an animal than another is just as arbitrary as justifying one race more evolved over another race. The concept of race is just as questionable. The basic American constructs of race are placed in five groups: white, Hispanic, Latino, black, and Asian. This structure is limiting in its scope and neglects the diversity among the groups throughout the course of human history. Fatima L.C. Jackson, with a Ph.D. from the University of Maryland, argues that the five groups do not sufficiently determine the variety of biological categories.
Any physical or physiological attribute labeled to any group would be a generalization of that race. The elements of a specific climate are much more indicative of evolutionary variations than current connotations of race.
Favorable adaptations from one group of humans to another are prevalent. One example is skin pigmentation. Basic ideas of skin color determining race is limited in analysis. Climate (especially the latitude of an area) has a much greater relevance. Depigmentation occurred in humans, regardless of race, as an adaptive response to the decrease in endogenous production of vitamin D caused by a reduction in solar radiation in lower latitudes. In those latitudes, lighter skinned groups persist throughout Europe, Asia, and North America. When latitudes are higher, darker-skinned populations are abundant. This adaptation is completely reliant on the availability of sun and not designations of one people being more superior then another.
Another example of human physical adaptation to environmental conditions is the nose. Oxygen is the most necessary resource for the body in most animals, and all humans to function.
Different climates encouraged humans to adapt, and the body needs inhaled air to be warm. Noses in colder, drier regions tend to be longer in order to warm the air before it reaches the lungs. Flatter noses are prevalent in warmer, more humid regions where the air can immediately enter the lungs. Humans adapt to the climate regardless of their race categorization.
Height is not found to be a distinguisher of any climate or race. A variety of heights is abundant in the race constructs of black, white, Hispanic, Latino, and Asian ethnicities, and the environment appears to have no relationship with height either. However, the size of a human’s legs, torsos, and arms are shorter in lower latitudes and colder regions. This adaptation deals with maintaining body heat. When there is less body, there is less body heat to be lost. Humans living in higher latitudes have longer legs, torsos, and arms because their body heat needs to be displaced throughout their entire body.
Environment does have an impact on eye color as well. More pigmentation is found in the eye’s iris as well as where the image falls in the back of the eye in darker-skinned humans. Humans with lighter pigmentation are more likely to have lighter eyes and can see better in reddish light.
Hair is also speculated to be another human adaptation. A human in higher latitudes grows tightly curled hair, which insulates the head better than wavy or straight hair. The absorption of solar heat in darker hair, in higher latitudes, enables the heat to be converted at the outer hair blanket surface, radiating back into the air. Lighter hair is found to allow heat to form in insulating layers, and heat is retained. More body hair is apparent in lower latitude environments where humans need to keep their bodies warmer.
The need for less physically fit bodies is altering the human body even today. A strong, able body is not necessary in contemporary human activities. Occupations that do not require strenuous activity like desk jobs are becoming more and more prevalent in the modern world. This alteration of human bodies has been classified by some as a de-evolution of humans where genes involving strength are unnecessary. De-evolution is when a group appears to be losing a genetic trait. However, in some regions, humans still require muscles to sufficiently live in their environment.
Some human physical characteristics have yet to be found as a favorable adaptation necessary for a precise environment. Thin and full lips, epicanthic eye folds in Asian groups, more prevalent balding in Caucasoid men, and a number of other distinct differences from one group to another are all unanswered attributes found in humans today. The variety may be nature preparing for environmental changes yet to be experienced, where one of those diverse characteristics will assist the group in continuing to flourish.
The greatest adaptation of all humans is ingenuity. Animals are genetically structured to live in specific climates. Ingenuity has enabled humans to bypass their pre-designed characteristics to live wherever they choose. The invention of fire was the first of many things to encourage human creativity and perseverance. Along with a more sterile process of preparing food, fire was the spark of humans’ altering nature. This alteration allows humans, regardless of adaptations to a specific environment, to live and move freely all over the globe.
Sources:
Browne, Janet and John van Wyhe. “Timeline of the life of Charles Robert Darwin,” The Complete Work of Charles Darwin Online, (January 12, 2011,) http://darwin-online.org.uk/timeline.html.
Jackson, Fatima LC. “Human genetic variation and health: new assessment approaches based on ethnogenetic layering.” Volume 69, Issue 1, Pp. 215-235, Oxford Journals, (December 10, 1993) http://bmb.oxfordjournals.org/content/69/1/215.full.
Khan, R. and B.S. Razib Khan. “Diet, disease and pigment variation in humans.” Volume 75, Issue 4, Pp. 363-367, Medical Hypotheses, (October, 2010) http://www.medical-hypotheses.com/article/S0306-9877(10)00159-3/abstract.
Rensberger, Boyce. “Racial Odyssey.” Science Digest, (January/ February 1981) http://www.mesacc.edu/dept/d10/asb/origins/race/racial_odyssey.html.
Wyhe, John van. “Biography,” The Complete Work of Charles Darwin Online, (January 1, 2010) http://darwin-online.org.uk/biography.html.