Christian Evidences - C.D. #7 - The Trustiworthiness of the Bible

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What is Adaptation? Adaptation refers to beneficial adjustments of organisms to their environment, a process that not only leads to changes in the organisms but also impacts their environment. Such dynamic interaction is necessary for the survival of all life forms, including human beings. How Do Humans Adapt? Through cultural adaptation, humans develop ways of doing things that are compatible with the resources they have available to them and within the limitations of the various habitats in which they live. What Sorts of Cultural Adaptations Have Humans Achieved through the Ages? Food foraging is the oldest and most universal type of human adaptation and typically involves geographical mobility. Horticulture (cultivating plants with hand tools) led to more permanent settlements (villages and towns) while pastoralism (herding grazing animals) required mobility to seek out pasture and water.

Summarize the Content:

Adaptation is essential for survival. It is the ongoing process organisms undergo to achieve beneficial adjustments to a particular environment. It results in biological changes in the organisms, which in turn impact the environment. Humans are unique in that they adapt through culture, which has made it possible for them to inhabit a range of environments. Cultural adaptation is the complex of ideas, activities, and technologies that enable people to survive in a certain environment. The unit of adaptation includes both organisms and environment. Organisms including human beings exist as members of a population. Population must have the flexibility to cope with variability and change within the natural environment that sustains them. In biological terms, different organisms within the population have different genetic endowments (gifts). In cultural terms, it means that variation occurs among individual skills, knowledge, and personalities. Organisms and environments form dynamic interacting systems. Anthropologists have adopted the ecologists’ concept of ecosystem, defined as a system composed of both the natural environment and all the organisms living within it. The system is bound by the activities of the organisms and the physical processes as erosion and evaporation. Cultural ecology is a term that refers to the dynamic interaction of specific cultures with their natural environments. Cultural ecologists are concerned with detailed studies of human ecosystems. Human groups adapt to their environments by means of their cultures. However, cultures may change over the course of time (they evolve).

Cultural evolution is confused with the idea of progress—the ethnocentric notion that humans are moving forward to a higher, more advanced stage in their development toward perfection. On page 151, the Comanche Indians and the Cheyenne Indians set a good example how societies that developed independently of one another find similar solutions to similar problems. This is an example of convergent evolution—the development of similar cultural adaptations to similar environmental conditions by different peoples with different ancestral cultures. Similar to convergent evolution is parallel evolution, in which similar cultural adaptations to similar environmental conditions are achieved by people whose ancestral cultures were already somewhat alike.

Anthropologists recognize that ethnic groups living within the same broad habitat often share certain culture traits. A culture area is a region in which different societies follow similar patterns of life. Since geographic regions are not always uniform (identical) in climate in climate and topography, new discoveries do not always spread to every group. Environmental variation also favors variation in technology since needs may differ from one area to the next. To deal with variations within a given region anthropologist Julian Steward proposed the concept of culture type. This refers to a collection of elements in a culture that generally occurs cross-culturally and concerns a particular technology and its relationship with certain environmental features. The social and political organization of a society is another factor that influences how technology can be used to ensure survival. The features that are fundamental in the society’s way of making its living—including food-producing techniques, knowledge of available resources, and work arrangements involved in applying those techniques to the local environment are its culture core.

Food foraging (hunting, fishing, and gathering wild plants) is the oldest and most universal type of human adaptation. It requires that people move their residence according to changing food sources. A crucial factor in this mobility is availability of water. The distance between the food supply and water must not be so great that more energy is required to fetch water than can be obtained from the food. Another characteristic of the food-foraging adaptation is the local group size is kept small because small numbers fit the land’s capacity to sustain the groups. Another possible reason for small size is that the fewer the people the less the chance of social conflict. It is certain that both ecological and social factors are involved. Among those suggested are the carrying capacity of the land (the number of people that the available resources can support at a given level of food-getting techniques) and the density of social relations (the number and intensity of interactions among camp members). Higher social density means more opportunities for conflict. The primary mechanism for regulation of population size among food foragers is the frequent nursing of infants, which prevents ovulation.

Three important elements of human social organization are a division of labor by gender, food sharing, and the camp as the center of daily activity and food sharing. A characteristic of food-foraging societies is their egalitarianism (social equality, classlessness). Since this way of life requires mobility, people accumulate only the material goods necessary for survival so that status differences are limited to those based on age and gender. Status differences associated with sex do not imply subordination of women to men. Food resources are distributed equally throughout the groups thus no individual can achieve the wealth or status that hoarding might bring.

The transition from food foraging to food production is seen as a consequence of increased management of wild food resources. This transition is known as the Neolithic revolution—the profound culture change associate with the early domestication of plants and animals. It is estimated that this revolution began 10,000 years ago. With it came the development of permanent settlements as people practiced horticulture using simple hand tools. One form of horticulture (cultivating plants with hand tools) is swidden farming or slash-and-burn—an extensive form of horticulture in which the natural vegetation is cut, the slash is subsequently burned and crops then planted among the ashes. Intensive agriculture is a more complex because of its use of technology. It requires irrigation, fertilizers, and draft animals. Pastoralism is a means of subsistence that relies on raising herds of domesticated grazing animals, such as cattle, sheep, and goats. Pastoralists are usually nomadic moving to different pastures as required for grass and water. They regard movement of all or part of the society as a normal and natural part of life. The Pastoral life of the Bakhitari revolves around two seasonal migrations to find better grazing lands for the flocks. Twice a year the people move in the spring to their summer quarters in the mountains and in the fall to their winter quarters in the lowlands. This pattern of strict seasonal movement between highlands and lowlands is known as transhumance.

Cities developed as intensified agricultural techniques created a surplus freeing individuals to specialize full-time in other activities (like carpentry, blacksmiths, sculptors, basket makers, and stone cutters) that contributed to the diverse life of the city. Social structure became increasingly stratified with the development of cities and people began to get away from egalitarianism and rank according to gender, the work they did (occupation), and the family they were born into (status). Social relationships grew more formal with political institutions. The sequence from food foraging through horticulture and pastoral, to intensive agricultural nonindustrial (or preindustrial) urban, and then industrial societies is not inevitable (expected). Older adaptations continue to exist because conditions are such that they continue to work so well and those who maintain them prefer them than the alternatives of which they are aware. Contemporary (modern) food-foraging, horticultural, pastoral, nonindustrial, and industrial urban societies are evolved adaptations each in its own particular way.

Reflection:

I believe that adapting is essential for survival. For me at Southwesten Christian College it has been an ongoing process for me to adjust to the campus life. I come from a different region of the map (the Northwest) where I have seen similarities since I have been in Texas. I also have seen differences. These differences have caused me to reflect on my relationship with God on the inside and find how to adjust and make an impact on the campus by my obedience to the scriptures (God’s word, the bible). My God given ability to adapt through culture has made it possible for me to inhabit a range of environments (or simply put, to fit in). It has not been easy. Through my challenge to adapt to the campus I have had to face some trials that ultimately strengthen my faith in Jesus Christ. The trials I have faced build up my character, strengthen my hope, and have developed in me perseverance to endure.

While adapting to this new environment I want to keep my integrity for God. I want to make sure that my environment does not shape me in a way that does not resemble Jesus. God has given me understanding through his word and I find that I am just clay. Now you have God and you have the world who is the potter. When I live by God’s word and understand that salvation has been perfected through suffering. Then God will shape me to look like Christ. If I live ignorant of his grace, mercy and love through Jesus then I allow myself to be shaped by the world’s way or culture (of sin) and become a friend. The bible says in James 4:4, you adulterous people, don’t you know that friendship with the world is hatred toward God? Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. I am in the world but not of the world. I also am called to preach the word of God to the world (people not living for God). I ask God to help me to relate to others and adapt to different cultural environments without compromising my obedience.

I am reminded of 1st Corinthians 9:19-23, though I am free and belong to no man, I make myself a slave t everyone, to win as many as possible. To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law), so as to win those under the law. To those not having the law I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God’s law but am under Christ’s law), so as to win those not having the law. To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some. I do all this for the sake of the gospel that I may share in its blessings.