LCMartin's Thoughts

Language Blog We take spoken language for granted.   Verbal communication isn’t 100 percent necessary to communicate basic needs or thoughts, but it is necessary to communicate complex ideas and emotions with someone else who only knows how to use a verbal form of communication.   I found this experiment to be difficult.   I was not able to change the course of the conversation and often there were long pauses because my friend didn’t know what else to talk about because he didn’t receive any cues or ideas from me.   Not because I didn’t want to add to the conversation, but it was very difficult using only hand signals.   A few times I was able to convey an answer to a question using hand signals like using a shrug to convey I didn’t know or even at one point I rubbed my thumb and two fingers together to convey a message of needing money.   Fifteen minutes is a long time to go without being able to verbally contribute to a conversation and I found ...

Piltdown Hoax           The Piltdown man was falsified skeletal remains of what was thought to be an early- possibly the earliest- human ancestor, found in 1912 in the Village of Piltdown, England by Charles Dawson.   At the time, the skeletal remains of the Piltdown man were a huge breakthrough because they appeared to be that of an early human with a modern human-sized brain cavity in the skull but an apelike jaw, which caused scientists to believe that the earliest humans were more human-like than apelike.   This evidence also supported the idea that the hominin brain evolved to be large before other traits evolved, including bipedalism- which we now know that bipedalism came first. The remains appeared to be a previously unknown species of an early hominin that probably went extinct before the end of the Pleistocene era, which would also mean that England was possibly the birthplace of the earliest human ancestor.   This “discover...

Rhineura (Worm Lizards), Lizards, and Earthworms                     Rhineura (worm lizards) and common lizards share a similarly shaped skull. They also share a common lizard ancestor, explaining the similarity in their skull shape. Worm lizards, however, have evolved using their skull to burrow underground and to spend most of its time moving and living underground. This has caused its skull to change slightly in structure to be harder.   Its life underground also accounts for the fact that the worm lizard is limbless and nearly blind.   Spending most of its time burrowing through the ground caused it to lose its limbs because they hindered its ability to burrow and caused it to lose its eyesight because it is not necessary to see when burrowing through dirt constantly.   A common lizard may use its skull to help it burrow but will also use its limbs to dig out a burrow and use it as a home.   It doesn’t live...

      I would argue that Thomas Malthus had the most influence over Darwin’s development of his theory of natural selection.  Malthus’ Essay on the Principle of Population pointed out that the increase in human population was growing despite not having sufficient resources available to support growth.  This concept inspired Darwin and he, along with Wallace, extended the concept to include all organisms which set up the basis of Darwin’s future theory of natural selection, the competition for resources.  The traits that allowed certain species to survive and thrive in an environment of limited resources would be passed on to future generations, whereas the less advantageous traits in a species that limited certain organism's ability to survive, ultimately ending in its demise, would hence naturally eradicate that trait from future generations.  Thomas Malthus’ idea of competition for resources provided the necessary groundwork for the theory of natur...