Writing Feedback / Scientific Revolution & Christianity Essay [NEW]

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Could you please read my essay and give me some feedback?

The prompt is:

In the late 1600s and early 1700s, scientists made numerous discoveries about how the physical world operates--Newton's laws of motion and gravity, Boyle's and Charles's laws about gases, and many others. By the early 1800s, these scientific discoveries had a profound influence on how many Western people thought about their Christian beliefs. What do you believe was the most significant impact of these scientific discoveries on the basic beliefs of Christianity in the Western world by 1800?

The prolific period of scientific discoveries encompassing the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was later named "the Scientific Revolution". Historians have used that label because this expression implies that these scientific discoveries had a revolutionary effect on European societies, which were regulated by Christianity. However, different conclusions can be drawn in addressing the impacts of these scientific discoveries on the basic beliefs of Christianity in the Western world by 1800: in what ways was the place of humankind at the centre of the universe rejected? To what extent was God no longer the unique reference as regards ethics? How could Christian followers still believe in an afterlife paradise?

Scientific discoveries in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries shook the belief that humankind was at the centre of the universe. Indeed, the philosophers of the Middle Ages had synthesized the ideas of ancient philosophes, such as Aristotle and Ptolemy, and the Christian doctrine to elaborate the Ptolemaic theory. That geocentric comprehension of the universe had imagined, not physically observed, that the earth was at the centre of the universe and constantly changing whereas the perfect and incorruptible heavenly bodies revolved around the earth in concentric orbits. That Christian worldview of sinful humans enveloped by God (omnipotent, ubiquitous, and omniscient) the saved souls living in the highest spheres of a spiritual world could not be damaged since no one had any proof of the contrary. However, the Polish mathematician Copernicus (1473 - 1543) presented his groundbreaking heliocentric theory. According to Copernicus, the earth was not static but revolved around both the sun (which was at the centre of the universe) and its own axis. However, he kept the concept of circular orbits. The German mathematician and astronomer

Johannes Kepler (1571 - 1630) and Italian professor of mathematics Galileo Galilei (1564 - 1642) corroborated, through empirical observations, the Copernican thesis. The former established the presence of elliptical orbits and the latter favoured the systematic observation of the heavens by means of a telescope. Those scientists propelled the European cosmology into a new era because they showed a model of infinite universe where the earth was a common planet and they obliterated the Christina representation of humankind, i.e. an image of humans who were the supreme achievement of the divine creation and who were placed at the centre of the universe (the only place where could stand God's masterwork). The Christian church succeeded in its first attempts for subjugating the heretic views through the condemnation of Copernicanism and the obligation for Galileo to abjure his findings. The conception of the Christian views could have enjoyed its success for a long time without the findings of a genius of the scientific revolution: Isaac Newton. That professor of Cambridge University brilliantly amalgamated the conclusions of his predecessors and established in his work "Mathematical principles of Natural Philosophy" the three laws of motion. That synthesis opened, once more, new vistas for his contemporaneous. The new Newtonian cosmology suggested that all the planetary bodies and objects on earth behaved according to three natural laws, one of which was the law of gravitation. Newton proposed the concept of a world-machine to describe the universe as a huge, regulated machine that operated according to natural laws in absolute time, space, and motion. The Christian church was now confronted with factual explanations buttressed with logic that spread within intellectual circles throughout Europe claiming that God had created the universe but that humankind was no longer its focus point: humans fell off their pedestal and this collapse meant the basic Christian beliefs were on the verge to lose their credence.

As a consequence, the scientific discoveries in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries weakened the official Christian creed as regards the possibility of a better afterlife. Indeed, as abovementioned, the Christian followers could question their faith since they had not the certitude that God and saved souls were living in the highest spheres of the universe. Furthermore, a new kind of European intellectuals, called the Physiocrats, appeared. They were eighteen-century economists who considered that governments should not interfere in the free exercise of trade. Spearheaded by the founder of the modern discipline of economics, Adam Smith (1723 - 1790), and his "The Wealth of Nations", individuals should be free to pursue their economic self-interest. Actually, European governments should apply the "Laissez-faire" doctrine in order that the economy was regulated by the law of supply-and-demand and, consequently, that European societies could benefit from the individuals' enrichment. Furthermore, Adam smith declared that the government should only have three basic functions: protect society from invasion thanks to its army, defend its citizen from injustice thanks to its police, and keep up expensive public works (such as roads or canals). The Christian church faced the proclamation that not only was the spiritual world inexistent but also that the terrestrial happiness was obtainable since the afterlife paradise was unreachable. Once more, earthly promises of richness that did not depend upon the divine will but the individuals' work in addition to less and less probable possibilities to enter the paradise deeply affected the Christian faith. Christian followers were not faced with another dilemma: who should be the unique reference as regards ethics: God or humans?

The scientific discoveries that were made in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries inspired European intellectual in the eighteenth century as regards ethics. These "enlightened" philosophes considered that humans should be conspicuously involved in the establishment of sets of ethical rules and in their implementation. Actually, they believed that humans should apply a spirit of rational criticism to all things, including religion and politics. Besides, those philosophes' focus was the improvement of the terrestrial world, and its enjoyment, rather than the belief in a hypothetical paradisiacal afterlife. In the seventeenth century, John Locke, a British contemporary of Isaac Newton, argued that humans were born with a tabula rasa (blank mind) in his "Essay Concerning Human Understanding" in 1690. Therefore, according to Locke, humans were moulded by their environment and, as a consequence, proper changes could influence their behaviour and, thus, the creation of new societies could be possible. The creation of a better world on earth was in the hand of all humans: once more, Christian beliefs were undermined. The French Enlightened philosophes have undoubtedly launched the most ferocious attacks against the Christian church and its beliefs. François Marie Arouet (1694 - 1778), also known as Voltaire, criticized the fanatical, intolerant and superstitious facets of the Christian religion. He also valued Deism (philosophy based on the Newtonian world-machine) that described God as the creator of the universe but also ascertained that God had ceased to have any direct involvement in the universe and allowed it to run according to its own natural laws. Another example is Denis Diderot (1713 - 1784). Diderot labelled Christianity as "the most absurd [religion] and the most atrocious [religion] in dogma" because of its fanatic and unreasonable behaviour. He wrote his twenty-eight volumes "Encyclopédie", or classified dictionary of the sciences, arts, and trades" to "change the general way of things" (in his own words). Diderot and the contributors to the "Encyclopédie" aimed at promulgating social, legal, political improvements all over the world. In a way, they succeeded in Europe and in the New World thanks to purchasers of the "Encyclopédie". Those people assimilated the ideas of the Enlightenment and spread that ideology in Europe and far abroad. The American Revolution, the French Revolution, the abolition of slavery, and the subsequent creation of the United States of America, the groundbreaking US constitution and the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen were all the fruit of the seeds sowed by the scientific discoveries in the sixteenth and seventeenth discoveries and were in no way spurred into action by the Christian faith.

Finally, the scientific discoveries that were made in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries gave humankind confidence in science and secured the conviction that humans, thanks to reason, can master nature to their own benefit and that nothing can hamper the course of progress. The intellectual revolution provoked by these discoveries, and their subsequent impairments caused to the basic Christian beliefs, permitted the birth of the Enlightenment, which consequently created the intellectual basis for several US founding fathers to write the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution. However, despite such tremendous successes, the reason, scientific method, logic, and rational criticism were not sufficient arms to entirely annihilate the efforts to the Christian beliefs to permeate the intellectual and political spheres of influence in Europe and in the New World. Indeed, in many countries in these areas, Christianity has still been a state religion. It seems that despite several centuries of assaults, science has not succeeded in overcoming religion, as it can be noticed in the debate between Creationists and Darwinists, as if Christianity was not ready to die in odour of sanctity.

Writing Feedback / Samuel P. Huntington - The Clash of Civilizations [NEW]

Hello,

Could you please read my essay and give me some feedback?

The prompt is:

Samuel P. Huntington, in his article The Clash of Civilizations?, suggests that cultures are the emerging sources of tension and conflict in the world today. Discuss the validity of Huntington's thesis.

Thank you in advance.
Frederic

In 1993, Samuel Huntington, a professor of political sciences at the University of Harvard, wrote an article in the journal "Foreign Affairs", which was on the verge of becoming of prominent importance for the field of International Relations. Titled "the clash of civilizations", Huntington's article presented an ambitious objective: the aim was to provide a theoretical framework to interpret almost all of the conflicts that had broken out since the end of the twentieth century in addition to forecast the appearance of future conflicts. Huntington claims that the world has been in a non-ideological era since the end of the Cold War and that the role of the nation-state has been less and less significant. Consequently, Huntington's states that, henceforth, civilizations are to clash with one another. Culture, and especially its religious element, has become the main cause of conflicts, far much more than political objectives such as territorial conquests. Huntington's viewpoint has often been challenged but it has also benefited from an immense popularity, ranging from college textbooks to Islamic manifestos. Furthermore, one must acknowledge that the "clash of civilizations" is a relatively simple theory to explicate the ins and outs of international politics. However, the validity of such a paradigm lies in its capacity to describe and interpret the real world and incite the reader to seek in what ways Huntington's theory allows one to understand current conflicts. Considering, as Huntington does, that the belonging to a civilization constitutes the new driving force behind conflicts, is not only flawed but also dangerous.

Huntington asserts that, since the end of the cold war, a new type of opposition has succeeded the Middle Ages conflicts between princes and the post-Westphalia antagonisms between nations. This new type of conflicts opposes the seven or eight major civilizations, i.e. Western, Confucian, Japanese, Islamic, Hindu, Slavic-Orthodox, Latin American and possibly African civilization. With the end of political ideologies, the individuals would first and foremost feel a close recognizance as regards shared cultural features (i.e. religion, ethnicity), and, as a consequence, would acknowledge their belonging to one of the Huntington's cultures, or civilizations. That supposition is relatively reliable because, effectively, the federation of individuals into ethno-national groups, due to tribalism in the wake of the disintegration of political unity, deeply influences world politics. However, he cautiously announces that the differences distinguishing his civilizations do not necessarily imply the emergence of conflicts between them. Conversely, Huntington also develops a completely opposite argument. Indeed, he declares that his civilizations are intrinsically in conflict because they are driven by incompatible moral and political values, the necessity to survive, and the will to dominate. That characteristic of the new world order would be all the more disturbing because the civilizations would behave according to the "kin-country syndrome", namely those civilizations would ally with more or less kin-civilizations. Subsequently, conflicts would primarily break out "along the fault lines between civilizations". The Huntington's explanation of conflicts all over the world may seem coherent since, in affect, numerous conflicts have arisen along his fault lines.

Huntington describes the emergence of a conspicuous Islamic menace for the western countries, in addition to concomitant threats. Indeed, according to Huntington: "Islam has bloody borders". Huntington's perception of the borders of his Islam civilization clearly reflects the practical sources of conflicts on the ground. One could notice that Huntington lays considerable emphasis on conflicts opposing Christian and Muslim populations, such as in the Balkans. Furthermore, Huntington argues that the Islamic civilization could seek military cooperation, for instance with China, mostly due to anti-western reaction, and thus create a "Confucian-Islamic connection". Subsequently, western countries should protect themselves thanks to the establishment of fortifications in the "torn-countries", as in Turkey, which is located on a fault line separating two civilizations. Besides, the western countries should also ally with friendly civilizations such as the Latin-American civilization, and endeavour to destabilize hostile civilizations according to the balance-of-power.

Huntington's perspective presupposes that a country acts according to its civilization appurtenance. Nonetheless, assuming that a relation of causality between the existence of diverse identities and the acting into an armed conflict can be established, that link is far from being properly demonstrated. Moreover, not only does Huntington completely ignore the nuances that can be present between the different populations belonging to the same civilization and asserts that the civilizations are entirely homogenous, but he also oversimplifies the international relations through the reification of those civilizations, namely he transforms them into full actors of the international stage. Huntington utterly disregards the individuals' influence in the formation of cultures and he subsequently takes no notice of the complexity of the multifarious components of the human cultures. For instance, Huntington overlooks the importance of multinational states are widespread on the world stage (about thirty percent of the states in the world states have no nation that constitutes a majority), or multistate nations. Besides, Huntington fails to explain why conflicts emerge at a particular moment but by the overexploitation of vague cultural divergences. Indeed, economical, political, or social factors seem totally absent of his analytical framework. Quite surprisingly, Huntington ingeniously succeeds in avoiding providing the reader with an unambiguous definition of what a civilization is. Actually, a civilization may be characterized by a single religion (such as Islam), nation (such as Japan), or a group of countries (such as the western countries) or even an entire area (such as Latin America). Finally, and even more astonishingly, Huntington seems to believe Saddam Hussein's low-grade propaganda to give weight to his "clash of civilization" theory when he relates that "Forswearing Arab nationalism, Saddam Hussein explicitly invoked an Islamic appeal", whereas the latter was looking for political and military support from political leaders in the Near and Middle East.

Huntington completely ignores the bloody conflicts that were highly detrimental within a same civilization during the twentieth century: for example between the western countries during the first and second World Wars, or for instance between the Muslim countries during the Iran Iraq war in the 1980s or the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in the early 1990s. Moreover, on the one hand, Huntington fails to explain why the United Arab Emirates, a Muslim country, deployed military forces, fifteen main battle tanks "Leclerc", in the context of peacekeeping operations in Kosovo from 1999 to 2002. On the other hand, Huntington also fails to explain why Muslim countries, such as the Kingdom of Arabia Saudi, took part in the anti-Iraqi coalition alongside with the United States of America in 1990-1991. Generally, Huntington appears to be fully ignorant of political alliances or conflicts without religious origin, such as in Liberia.

Finally, on closer examination, "the clash of civilizations" strangely reminds the reader of a new Realist theory. Indeed, Huntington replaces nation-states by civilizations as basic units on the international politics. Moreover, Huntington's almost bipolar vision of the world (the Confucian-Islamic connection against the western civilization) and his principle of balance-of-power between the civilizations are also reminders of a kind of new Realist theory. Nonetheless, this vision of the world stage is somewhat nostalgic of Manichean world politics and, therefore, more easily understandable. Furthermore, Huntington's theory shows an all too alarmist vision of the future. Indeed, according to Huntington, the western civilization would have entered a period of decline due to the constant progression of the multiculturalism within western countries, whereas the other civilizations (and especially the Islamic one) would be homogenous and would be less influenced by the globalization. Such an idea does not allow for the current forces of transnationalism (globalization of economy, culture, transport, and telecommunications) that act on world politics from the individual to the system level. For example, Huntington ignores phenomena such as the political integration, economic interdependence, or the social integration.

All things considered, Huntington's theory could prove to be politically dangerous for states whose leaders would adopt his vision of world politics, and especially for the USA since Huntington is an influential American political scientist. First, no diplomatic negotiations could allay tensions between antagonist civilizations since Huntington argues that they are intrinsically in opposition with other civilizations. Last and not the least, stigmatizing foreign civilizations as necessarily ominous, Huntington favours the deterioration of the diplomatic dialogue and, therefore, augments the probability of appearance of conflicts. With the benefit of hindsight, one could reconsider Huntington's prime objective: did he want to provide political leaders with a simple and reliable conceptual framework for analysing world politics or did he want to pave the way for the U.S. administration, to prepare the public for an interventionist American foreign policy at the dawn of the twenty-first century?

Writing Feedback / Tokugawa & sakoku - essay [2]

Hello,

Could you please read my essay and give me some feedback?

The prompt is:

At the beginning of the Tokugawa period, the shogun encouraged trade with westerners. However, over time subsequent shoguns terminated almost all trade with foreigners (trade with westerners was limited to two Japanese ports and with only the Portuguese and the Dutch) and prohibited Japanese people to travel outside of Japan under penalty of death.

Why do you believe the shogun established such extreme measures to end contact between the Japanese people and foreigners?

Thank you in advance.
Frederic

The Tokugawa shogun and the Japanese people enjoyed commercial relations with the Portuguese, Spanish, and Dutch since the landing of the first European ship on the Japanese coast in 1543. However, the shogun rapidly turned Japan into a political, commercial and cultural hermetic cocoon thanks to a strict limitation of trade with foreigners and the absolute interdiction for the Japanese nationals to travel outside of Japan under penalty of death. So sudden a reversal seems quite surprising and entails one to search for the underlying reasons that entailed the shogun's establishment of extreme measures to end contact between the Japanese people and foreigners. The raison d'ętre of the Tokugawa shogun's decision to implement a seclusion policy (sakoku) may be rooted into the Japanese ruling classes' fear to be unable to escape foreign threat and domestic unrest. The Europeans' growing influence throughout Japan might have undermined the Japanese political and social fabric.

On the one hand, the shogunate deemed that European voyagers have initiated commercial relations with the Japanese in order to progressively extend the European political influence throughout Japan to overcome the local and centralized political organization. Since the arrival of Francis Xavier in Japan in 1549, European traders commenced commercial activities with the Japanese and rapidly established flourishing harbours in Japan. The Japanese craze for European manufactured goods, for instance firearms, or arts, such as architecture or painting, permitted the Europeans to expand trade and instil more or less insidious religious proselytism. Those relations appeared beneficial for the Japanese authorities who gave the harbour of Nagasaki to the Society of Jesus for both missionary and trading purposes. However, some European missionaries damaged indigenous shrines or obliterated representations of local idols. Furthermore, some religious sanctuaries have even been transformed into Christian churches or schools. Those activities in the European territorial holdings throughout the Japanese archipelago alarmed the shogunate. Indeed, the Tokugawa ruler estimated that the growing Christian influence within his country was the warning signs of European monarchs' ambitions to overthrow the shogunate. Subsequently, the Shogun, Tokugawa Ieyasu, decided to bar Christian missionaries from establishing supplementary religious delegations and, finally, expelled them from the Japanese territory. Furthermore, the shogunate also made the decision to eradicate all forms of the Christian faith, including the Japanese converts to that foreign religion. Nevertheless, the more secular Dutch were allowed to trade with Japan under stringent limitations. Finally, the Tokugawa shogunate had been successful in eliminating the foreign threat that could have prevailed over the recent and still fragile Japanese political unification.

On the other hand, the shogunate considered that the European missionaries had disseminated the seeds of social unrest on the form of the Christian faith to challenge the Japanese unity. From the mid-sixteenth century, the European missionaries proselytized and succeeded in converting some Japanese. It was not so much the quantity of Japanese apostates as their position in the social ladder that was significant. Indeed, by the end of the sixteenth century, some daimyo in the southernmost islands of Kyushu and Shikoku had endorsed Christianity to augment their commercial profit for boosting their personal enrichment and for supporting their political ascension. Moreover, those local rulers employed peasants and samurai. Therefore, those daimyo could have amalgamated the samurai's martial ability with the power of peasants armed with firearms to depose the Tokugawa shogunate. The latter perceived that option as a serious menace because the shogunate's authority on the Japanese population depended on the obedience to the Confucian principles and on the strict compliance to hierarchy. However, the inability of the European missionaries to provide the potential faithful with properly translated religious texts hampered the rapid and widespread development of the Christian faith in the Japanese archipelago. The European missionaries' precipitation for preaching, added to their concomitant lack of knowledge as regards the Japanese language, resulted in a too slow expansion of the European political influence through the Christianity. Furthermore, the daimyo in the southern islands turned out to be unable to seize the power and Tokugawa Ieyasu, who ruled the Shogunate government in Edo. Consequently, The Shogun benefited from that foreign and domestic Christians' disadvantage and ordered the expulsion of all missionaries in early seventeenth century. Finally, the Tokugawa shogunate had succeeded in eliminating the jeopardy that could have breach the shogun authority and thus obliterate the Japanese social unity.

The ephemeral experience of massive commercial and cultural relations between Europe and Japan on the Japanese archipelago aroused strong xenophobic feelings in the Japanese government and might have caused the complete failure of the Tokugawa shogunate in its attempt to reunify Japan. One could argue that the European ambitions in Japan, reflecting the European colonialist expansion that began in the fifteenth century, were excessively fought due to an overestimate of the potential political and social menaces for the Japanese. Nonetheless, from the shogun point of view, the European commercial, religious, and political expansionism in Japan threatened the Japanese political and social institutions and, therefore, their own personal office. Actually, the questioning of the political system and social stratification could have jeopardized the Japanese's obedience to the hierarchy and thus to the supreme ruler. The shogun's personal traits in relation with their knowledge of the political history in the area, their personal experiences, their ambition, and their emotional response were some factors that could explain the implementation of the seclusion policy (sakoku). The investigation of the shogun's role and the decision-making process within the Tokugawa political organization, epitomized by the bakufu, could unveil hidden reasons at the individual as well as the organizational-level of analysis.

Writing Feedback / Neolithic Agricultural Revolution [2]

Hello,

Could you please read my essay and give me some feedback? Thank you very much!

The prompt is:

How did the Neolithic Agricultural Revolution change the lives of the people experiencing it? Consider its impact on individuals as well as groups.

Thank you in advance
Frederic

Present-day humans are the fruit of a long mosaic evolution since the emergence of the first hominids about four million years ago. Indeed, Homo genus individuals endured biological and cultural transformations. Among them, about ten thousand years ago, certain humans' groups initiated the systematic use of mating plants and animals for obtaining food. That period of cultural adaptation, the Neolithic, occurred at different moments of the human history and at different rates all around the world, and ended about four thousand years ago. As any cultural transformation, the conversion of a food-collecting to a food-producing subsistence pattern resulted in far-reaching behaviour alterations at the individual and group level. That induced social, economic and political changes in humans' societies.

On the one hand, social alterations took the form of an attachment to the land, a labour specialization and a religious commitment. First, Duiker and Spielvogel note that archaeologists have discovered at Çatal Hüyük, in modern Turkey, traces of a Neolithic settlement, which dates as far back about seven thousand years ago, whose surface approximates thirty two acres.1 Consequently, such findings tend to stress that the early anatomically modern humans established themselves in definite areas and constructed fixed dwellings with the intention to stay for long periods. However, that does not necessarily implies that those humans have totally abandoned their nomadic way of life but only they have started to enjoy a more sedentary one. That marked interest for the benefits provided by that land is a direct consequence of the passage to agriculture.

Second, in Neolithic societies "people began to specialize in certain crafts" argue Duiker and Spielvogel.3 That indication highlights the fact that various tasks that are necessary for maintaining individual and common lives have been performed by persons who have been clever at fabricating, hunting, speaking; namely particularly expert in a domain. The authority conferred upon those specialists by their manual dexterity or intelligence naturally encouraged their contemporaries to appeal to them for performing specific tasks that, therefore, caused a labour specialization. The latter is a corollary of the adoption of agriculture because cultivation and breeding produced surpluses of foodstuff. Accordingly, less people were required to provide enough supplies for the whole community and the people freed from that daily drudgery were available for undertaking other activities.

Third, researchers have found at Çatal Hüyük, an archaeological site in modern Turkey, several "religious shrines housing figures of gods and goddesses", as observe Duiker and Spielvogel.4 The presence of housings especially dedicated to the adoration of supreme divinities is highly significant. On the one hand, that attests of the emergence of religious beliefs, along with fixed rituals and practices for worshiping. On the other hand, the fact they have fabricated numerous representations of diverse gods and goddesses emphasizes the existence of polytheism. Neolithic people were aware that their dependence towards the yields, in terms of both quantity and quality, generated an important source of worry despite agriculture provided them with profuse supplies of food, generally at a stable rate contrary to the foraging subsistence pattern. The arousing of such disturbing emotions led the Neolithic people who experienced anxiety about their terrestrial condition to search supernatural means for predicting or controlling the future, which gave rise to a religious commitment.

On the other hand, changes in the economic model of Neolithic societies provoked some individuals' augmentation of political power because status differences emerged in Neolithic societies, whose main subsistence pattern was agriculture, and gave birth to political rulers. In the words of Duiker and Spielvogel, a start of social stratification appeared between genders because "men came to play the most dominant role in human society" and between groups of individuals because "kings and an upper class of priests, political leaders, and warriors dominated" those Neolithic societies.2 Therefore, the passage from a foraging to a true agricultural system entailed, on the one hand, the creation of dominant ranks and favoured classes in terms of political power of economic benefit, and on the other hand the gradual vanishing of the previously prevalent egalitarian system. That is the consequence of the disappearance of an obligate foraging way of life that prevented humans from storing abundant quantities of food resources. Agriculture supported the storage of food resources that were the key elements for the surfacing of some individuals' wealth, bestowing them an influential social status within their groups and the possibility to exercise authority and power that, thus, allowed them to gain political influence.

The Neolithic revolution happened around 10,000 years ago in the wake of gradual changes that took place at the end of the last ice age, around 40,000 years ago, and lasted around 30,000 years. Its main feature is an alteration of the human subsistence pattern that has evolved from food-collecting to food-producing societies. That transformation brought a stabilization of alimentary resources and a diminution of geographical peregrinations. Furthermore, to manage the requirements of an increasing population density, Neolithic societies developed elaborate social structures. Besides, economy proved to have unexpected profound effects on politics due to their tight links. Finally, surprisingly enough, mundane material changes provoked the emergence of forms of spirituality. It seems that the early anatomical modern humans, in their endeavours to alleviate the considerable pressures exercised by the selective agents present in their ecosystems, succeeded in ameliorating their food-acquiring pattern what, in the end, turned out to be highly detrimental to the constancy of the homogeneity of their groups and challenging because of their dependency to their agricultural productivity. The adoption of agriculture during the Neolithic period has still consequences hitherto such as, for instance, the enjoyment of permanent inhabitations, fixed and highly sophisticated labour specializations, and a convoluted social stratification. Finally, the cultural and material intricacy that has followed the Neolithic agricultural revolution is the result of collective interpretations and responses of societies to their natural environment that above all underlines a momentous change in Homo sapiens sapiens' worldview.

Writing Feedback / Pre-agricultural and modern diets [2]

Hello,

Could you please read my essay and give me some feedback? Thank you very much!

The prompt is:

Compare the hypothesized pre-agricultural diet with that consumed by most Americans today. How does meat from wild animals compare with meat from domesticated ones? And, why does living in settled communities and raising domesticated animals and plants lead to increased exposure to infectious disease?

Thank you in advance
Frederic

"Mummy, what do we eat?" Is there a single mother in the United States of America who has never listened to that question? It seems she does not exist, as if food has always been an obvious thing for kids. However, the archaeology provides with evidence that demonstrates the pre-agricultural subsistence pattern was far from the present day one, and therefore the archaeologists assume the diet was also far from the current one. To what extent the early diet was different from the current American diet? What are the benefits and detriments of agriculture and particularly of the domesticated animals for the American consumers today? The translation from the hypothesised pre-agricultural lifestyle to the contemporary routine observed in the United States of America has influenced the composition of the dietary consumption along with the medical consequences over the individuals.

The comparison between the pre-agricultural and current dietary compositions highlights the evolutionary history of the human beings. On the one hand, the individuals lived in pre-agricultural societies because they survived thanks to foraging, which was their exclusive subsistence pattern. Indeed, they gathered as much vegetal food as possible, such as nuts, wild vegetables, and dried grasses that were directly available on the ground without having to dig. Moreover, the anthropologists supposed that our ancestors remained engaged in scavenging for a long span of time, insofar as they were not able to produce sufficiently efficient weapons to kill big game. Nonetheless, the passage from the middle Pleistocene to the upper Pleistocene marked an important cultural evolution, namely the transformation of the Acheulian stone tool industry into the Mousterian and the subsequent stone tool industries. That alteration allowed the early hunters to create refined weapons, which indicated the beginnings of a diet including a more regular supply of fresh meat. Consequently, the foragers' ancestral diet, as either scavengers or hunters, was high in animal protein, complex carbohydrates and fibre, due to their consumption of, respectively, meat and vegetal aliments. Their nutritional regime was low in fats, and particularly in saturated fats, because they did not utilize additional fat for cooking their meals, in addition to be deprived of extra salt. Finally, the emergence of the animal domestication entailed an increase in the consumption of calcium, because they were able to keep herbivorous mammals and draw their milk.

On the other hand, the humans who currently live in the United States of America enjoy the alimentary products of a modern highly industrialised society within the framework of a free market system. The victuals are diverse in quality and abundant in both quantity and choice, for the individuals who can afford them. Although the early third millennium American society is made up of a wide range of ethnic communities, the great majority of the United States inhabitants consume similar kinds of products. Modern agriculture provides large amounts of fresh meat, cereals and vegetables that are essential for preserving one's health. Nevertheless, the use that is made of those basic aliments is extremely detrimental to the Americans' fitness. Indeed, contrary to the foragers, modern Americans and food companies make an extensive use of salt and satured fats when eating meat and vegetables or producing ready-made meals, because those condiments are cheap flavour enhancers. Moreover, although the modern American agriculture produces tremendous quantities of varied vegetal or animal aliments, the American consumers do not buy those natural and unadulterated products but prefer ready-made foodstuffs that are mainly substandard derivatives of cereals and meat. Consequently, medical organisms recurrently warn the Americans against the damaging effects of diets that are low in carbohydrates, fibres, animal proteins and dairy products.

The transformation from the hypothesised pre-agricultural lifestyle to the contemporary existence observed in the United States of America has involved medical consequences over the individuals due to the domestication. Indeed, the early foragers have virtually not suffered from excess of body fat thanks to an active lifestyle in opposition to the modern Americans who enjoy a far more sedentary lifestyle. Furthermore, the early foragers have never injected growth hormones into their preys, nor genetically modified those organisms. Neither have they cooked their meat with added oil or butter. Conversely, they have grilled their meat under open fires that allows the fat to evacuate. The direct consequences of the modern Americans' inappropriate utilization of meat have led them to experiencing diabetes, coronary artery diseases, and strokes. As well as those medical conditions, other kinds of diseases are more likely to break out. The most probable maladies are due to exposures to zoonoses, which are infectious diseases in some animals or plants, that are transmitted from infected animals or plants to humans. Pathogen agents may infect humans who breed animals, cultivate plants or consume derivative of those products. The problem is even more severe when a disease is endemic in a domesticated animal or plant population because it can easily be spread through direct transmission or through familiar vectors such as bugs, and can develop into a pandemic with potentially worldwide consequences. Consequently, the domestication of animals and plants permits to regulate the foodstuff supply but it may hide serious disadvantages by its own nature or the utilization that is made of it. Today, the Americans are simply enduring the consequences of the early human cultural evolution, during the Palaeolithic, and that have never ceased, such as the taste for gluttony. For thousands years, early humans have certainly dreamed of taming animals and plants for eating them at will. They have certainly not imagined what could have been the devastating effects of obesity and, in the end, their chance to forage many hours a day.

Writing Feedback / Haemoglobin & natural selection in areas plagued by malaria [2]

Hello,

Could you please read my essay and give me some feedback? Thank you very much!

The prompt is:

Considering the alleles for haemoglobin (Hba and Hbs), explain why natural selection favours heterozygotes over homozygotes in areas plagued by malaria.

Thank you in advance
Frederic

Since Darwin revealed his theory of evolution conventional wisdom has considered that species could escape the extinction thanks to the transmission of favourable characteristics as conspicuous. However, as a book that cannot be judged by its cover, evolution cannot be only assessed on environmental factors. Indeed, although environmental factors have an important role within the agents that exercise selective pressures, other dynamic systems take place. One of those processes, adaptation, particularly surprises by the courses of action that can happen, and notably in the case of the allele frequency for haemoglobin, which is a protein molecule that occurs in red blood cells and that binds to oxygen molecules and carries them to cells throughout the body, in areas plagued by malaria. The comprehension of the influence of the allele frequency for haemoglobin in areas plagued by malaria is eased thanks to a clear understanding of the haemoglobin molecule nature and functions in addition to the interaction between specific alleles and the disease.

The haemoglobin molecule nature and functions underpin the eventual reproductive success, or even survival, of an individual. The haemoglobin molecule may suffer from a point mutation in the genes, i.e. a change in the sequences of DNA bases that specify the order of amino acids in an entire protein, and thus appears an abnormal form of haemoglobin known as haemoglobin S, written HbS. Moreover, the allele for the haemoglobin S is recessive to the allele for normal haemoglobin HbA, that is to say that HbS has less chances to be transmitted from parents to offspring in comparison with the allele for normal haemoglobin HbA, which is a dominant trait. People who are homozygous for the HbA allele (whose genotype is HbA /HbA) produce normal haemoglobin whereas people who are homozygous for the HbS allele (whose genotype is HbS /HbS) are severely impaired because they suffer from sickle-cell anaemia, which provokes a collapse in red blood cells, with therefore a blockage of capillaries that reduces the blood flow to organs that can even end in the patients' death if they do not beneficiate from a medical treatment. People who are heterozygous (whose genotype is HbA /HbS) have a condition called sickle-cell trait which, nevertheless, is not detrimental under most circumstances.

Surprisingly enough, the distribution of this allele displays high rates in certain areas of the world, despite the HbS mutation is relatively exceptional in the global population, and epitomizes the interrelations between the allele for the haemoglobin S and the malaria. In the subtropical and equatorial regions of the Old World malaria proliferates because of mosquitoes that often spread a pathogen agent, which is made up of single-cell organisms that proliferate in the red blood cells where they obtain oxygen for surviving and reproducing. However, when those parasites attempt to infect an organism they may encounter an unexpected impediment: the haemoglobin S. Indeed, heterozygotes, who are people whose genotype is HbA /HbS, defend better against the contamination than homozygous people, whose genotype is HbA /HbA or HbS /HbS, because their red blood cells do not sufficiently provide oxygen for the parasite to easily live and reproduce.

Because of the competition for resources that happens in ecosystems, dwellers of the subtropical and equatorial areas in the Old World, who have the favourable characteristic embodied by a heterozygous phenotype, tend to avoid contracting the malaria and survive, and have a propensity to pass that trait on to their offspring through interbreeding. Those lacking that beneficial trait, because they have homozygous phenotypes, produce fewer offspring because their organism cannot preserve their healthiness and thus they die early. People who do not undergo a reduced fitness transmit their advantageous trait to their offspring because they benefit from a longer lifespan due to the fact they do not die from neither the malaria nor the sickle-cell anaemia. Therefore, over time, the haemoglobin S tends to appear more frequently in the phenotype and thus the beneficial heterozygous phenotypes accumulate in a population in opposition to the homozygous phenotypes that are less and less present.

The selective agent in this case is the malaria that acts as a pathogen agent and that is conveyed through the mosquitoes, which are the vectors of the disease, exercises a selective pressure on human populations. In order to maintain their fitness and its corollary the reproductive success, the humans who live in those areas have to adapt. Nonetheless, in this particular situation, the adaptation is entirely unconscious because the organisms develop an advantageous trait at a microscopic level that does not necessitate the implication of a cultural adaptation. Finally, the Mendel's principles of inheritance of segregation and independent assortment guarantee the presence of the recessive allele of the altered form of haemoglobin HbS at a moderate rate in a population. Consequently, in a malarial environment, in spite of the loss of their offspring through the genetic disease of sickle-cell anaemia, the sickle-cell allele carriers counterbalance the selective forces of natural selection thanks to their fitness and their higher reproductive success. Finally, when the black bluesman Willie Dixon was singing "you can't judge right from looking at the wrong" in his song "you can't judge a book by its cover", he certainly does not think about the import of what he was singing, because he was far from suspecting that a genetic trait that was surely present flowing in his blood could be far more detrimental to his life than segregation and love affairs he depicted in his lyrics.

Writing Feedback / Inaccurate depiction of Neanderthals in the popular media [2]

Hello,

Could you please read my essay and give me some feedback? Thank you very much!

The prompt is:

Neanderthals have often been depicted in the popular media as stupid, brutish, and incapable of walking in a fully upright position. Take 3-4 paragraphs to present evidence that none of these depictions is accurate.

Thank you in advance
Frederic

In the popular culture, Homo sapiens neanderthalensis individuals, also known as Neanderthals, traditionally suffer from an adverse portrayal that depicts them as primitive creatures. Folk wisdom generally attributes stupidity, bestiality, and an obligate flexed bipedalism to them, which reflect an image of animality. Such considerations are the result of a French palaeontologist's exaggerated interpretation of a Neanderthal's remains. Indeed, later analyses of that skeleton in addition to new archaeological excavations and their subsequent interpretations have rejected that depiction of Neanderthals and unveiled their true anatomical and cultural characteristics. The Neanderthals' anatomy and culture highlight the kind of their bipedalism as well as their intelligence and dexterity.

The deconstruction of the fallacy as regards the Neanderthals' ape-like gait is possible thanks to a correct reading of their anatomical features. The first key point is the position of the aperture in the base of their skull through which their spinal cord unites with their brain. That cavity, called foramen magnum, is located close to the back of the upper jaw as under our current skulls, which means this species walked fully upright because the quadrupedal species have their foramen magnum less underneath their skulls, namely closer to the rear of the skulls. Such a position gives full weight to the vision of an obligate bipedalism. Moreover, although their pelvis was relatively broad in comparison with the anatomically modern Homo sapiens, that feature was not a sufficient element to impair their fully upright gait. The confusion that surrounds the Neanderthals' physical appearance originates from the fact that this species has lived during a period of about ninety five thousand years, which was also a phase of both dramatic climatic changes and interbreeding with the Homo sapiens sapiens species. Consequently, the scientists have encountered a wide range of variations in Neanderthals' skeletons in various geographical locations. Furthermore, it seems that many Neanderthals have suffered from severe impairments due to osteoarthritis that have deformed their bones to the point of misleading the researchers who have thought the Neanderthals could have been naturally bended and therefore not fully erected.

The Neanderthals' level of intelligence was far beyond the one traditionally displayed by the media. For example, natural or human-made endocasts of Neanderthals' cranial capacity ranged from about one thousand five hundred and twenty cubic centimetres to one thousand six hundred and fifty cubic centimetres, that is on average about two hundred cubic centimetres more than the anatomically modern Homo sapiens species' cranial capacity, namely us. Furthermore, their brain was divided into two hemispheres and demonstrated areas associated with the same psychomotor functions as the anatomically modern Homo sapiens species' brains. Those characteristics have suggested the Neanderthals were biologically as able to show signs of intelligence as we do. However, archaeological clues have evoked more substantially those suppositions. Actually, Neanderthals' grave have been discovered with elements that could allow the scientists to deem that the Neanderthal individuals considered their dead with respect and buried them with some kinds of rituals, through burials with decorative items or through the particular disposition of the corpses, such as in the Near East.

Furthermore, the Neanderthals' production of tools and artefacts epitomizes their capacity to exhibit dexterousness. The Neanderthals shared with some other modern Homo sapiens a type of stone tool industry that is characterized by a larger proportion of flake tools than the ones that were found in the prior stone tool industry, the Acheulian. Actually, they were adroit enough for detaching flakes form a stone core and then retouching the flakes into various forms, such as points or knives. Moreover, thanks to those more elaborated and specialized tools they were able to work relatively soft materials such as pieces of wood or antler. The Neanderthals were able to fabricate solid spears for hunting large mammals and were able to create some music instruments, such as flutes of bone, or adornments made of ivory or antler.

The Neanderthals have endured and will certainly endure mockeries or even disdain for many years because of the pervasive effects of the popular media. Nonetheless, the anthropologists have gradually been revealing a more accurate description of the Neanderthals' physical appearance and of their authentic daily routine. The Neanderthals have benefited from an advanced culture with a sophisticated tool industry in addition to excellent intellectual abilities and a fully upright position. The most obvious evidence of their faculty for adaptation lies in the fact they have been able to survive ninety five thousand years through spectacular climatic changes and in a hazardous ecosystem because of a habitat filled with dangerous large mammals and in competition with another human species, the Homo sapiens sapiens. Finally, the derision of Homo sapiens neanderthalensis should also be avoided insofar as it could amount to ridicule ourselves since recent advances in molecular biology have permitted the scientists to trace our genetic descent back to them thanks to the mitochondrial DNA, which is transmitted from the mother to her offspring without modification through the meiosis. In the end, are we so clever? Not so sure.

Writing Feedback / Hominid species during the Pleistocene [2]

Hello,

Could you please read my essay and give me some feedback? Thank you very much!

The prompt is:

During the Pleistocene, there were actually several hominid species living in Africa and other areas. What are these species and where have their fossil remains been found? Speculate as to why only one of these survives to the present.

Thank you in advance
Frederic

The earliest evidence of the presence of hominoids in Africa dates as far back as about twenty two million years ago. During about eighteen million years they radiated from Africa to Europe and Asia. Later, the first individuals of the genus Homo, the hominids, appeared in the Pliocene epoch which ranges from five million years ago to one million eight hundred thousand years ago. They were mainly composed of Australopithecines, in central and eastern Africa. The Pleistocene period, which ranges from one million eight hundred thousand years ago to ten thousand years ago, and which is divided into three parts, is of particular significance for the anthropologists because of numerous modifications in terms of biological evolution and geographical repartition. Surprisingly enough, only one species has succeeded in escaping the extinction all around the world: Homo sapiens sapiens, namely us. So astonishing a conclusion leads to closely examine what Hominid species have been during the Pleistocene, where they have lived and consider why there has only been one surviving species.

First, the Pleistocene, which ranges from one million eight hundred thousand years ago to ten thousand years ago, is emphasized by the Homo erectus species. The Homo erectus individuals are of particular importance since they have been the first hominids who have left Africa. Homo erectus remains have been found on three continents: Asia, Europe, and Africa. In Java, an island in Southeast Asia, and at Zhoukoudian, in China, various remains of Homo erectus have been discovered. As regards Europe, three crania in addition to partial mandibles have been revealed among the oldest Homo erectus remains on earth. However, those individuals were so primitive Homo erectus that they could have been classified as Homo ergaster. However, remnants of Homo erectus have permitted to testify the existence of Hominids in Europe, especially at the site of Dmanisi in the Republic of Georgia. Moreover, those Homo erectus remains bear witness to what seems to be the earliest African hominids emigrants in Europe. Other European sites epitomize the early hominids' evolutionary history diversity thanks to remains in Spain and Italy that present similitude with the Asian Homo erectus. African early hominids remnants illustrate the rich diversity of the early Homo in this region of the world and evolutions that have happened during the Pleistocene. Two Kenyan sites, in the East and West Turkana, have provided the scientists with precious indications about the presence of Homo ergaster individuals, who lived about one million six thousand years ago, and who have exhibited more or less marked differences with the Asian Homo erectus. Conversely, about six thousand years later, Homo erectus has lived in the area of Bouri in Ethiopia and has had relatively analogous morphology in comparison with the Asian Homo erectus. Remains have also been found in North African, in Morocco and Algeria, but due to the insufficiency of those early materials, which have been only composed of mandibles and partial parietal bones, the genus has been defined as Homo, the species is difficult to classify with certitude. Consequently, it appears that Homo erectus species has emerged in Africa and subsequently migrated to Europe and Asia.

Second, the middle Pleistocene, which ranges from four hundred thousand years ago to one hundred and twenty five thousand years ago, characterizes the epoch of the Archaic Homo sapiens. Several transitional hominid species, which have undergone a mosaic evolution, have materialized a speciation with the emergence of two species in the genus Homo in parallel with the development of Homo erectus. On the one hand, the anthropologists have demonstrated the presence of the Homo heidelbergensis species in Africa from six hundred thousand years ago to about one hundred and thirty thousand years ago thanks to archaeological remains found in Kenya and Ethiopia. Moreover, they have been able to notice the existence of Homo heidelbergensis individuals in Europe from four hundred thousand years ago to three hundred thousand years ago due to the discovery of numerous cranial fragments in England, France, Germany and Spain. Finally, other Homo heidelbergensis remains have also been found in China and have revealed the existence of that species in this area about two hundred thousand years ago. On the other hand, another species in the genus Homo have surfaced in Europe and Asia and is associated with the anatomically modern Homo sapiens: Homo sapiens neanderthalensis. The scientists have revealed that those individuals lived in the Israel and Iraq from about one hundred twenty five thousand years ago to sixty thousand years ago, and in Croatia and France from fifty thousand years ago to twenty eight thousand years ago. The significance of all those individuals lies in their anatomical and cultural traits that have revealed they have far more developed in the human direction than Homo erectus, which is the reason why the anthropologists have considered them as pre-modern humans.

Third, the upper Pleistocene, which ranges from one hundred and twenty five thousand years ago to ten thousand years ago, is the cradle of the anatomically modern Homo sapiens, which has been available in three subspecies: neanderthalensis, sapiens and florensis. Homo sapiens sapiens has been remarkable because of its emergence in Africa, about one hundred and sixty thousand years ago in Ethiopia, then its subsequent expansion in Africa and, above all, on the five continents. Those Homo sapiens sapiens individuals have interbred with local people, who originated from the migrations of Homo erectus during the lower Pleistocene, and therefore evolved in diverse directions. Consequently, the anthropologists have found remains of Homo sapiens sapiens that have presented considerable variations between different geographical locations. However, one anthropologists' enigma has stemmed from the discovery of remains of a dwarfed species in Indonesia that is so divergent from the average anatomically modern Homo sapiens that the scientists have supposed those individuals could be a kind of cul-de-sac in the evolutionary history of the Humans species.

Finally, when one observes the hominoids' evolution in terms of chronological and geographical progressions, the first reflection that surfaces is that it is quite surprising that only one species has succeeded in surviving up to now. In my opinion, prior Homo species have not achieved to avoid the extinction because they have not been able to adapt to the ecosystems of their respective habitats. Consequently, due to the selective pressures exercised by ecological conditions, such as the severe climatic changes during the Pleistocene in Eurasia, and the competition for resources, one could deem that many species have been able to adapt. Consequently, that individuals' reproductive success has dwindled, and therefore they have seriously threatened the entire survival of their species. On the other hand, although I reckon the arguments that buttress the opinion that the Homo sapiens sapiens species is the only one survivor of the human epopee, I am not convinced because of certain elements that could moderate that view and open new vista. The principal aspect that I consider as dramatically astonishing is the fact that recent ameliorations in the genetic engineering field have revealed the presence of Homo sapiens neanderthalensis' traces in the contemporary humans' genetic code. That aspect has been unveiled thanks to the discovery of geneticists who have demonstrated that the mitochondrial DNA is transmitted by the mother to her offspring without any alteration during the meiosis, which is the process of sex cell division during the interbreeding. Moreover, archaeology has also provided anatomical evidence of interbreeding between sapiens and neanderthalensis individuals. Consequently, one could conjecture that the Homo sapiens sapiens and Homo sapiens neanderthalensis have amalgamated in the area where the two species were present, namely Near East and Europe, but that Homo sapiens could have had more dominant advantageous traits that have leaded to produce more and more sapiens-like individuals in the descent lines with the passing years. Due to the fact that sapiens and neanderthalensis classifications are only theoretical divisions of the same species because all those individuals were able to interbreed and produce viable offspring, one could argue that Homo sapiens neanderthalensis have also, to some extent, succeeded in surviving. This perspective may seem controversial but the tremendous progress in genetics could surprise us even more in the future.

Writing Feedback / Sociobiology - theory and practical application [2]

Hello,

Could you please read my essay and give me some feedback? Thank you very much!
The prompt is:

What is the general focus of sociobiology (also known as evolutionary psychology and behavioural ecology)? How is this applied to human behaviors?

I really appreciate your help
Thank you in advance
Frederic

PS: If you need help in French, I would be pleased to help you

What is quite surprising as regards anthropology is that, despite an almost unanimous concord over the fact that the human species has biologically and culturally evolved, fierce debates arise concerning individuals' psychological development over the years. Some scientists, the sociobiologists, have engaged in the study of the interrelations between human's biology and behaviour, and endeavour to apply the findings of their research to current issues. However, as abovementioned, the undertaking of such a research is based on a highly disputed paradigm. Indeed, one could ask to what extent biology and behaviour are linked whereas the biological and cultural determinism have been proved invalid. The comprehension of the theories, which are buttressed by the recognition of three assumptions, and applications of sociobiology, also known as evolutionary psychology and behavioural ecology, helps to appreciate the scientific implications of such a research.

First, the psychobiologists assume that humans' behaviour, which are the aggregate responses to internal as well as external stimuli, stems from genetics. Indeed, the conduct of an individual in a social context, such as the expressions of love, hatred, or fear, is supposed to originate from information that is coded into human DNA, in the same as the production of antibodies to preserve the healthiness of an organism. The major implications of that suggestion are, on the one hand, the affirmation that freewill is just an illusion, and on the other hand, the declaration that the influence of culture is severely restrained, because behaviours that have been supposed to be the fruit of intellectual assessments are only involuntary responses. From an anthropological point of view, the belief that biology acts more deeply and widely than culture on humans' behaviour seems quite consistent. Indeed, scientific breakthroughs progressively reveal underlying biological influences behind behaviours that have been considered the consequence of volition until now.

Second, the corollary of the precedent point is the acceptation that humans' behaviour has to be understood in terms of natural selection and adaptation, namely in an evolutionary context. Since humans' behaviour is said to evolve through the ages, two key consequences have to be kept in mind. On the one hand, diverse psychological patterns are the result of adaptations to ecosystems through natural selection to aggrandize the individuals' reproductive success. Consequently, to imagine that feelings such as love are the product of gamete reshuffling during meiosis is singularly a lack of romanticism but is certainly more scientifically accurate. On the other hand, since the human genes are transmitted from parents to offspring and since microevolutions happened, the genes that are supposed to code the humans' behaviours change as well. Consequently, although the inheritance of acquired characteristics has been scientifically rejected, humans' behaviours are, to some extent, transmitted through descent lines and abnormal behaviours are the fruit of genetic mutations or the result of detrimental genotypic combinations.

Third, the sociobiologists presume that the contemporaneous humans' behaviours originate from the Homo sapiens individuals' behaviours during the Neolithic. The early Homo sapiens are believed to have developed particular behaviours to solve problems posed by ecosystems or habitats, and have transmitted their behaviours until now through genetics. The sociobiologists especially emphasize that epoch because the Homo sapiens species have significantly developed during that period, which covers an important part of the whole Homo sapiens evolutionary history. However, accurate accounts of those early humans' lives are not available because there are neither written records nor reliable oral transmission, which poses a formidable obstacle for accrediting that hypothesis.

Finally, the ones who accept those three postulations reshape their whole comprehension of human cultural evolution and discover innovatory and multifarious theoretical and practical applications. An application for individuals may be for example medical therapies. Indeed, if the early human mating patterns can be unveiled, therapists could prescribe efficient treatments composed of drugs to create sexual inhibitors for preventing paedophilia. The understanding of the predisposition towards belligerence or altruism could help the social scientists to comprehend the behaviours that underpin obscure economic and political phenomena. Thus, the entrepreneurs could plan advertising campaigns for ameliorating their sales and lawmakers could implement effective frameworks for pacifying international relations. There are as many applications as concerns rose by human behaviours.

However, in spite of its considerable interests, the scientific corroboration of the paradigm of the sociobiology would lead to far-reaching consequences. Actually, the major corollary would be a complete reshaping of humans' worldviews since the causes of behaviours could be found into everyone's genetic code. Psychotherapy, social sciences and philosophy would undergo massive disruptions because of the possibility to forecast and control humans' behaviour, ranging from ontogeny to phylogeny, namely from the individuals' evolution to the species' evolution. Therefore, highly controversial ethical issues as regards some possible eugenic implementations would be raised. Ultimately / eventually, "come as you are, as you were, as I want you to be," those lyrics from a song of the band "Nirvana," would reverberate in a quite desperate way.

Writing Feedback / Time of origin of modern human language [2]

Hello,

Can you proofread and offer suggestions to my essay? Thank you very much!

The prompt is:

What kinds of evidence have been examined to try to determine the time of origin of modern human language? What answer to this question do these suggest?

I really appreciate your help
Thank you in advance
Frederic

As a French student in an American university, who seeks to ameliorate his employability on the global job market, I have been fully aware of the importance of the communication. My mother tongue, French, and its cousin's tongue, English, have never kept demonstrating the splendid intricacy of both their divergences and their similarity. Moreover, beyond the conspicuous difference of their vocabulary and grammar, those languages have epitomized the variations between the Anglo-Saxon and French cultures. A subfield of anthropology, called linguistics, focuses on the study of the distinctions of contemporaneous languages through ethnosemantics, which scrutinizes the meanings of the words in relation to folk taxonomies, or sociolinguistics, which examines the languages in their social context. However, other scientists are more inclined to trace the origins of the human language as a whole back to the emergence of communication by means of shared symbols. Those historical linguists search for bio-cultural evidence to determine the time of origin of modern human language.

Biological evidence mainly stems from works in the discipline of paleo-anthropometry. First, physical anthropologists highlight changes into the trachea, such as a lowering of the epiglottis and the larynx plus an elongation of the pharynx and a modification of the soft palate. Those transformations have entailed a complete alteration of the passage of the air through the trachea. In addition, they have permitted our early ancestors not only to control the expulsion and aspiration of the air through the trachea to produce sounds but also to vary the pressure with their tongue, palate, and lips. Those elements give an insight into the physiological capacity of our ancestors to produce elaborate sounds that are primordial for an evolution into modern human languages.

Besides, although an appropriate vocal apparatus is indispensable for modern human languages, it is nevertheless insufficient because our ancestors have also needed brains, in the literal as well as the figurative sense. The anthropologists have endeavoured to discover thanks to endocasts, natural or human-made reproductions of the inside of skulls, whether our ancestors had the faculty to utilize a vocal communication. They should have a sufficiently large cranial capacity and areas associated with the same psychomotor functions that are present in modern humans' brains. Indeed, to administrate an efficient vocal apparatus, their brains have had to be asymmetrical, which is a key structural factor in modern human brains, and with language-associated areas. Such physiological information, although it is highly valuable to understand the origin of the modern human language, requires to be nonetheless compared with current primates to identify up to what extent our ancestors have been closer to contemporary human or nonhuman primates, and thus recognize whether they could have employed a modern human language.

Cultural evidence essentially originates from archaeology, historical linguistics, and cultural anthropology. First, an effective means to reveal our ancestors' knowledge of a modern human language lies in the recuperation of written records during archaeological excavations. However, those documents have to be accurately dated to confirm their period of origin. Moreover, even if the dates are correct, the sole confirmation that can be asserted is that humans utilized a modern language as far back as that period. That language may have been in use far before that period but that it may have only been spoken. Consequently, although those kinds of clues are precious, they are not reliable sources as regards the earliest utilisation of a modern human language.

Subsequently, thanks to the methods of historical linguistics, researchers probe into contemporaneous and extinct languages to unveil common descents and thus trace the origin of modern human languages back to the most plausible appearance in terms of locations and dates. However, those scientists must be vigilant because similar words in different languages may be cognates, namely they share an identical descent, but they may also be directly borrowed in another language in recent times. For example, English and French lexica seem similar enough to establish a recent common origin whereas their actual common source is extremely distant.

Then, another point must be addressed, although it is often eluded, because of its so obvious necessity. Anthropologists shed light on aspects that are quite perplexing: when did our ancestors accumulate enough cultural traits to feel the need to transmit their knowledge through a means of communication as complex as a modern human language? That raises the issue of the necessity to communicate about things and ideas that are remote in space or time. Our ancestors have required that capacity, known as displacement, as soon as their vocalizations and gestures proved to be inadequate to rapidly and precisely convey complex meanings and descriptions. Moreover, displacement necessitates an evolution into an open symbolic language, that is to say they have developed the aptitude to generate unlimited numbers of meanings, called productivity. Furthermore, the exploitation of such a language demanded to be able to use concrete but also abstract significations.

Finally, the hominids' psychomotor and conceptual aptitudes are extremely complicated to trace back because of the total absence of proper historical records. Consequently, the anthropologists have to adopt a scientific method as holistic as possible to avoid ignoring biological or cultural hints that could help them to unveil the enigma of the modern human languages. Furthermore, the emergence of modern human languages underlines how momentous the hominids' biological and cultural evolutions are. Above all, such an adaptive strategy emphasizes the brilliance of the humans' adaptability to implement successful survival mechanisms and thus postpone our species' extinction. To some extent, as a French student in an American university, who seeks to ameliorate his employability on the global job market, I have been employing that adaptive strategy to aggrandize, thanks to my common law wife, our reproductive success. Consequently, the direct and side effects of education spread far beyond their traditional applications.

Writing Feedback / Archaeology, material artefacts, and cultural systems [2]

Hello,

Can you proofread my essay and offer suggestions on how to improve it? Thank you very much!

the prompt is:

What is the theoretical premise of archaeology? That is, how can it reconstruct a cultural system from a sample of its material artefacts?

Thank you in advance
Frederic

"They dig to find antique items then expose them into museums." That sentence perfectly illustrates the idea that the great majority of people have of the archaeologists' work. Although it seems obvious for everybody that archaeologists probe into the past to discover artefacts, the subsequent use of those pieces is far more obscure for ordinary people. However, previously, the theoretical premise of archaeology needs to be reminded. Archaeology is a subfield of anthropology, whose academic foundation rests on the concept that societies' worldview and cultural system reflect on the artefacts they produce. Consequently, the archaeologists endeavour not only to recover items but also to reconstruct past cultures from those material remains. How do archaeologists attempt to recreate cultural systems from pieces of artefacts? To reach this goal, archaeologists employ background research, fieldwork techniques, laboratory analyses, and interpretation.

Surprisingly enough, the first archaeologist's task is performed at her or his desk. Indeed, public or private agencies or companies provide their archaeologists with the opportunity to study definite geographical and temporal domains, in the framework of a budget and deadlines, as any employee. As an anthropologist of the past, an archaeologist must adhere to a holistic and scientific method. Consequently, rather than to rush headlong into digging, an archaeologist starts searching through academic journals, databases, personal or counterparts' previous works to gain a knowledge of the allocated topic as comprehensive as possible. The objective of such a survey is to prepare the archaeologist for her or his forthcoming encounters with what is certainly a multifarious culture. Moreover, that review supplies the archaeologists with the minimum background to enter the scientific method cycle of inductions and deductions.

Once the reviewing, administrative, and financial duties have been completed, an archaeologist engages in fieldwork. First, archaeological excavations are the fruit of either effort, knowledge of the location of historically valuable sites or chance, builders may come across early artefacts when digging. Nonetheless, in any case, archaeologists dig test pits and the soil is screened to reveal the potential presence of human artefacts. Once a coherent estimate of the geographical limits of an archaeologically valuable site has been drawn, the archaeologists accurately record the dimensions of the site, and then establish a three-dimensional grid system to locate precisely the discoveries. Those first stages permit the scientists to recreate a map of the early settlement thanks to a final draft. Next, excavators dig assigned areas. Each time one of them distinguishes an object, he delicately free the item and then records its position. Subsequently, the object is unearthed before being stored and referenced for further examination. A correct preservation of those artefacts is primordial for later investigations.

Laboratory analyses mark the commencement of an intense period of intellectual investigations. First and foremost, archaeologists undertake visual inspections of the artefacts, sometimes with magnifiers or microscopes. That first stage permits the scientists to discover a worker's seal, hidden mark, or elements of decorations. During that period, the researchers may also notice particular clues, such as a technique of fabrication, thanks to the palpation of the item. Next, the archaeologists may require physico-chemical or biological analyses to unveil essential features of a piece, such as the existence of gunpowder to check whether a firearm has ever fired. The archaeologists can also utilize absolute dating techniques, such as accelerator mass spectrometry, to refine or confirm relative dating methods when the comparisons between previously identified and new items are too imprecise. Finally, one should keep in mind that the selection of a technique of laboratory analysis has to be carried out with great care because some methods demanded destructive tests, with therefore irreversible damages for an object.

The last stage for recreating cultural systems from pieces of artefacts involves a significant use of critical thinking. Actually, the archaeologists utilize various logical methods to reach conclusions about cultural remains. First, they can undertake ethnographic analogies, that is to say they try to interpret data through the comparison of their information with similar items or activities in contemporaneous societies. In the framework of historical archaeology, they can also examine literary analyses of written documents. Other scientists, called experimental archaeologists, endeavour to reproduce artefacts to rediscover the skills and techniques of early societies. Moreover, the holistic nature of the archaeological discipline entails the researchers to deduce the cultural systems from the comparison with other ancient societies. The main fields that are investigated are in relation with the social, administrative, military, political, artistic, economic, alimentary, or religious facets of societies. The collection of all those aspects of a society helps the archaeologists to redraw the perimeter of a cultural system, which encompasses all the learned and transmitted behaviours.

Finally, the reconstruction of a cultural system from a sample of its material artefacts implies various intellectual and practical skills and techniques. The value of those scientific endeavours lies in the recuperation of the material reflection of a society's worldview. Those material manifestations echo the expression of a society's ideas, ideals, and attitudes. In an evolutionary perspective, the knowledge of ancient cultural systems is even more precious for our present societies that they reveal the adaptive strategies of those societies to abate the selective pressure exerted by their ecosystems. Thus, those societies have been able to aggrandize the reproductive success of their individuals that have contributed to secure their continuity, to some extent. Consequently, with so holistic a panel of techniques and methods as well as the use of the scientific method, archaeologists demonstrate that anthropology of the past is all the more necessary in a period whereas the future of the human species is said to undergo a crisis.

Writing Feedback / Importance of hunting vs. gathering in foraging societies [2]

Hello,

Could you please read my short Anthropology essay and give me some feedback?

The prompt is:

What is the most accurate description of the relative importance of hunting versus gathering in foraging societies in terms of nutrition? In terms of place in society?

Thank you in advance.
Frederic

Anthropology considers the food acquisition techniques as factors of great importance to categorize the impressive array of human cultures. First in terms of emergence and importance, the subsistence pattern of early or contemporaneous uncivilized societies, taken in the literal sense of "non-urbanized societies," has been the foraging model, which encompasses the hunt and the food gathering. The preponderance of hunting over the gathering, or vice versa, is not as conspicuous as one could imagine. Those two food acquisition techniques have profound consequences in terms of nutrition and place in society because they influence the health, the labour specialization, and the social stratification.

In the first place, the comparison of hunt with gathering permits to evaluate the nutritional consequences for the people that belong to foraging societies. Foragers have necessitated meeting their caloric needs through stable supplies of food, both qualitatively and quantitatively, to avoid malnutrition or starvation. Hunting and gathering have provided them with about the same amount of proteins, although they have needed to collect large quantities of edible plants to equal the outcome of proteins supplied by the relatively small pieces of meat. However, gathering has been less energy consuming than hunt because foragers could more simply locate vegetables in the forest or in the open ground than animals. Besides, even the scavenged animals have required humans covered longer distances to amass available carcasses than to cover distances to accumulate vegetable food. The major implication of the concurrent use of hunting and gathering has been the development of a generalized alimentation through a mixed diet. Such a varied nutritional regime offers the foragers flexible eating habits that permit them to conserve a high income of proteins, even in times of paucity of either animal flesh or eatable vegetation, and thus escape starvation.

In the second place, the contrast between hunt and gathering allows to appraise the structural repercussions in foraging societies. In the light of the foraging techniques, including hunting and gathering, one is not amazed to discover that the foragers emphasize a division of labour based on gender. Indeed, each individual is catalogued in a gender that is associated with specific tasks. For example, generally, men hunt and women gather. Nonetheless, the labour specialization is not the rule, because individuals, independently of their gender, may perform duties that are usually assigned to other genders. Subsequently, egalitarianism is the normality for there are no formalized, and even sometimes recognized, differences between individuals in a group. Such parity conducts to generate societies without any class, and therefore, without social stratification.

Furthermore, hunting and gathering deeply influence the foraging societies far beyond their immediate need of food, because the produce of hunting and gathering diverges only in terms of methods of food acquisition. Indeed, although at first sight those techniques seem to have relatively opposite effects on foraging societies, they are at the origin of a generalized dentition and diet that enhance the health and the chances of survival of individuals in a group. In the end, that maximizes the chances of reproductive success and minimizes the risks to see many individuals selected against by selective agents during the process of natural selection. Consequently, from an evolutionary point of view, hunting and gathering in foraging societies prevent the human species from extinction through adaptive modus operandi to collect food supplies.

Finally, because of the proximity of the individuals with the nature in their daily life, and particularly when they search for their alimentation through both hunting and gathering, foragers develop a profound sense of respect tinged with admiration for the natural phenomena. Furthermore, due to their lack of scientific knowledge, they tend to acquire deferential behaviours towards nature that are often translated into a wide panel of diverse religious practices. To adhere to the diversity of their requirements, such as protective or prophetic requests, and of what appears as supernatural, foragers construct a miscellaneous ensemble of supreme beings. Thus, polytheism becomes the transcription of the worldview of foragers, formed through their conception of the social order in addition to their fear of lacking food supplies to forage, into religious matters. Consequently, the description of the relative importance of hunting versus gathering in foraging societies in terms of nutrition and place in society is not limited to practical observations but it provides anthropologists with an in depth understanding of the culture of those societies.

Writing Feedback / The human species' impact on the earth [2]

Can you proofread my essay and offer suggestions on how to improve it? Thank you very much!

the prompt is:

Consider the multitude of ways that the culture of humans is affecting our life course and future. Do you think that the future of humanity is in crisis? Why or why not?

"No more carbon dioxide!", "No more deforestation!", "No more intensive agriculture!" Those slogans are inevitable leitmotivs in the news since the end of the twentieth century. The fact that the fate of the earth is in jeopardy seems conspicuous for everyone. However, is it a new consequence of fin de siècle anxiety or a real threat? Moreover, is it our fate, as humans, or the fate of the earth that is in danger? In order to provide intelligible answers to such questions, the human species' impact on the earth must be assessed from the appearance of our species to the future.

The human culture has affected the human life course for millenniums although the news only emphasizes the present circumstances. The most significant effect of human culture over the human habitats dates as far back as about fifteen thousand years ago, during the Mesolithic, when the extinction of large body preys and climate changes incited the individuals to renounce the nomadic life and engage in sedentism. However, about ten thousand years ago, during the Neolithic, the adoption of the agriculture and the domestication of plants and animals to aggrandize the reliable supplies of food initiated habits that have deeply impinged on the earth. That lifestyle, which greatly enhanced and, above all, stabilized the rate of food acquisition, provided the humans with a better nutrition whose first corollary was the improvement of their health, and consequently the amelioration of their reproductive success.

Although the global population rate and the population density remained low until the nineteenth century, the adaptive strategy that consisted of exploiting the natural resources to fill ecological niches that had been previously unavailable, leaded the humans to seriously damage the earth. Indeed, the human activities, such as the deforestation, to increase the proportion of arable land or pasture in addition to construct dwellings, degraded the environment. The immediate consequences were an augmentation of the soil erosion and the soil nutrient depletion that instigated an impoverishment of the soil, the disruption of water supplies and climate changes. Durable consequences of intensive agriculture and forest degradation were noticed since the ancient times. Nevertheless, the industrial revolution in the nineteenth century marked both the amplification of the consumption of non-renewable energies and a manifest increase in the human global population. Those aggravating factors amplified the rate of exhaustion of natural resources in addition to deprive many species from their traditional habitat. That initiated an evident loss of biodiversity.

That brief historical review gives full weight to the present cultural heritage of the human species and to the implications of the future of humanity. Does that mean that the future of humanity is in crisis? Insofar as the human species has to outsmart the pressures that are exercised by selective agents to avoid being eradicated by the natural selection, the humans are no more or no less in danger. The adaptive strategies previously employed have jeopardised their survival because strategies and successes have nonetheless impaired their own habitats and ecosystems, in addition to increase so much their reproductive success that they have overpopulated their ecological niche. Consequently, since that phenomenon is under way for thousands years, humans have endangered their own species, and many others, to the point of creating a crisis. Although the outcome of the human errors might obliterate the human species and many others in the same time, an anti-homocentric view supports the idea that the earth has lived without humans and could do the same in the future. Indeed, many species, as unicellular forms, might not be impaired and could pursue their evolution through adaptation after the extinction of humans. The solutions to those problems are inherent in clear political decisions for reversing the current trend. Nevertheless, the keys for alleviating the overpopulation and the global warming, which are the most detrimental elements, lie in our acceptation of reproductive controls and of the diminution of our consumption of non-renewable energies. Consequently, to the extent our political leaders seem to remain resilient to environmental policies changes, "No more carbon dioxide!", "No more deforestation!", "No more intensive agriculture!" may turn out to be "No more humans", and "This is the end" could be more than lyrics of a song of the Doors.

Writing Feedback / Culture change vs. biological evolution essay [2]

Hello,

Could you please read my short Anthropology essay and give me some feedback?

The prompt is:

How is culture change analogous to biological evolution? What important limitations are there to this analogy?

Thank you in advance.
Frederic

The field of anthropology focuses on both human biology and human culture without any limit of time or space. Although those two topics seem so discrete from each other at first sight, they nonetheless concur in some points. Their similitude and differences appear most significantly during the study of changes that happen in human biology and culture. The biological change, also known as biological evolution, and the culture change share at least three common points and nevertheless diverge because of at least two reasons. On the one hand, the factors of biological evolution and culture change are sources of new variations, spread and their success depend on selection. On the other hand, they divide on their cause and process.

First, the sources of variation in biology and culture are abrupt and unrelated to past events. In biology, they materialize into genetic mutations whereas, in culture, they occur through discoveries, which are applied through practical innovations. Second, the diffusion of those variations propagates thanks to the principle of dissemination. Biological mutations proliferate through gene flow while the circulation of cultural changes varies through diffusion. Third, biological and cultural changes happen to maximize the chances of success of organisms. Biology emphasizes the natural selection that selects for individuals with advantageous traits and/or rejects the ones with prejudicial characteristics. Culture proceeds to comparable selections. Their aim is to preserve valuable cultural changes that enhance the cultural system, which acts as the host.

Conversely, culture changes differ from biological evolutions because of the reasons that initiate and develop their processes. Primarily, the most significant difference emerges from the raison d'ętre of the commencement of the changes. Biological changes originate from genetic mutations that, from a scientific point of view, randomly happen. On the contrary, culture changes are the fruits of deliberate attempts at creating something new. Furthermore, those changes progress haphazardly during their development in biology whereas they evolve in a systemic way in culture.

Such a comparison, which highlights common features and discrepancies, is nevertheless not only prejudiced but also inadequate. That evaluation insinuates that biological and cultural changes might evolve in the same way whereas the former involves unicellular organisms and the latter concerns multicellular organisms. Consequently, it is dangerous to draw a parallel between phenomena which only common point is to share the same name: evolution. Biological evolutions stem from genetic mutations and from mixes that happen during the meiosis. Cultural evolutions spring from ideas and behaviours that are learnt and transmitted though non-genetic means although biological agents may apply selective pressures on cultural evolutions. Therefore, such a kind of comparison should help us to keep in mind that micro and macroevolutions do not necessarily act in the same ways. In addition to the attempts to correlate them, the endeavours to associate biological and cultural evolutions lead to dubious confusions that are quite ominous for the ones who would utilize the scientific method to study the human species.

Writing Feedback / Earliest stone tools - short anthropology essay [2]

Hello,

Could you please read my short Anthropology essay and give me some feedback?

The prompt is:

How do we know that the earliest stone tools are human artefacts?

Thank you in advance.
Frederic

Who invented those utensils? How along ago have they been created? Why did someone feel the need to do those? Children, and even adults, have often raised such questions. Human curiosity has incited archaeologists into surveying early remains to discover the first appearance of a human tool. Research indicates that stone composes those early utensils. However, archaeologists face many difficulties when they intend to define whether an artefact is a human tool. Scientists may necessitate the use of two main methods to classify their discoveries as human tools, which derive from the physical appearance of the remains and their close surrounding.

First, the physical appearance of a stone item may indicate whether it is a human tool. When the archaeologists investigate the remains from a test pit or an archaeological site, they find stone items that might be early human tools. The shape of those stones may highlight the fact they are the result of a human intervention. Indeed, their surface may present aberrant signs such as bulbs of percussion, which are convex surfaces caused by the force used when an individual attempt to split a flake off from a stone. Those stones may also present a symmetrical aspect because this characteristic is not a natural phenomenon. Consequently, when an archaeologist comes across such an item, he may suppose that this stone is a human artefact. Nevertheless, to demonstrate the validity of the idea that this is a tool, the archaeologist needs to verify that this artefact is an actual tool and not a primitive form of art. An element of answer may be the existence of organic remains, such as on the blade of a cutting tool, or evidence of abrasion of the blade, such as on a pick.

Second, the close surrounding of stone items that are identical may indicate whether they are human tools. The archaeological sites that are littered with multiple occurrences of similar stone items may generate the idea that those elements are human artefacts. Actually, the recurrence of a strictly analogous worked aspect in a small area is highly improbable in the wild. Moreover, when archaeologists find items that ring a bell in their mind, they may compare their theory with the ones of other counterparts as regards the findings of previous archaeological sites or as regards the observation of analogous activities in contemporaneous societies, which is called an ethnographic analogy. Finally, the archaeologists may ascertain their views by certifying that an item that has been confirmed as a tool is the creation of a human individual. The corroboration may be established thanks to the fact that those items are discovered into the framework of a situation that does not allow doubting, such as a spear point on the top of a stick or a series of microliths tied to a handle.

Finally, the determination of a stone item as a human tool is no easy task. The object challenges the archaeologists by both its intrinsic nature and its potential human manufacturing. The questions that are raised by the discovery or early remains emphasize the intricacy of the work of the archaeologists, and particularly the subsequent analyses of those rests. However, the archaeologists have at their disposal several kinds of aid. Among them, they can refer to archaeological and ethnographic researches that expand the available body of knowledge that is required to compare early items with contemporary tools, and therefore reach correct conclusions. Finally, that uncertainty about the nature of early remains leads to develop a subfield that focuses on archaeologists' attempts to reproduce early tools only through our ancestors' early means of production, which is the experimental archaeology. Consequently, thanks to all of those scientists' endeavours, one could be able to relate to one's child the early history of the tools.

Writing Feedback / Concept of "human races" - short Physical Anthropology essay [2]

Hello,

Could you please read my short Physical Anthropology essay and give me some feedback?

The prompt is:

What do you think about the notion that race is a socially viable construct but not a biologically useful one? What are the implications of such a view?

Thank you in advance.
Frederic

With a view to the United States presidential election, on November 4, 2008, candidates have started fundraising and campaigning. Although they diverge on foreign and domestic policy, they converge on, at least, one point: they are proud of being American citizens. However, foreign observers, like me, could, at first sight, doubt whether all of them belong to the same race. Indeed, in what ways do the Democrat Barack Obama and the Republican Mitt Romney culturally resemble? Moreover, in what ways do they biologically differ? Such questions raise a long-lasting controversy that has marked the world history: are humans members of separate races? To address such an issue, one should contemplate whether the notion of race is based on biology or culture.

From a biological point of view, all contemporaneous humans are components of a species that is said polytypic, i.e. populations of the Homo sapiens species differ in the expressions of some traits. Those characteristics divide into two broad categories. First, geneticists emphasize genotypic and phenotypic variations between individuals. The former refers to an organism's entire genetic makeup or to the alleles that are at a particular locus. The latter refers to the detectable expressions of the genotype, namely the observable physical characteristics of an organism. The objective of this brief reminder is to highlight the fact that the genetic diversity is only partly visible. Besides, some traits of phenotypes, which are conspicuously distinguishable through the sight such as the skin colour, correlate with the idea of racial unity. Conversely, some traits of phenotypes, which are not conspicuously distinguishable through the sight such as the ABO blood types, contest the idea of racial unity. For example, the distinction in skin colour between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney is only the tip of the entire iceberg. The "submerged part" may be far more similar than one could suppose. Consequently, the notion of race and the phenotypes do not necessarily corroborate the idea that the folk taxonomy of human races is accurate.

On the other hand, since the notion of human races is not accurate, it seems that cultural factors pressurize the construction of that view. A simple account of the various criteria that characterise human races allows one to notice simple facts. That taxonomic classification lies on two main categories of standards. First, a specific human race encompasses a pack of common physical similarities, such as the skin colour, the sex, or the age. Those standards are rather equivocal because they instil the idea of irrefutable correspondences between human races and phenotypes. Second, a definite human race covers purely cultural discriminators such as the religion, the ethnicity or the nationality. Consequently, one may consider that Barack Obama and Mitt Romney belong to a same race, the "Americans", because they have the same nationality and religion. In contrast, other observers may deem that they belong to different races because they differ in skin colour, age or corpulence.

Finally, it appears that the human race classification may suffer from serious gaps or antagonism because it is a practical means for the individuals to frame their worldview. A human race refers to the general trend of a certain type of people who broadly think the same thing about their vision of the world. Consequently, it would be more appropriate to speak of schemes of classification rather than of a single classification because each individual has his or her understanding and his or her representations. Although racial classifications are not biologically accurate and are too diverse to be universal, they have evident practical applications. Such a folk taxonomy stresses the disparities in a group and the distinctions between groups. Consequently, individuals can clearly organize their worldview based on the opposition between the two main characteristics of Homo sapiens that constitute the human peculiarity, namely the association of culturally defined variables with phenotypes. Such representations may appear completely irrational, and even foolish, but they have political consequences and, as a consequence, social repercussions. Indeed, the main implication of the oversimplification of the human biological & cultural diversity leads to adopt an erroneous theory of biological determinism to address the complex relations between culture and biology of the Homo sapiens species.

Writing Feedback / On the origins of domesticated felines - Anthropology essay [2]

Hello,

Could you please read my Anthropology essay and give me some feedback?

The prompt is:

What was the first animal to be domesticated? How do we know the early remains of this animal are a domesticated version? In order to answer this question, pretend you are a member of an archaeological expedition and tell me about a typical day on your Dig. This may be as creative as you would like. No matter what approach you take, make sure you address finding the remains of what you think is an early domesticated animal and what you think it is and why.

Thank you in advance.
Frederic

Like a cat that has got the cream...On the origins of domesticated felines

The earliest records of tamed animals dated back to about eleven thousand years ago and were localized in Southeast Asia and North America. Wolves were the first animals domesticated by humans through a long process that led them to becoming dogs. Although such research is quite attractive, I prefer to engage in the research conducted by the French CNRS scientists in Cyprus, in the wake of their initial discovery of an alleged domesticated cat. Indeed, a few years ago, they revealed the presence of an individual who was buried with a cat more than nine thousand years ago. Thus, since a few days, as a voluntary worker, I have been allocated to a team of archaeologists to help them dig new test pits. On my first days, in addition to the basic rules for excavating without deteriorating, they reminded me of two essential aspects for performing accurate analyses. First, archaeologists should always cultivate their cultural relativism to counteract their ethnocentrism because it might be all too easy to misunderstand the clues that they would encounter. Second, archaeology should be thought in the same way as international and transnational corporations did: act locally and think globally. Indeed, although archaeologists could be bound for several years to a specific site or area, they should keep abreast of the latest developments in their field to expand their knowledge and thus constantly envisage new viewpoints.

On my first weeks, I was allocated a test pit to finish, which was about one square meter and fifty centimetres deep. I summoned up my pens, notebook, plastic bags, camera, brush, trowel, shovel, bucket, sieve and courage, and then, I started digging alone what was one of the first preliminary excavations in this particular area. The spot had been defined through techniques of statistical sampling to detect the presence or absence of any archaeological site. My objective, as regards that pit, was conspicuous: dig as deep as artefacts could be found. Therefore, each time I delicately threw the shovel into the soil, to avoid deteriorating any eventual present material of interest, I put the shovelful into the sieve. Next, I unhurriedly sifted the mix of mineral and vegetal materials with, sometimes, the joy of discovering artefacts. When so pleasant a moment happened, I both drew and photographed the objects before putting it meticulously in a plastic bag. Subsequently, I wrote a brief description of the object on my notebook. Then, I recorded the reference of the bag and put it into the bucket.

Days passed by slowly until, just before throwing the shovel into the soil, I noticed the profile of a tiny skull, which I was acquainted with, that showed on the surface. It presumed, in all likelihood, it was the cranium of a baby feline. Therefore, I exchange my shovel for a trowel and a brush before continuing further my investigation. I carefully removed the earth around the skull to avoid damaging it with the metallic blade. Much to my surprise, the rest of the skeleton was present as well. Consequently, I pursued the excavation until the whole skeleton could be visible. More surprisingly was the occurrence of remains of three other tiny felines and a kind of little saucer. With a brush, I completely freed those archaeological clues without abrading the materials with my tools. Finally, I photographed the scene before drawing the spot. The four little felines were curled up in a ball and the plate was close to them. A senior archaeologist, whose specialization was the animal osteology, confirmed the creatures were baby felines.

The subsequent days, I was allowed to quit the pit to assist senior archaeologists during their attempts for dating the remains I had found. The opening stage was to select dating methods as acute as possible to establish the period during which the animals lived. The first method was based on a relative dating technique that consisted of comparing the depths, at which other previous artefacts and bones were discovered, with the depth of my findings. The initial conclusion estimated the felines were roughly about nine thousand years old. Then, the second method was based on an absolute dating technique that meant the components were not compared to something else but were dated on their own. Samplings of bones were dated thanks to a radiometric method known as carbon dating, or more scientifically: accelerator mass spectrometry. The aim was to count the actual number of carbon 14 atoms still present in the bones. The absolute and relative dating techniques corroborated an estimated period of nine thousand five hundred years before present.

After that, biological evidence needed to be unveiled to pursue the analysis. Zoologists whose specialisation was to study early animals, also known as palaeontologists, scrutinized the skeletons to concentrate the research. They searched through files and scientific journals to be able to substantiate their opinions that those felines were cats. Besides, they performed DNA tests to ascertain their conclusions. Palaeontologists determined that those kittens belonged to an ancient form of Near Eastern wildcat. They also specified that that species was the ancestor of our pet, Felis silvestris, whose lineage had been verified through the transmission of the mitochondrial DNA, which had been passed on from mothers to offspring and which had not been affected by the reshuffling of chromosomes during the meiosis. The idea began to germinate in their mind that those cats could have been domesticated and not wild. However, they faced a significant obstacle: domestic and wild cats did not seriously differ in their sizes but only in their furs. Genetics revealed the kitten were linked to actual cats in many ways. The palaeontologists advised me to address cultural anthropologists to obtain more details about the relations between humans and cats. The latter could help me elucidate that puzzle.

Indeed, cultural anthropologists proved highly valuable to provide precious information about the ties between domestic cats and humans as far back as the Neolithic. Cultural evidence divided into two types in that case: the geographical and relational proximity between the spot of my findings and the prior archaeological excavations in this area. First, the kittens were situated relatively close to the entrance of a cave, which used to be a shelter for the early Homo sapiens, namely a few dozens of meters. Therefore, a wild cat should have not chosen such a place because it was too close to potential predators or disturbances such as humans. On the other hand, domestic cats, adapted to the human presence, would have favoured such a place because it could have permitted them to care their offspring and acquire food supplies such as mice that lived near grain reserves. Second, the unearthing of artefacts, such as the plate, near the skeletons induced the anthropologists to deem the cats were attended to by humans who could have established relations of confidence with the animals, if not a complete domestication, through actions as feeding wild cats with milk that came from previously tamed species such as the bovines. Those conclusions were the result of ethnographic analogies with current humans and pets' behaviours. Previous comparisons of humans and their ecosystems around the globe aided the anthropologists to illuminate that mystery.

Cultural anthropologists searched for other clues into the cultural background of those early dwellers of this region, as well. Although the pictorial representations of animals widely proliferated through the ages, they remained meagre in those days. However, although the quantity was not outstanding, they were available in the form of cave paintings, sculptures, engraved antlers, or pieces of wood. Nevertheless, extreme caution was required as regards the conclusions that could have been reached. Indeed, the fact that animals could have been represented did not suggest relations of a kind friendship towards those beasts. Those representations could have been the depictions of game or of feared animals such as vermin. Consequently, portrayals of animals did not mandatory demonstrate any relations of companionship between humans and animals but only that those animals were of tremendous importance in the lives of the Homo sapiens in the Neolithic.

The conclusions of those weeks have been multifarious but perfectly illustrated the diversity of the archaeological field. First, numerous fields, whose focuses range from biology to culture, have not only been crucial but also compulsory to validate or refute the hypotheses which have been drawn from field observations. Second, the conception of theories has been feasible thanks to specialised and generalised knowledge of committed scientists who have pushed further the barriers of the understanding of anthropology. Third, those cross-boundary connections have allowed the anthropologists to expand the knowledge of the aspect of human history that have been linked to the ecosystem. Finally, it has appeared that the comprehension of contemporaneous situations and actions has had roots in the distant past, far beyond the limits of space or time scales, which we have been accustomed. Lessons from the past have unveiled that, when one has been feeding its cat with cream or stroking it, the source of peoples' attachment to their pets could be rooted not only into psychological or sociological but also into behaviour from the Neolithic. However, such reflections open the door of socio-biology, also known as evolutionary psychology.

Writing Feedback / Vis-ŕ-vis the early anatomically modern Homo sapiens [2]

Hello,

Could you please read my Physical Anthropology essay and give me some feedback?

The prompt is:

Pretend you are an early anatomically modern Homo sapiens (a.k.a. a Cro-Magnon). Please tell me about yourself. You might want to tell me about a typical day in your life. This may be as creative as you would like. No matter what approach you take, make sure you address the following questions however.

- Where do you live?
- What do you eat?
- What time period do you live in?
- What do you look like?
- Do you have any special skills?
- Do you live with others of your kind?
- Do you use and make tools? If so, what kind(s) and what are they used for?
- How do you differ from "people" in the future such as those folks who will be around in 2007?

Thank you in advance.
Frederic

Vis-ŕ-vis the early anatomically modern Homo sapiens: lessons learned from the past

Every summer, scores of vacationers stop at Les Eyzies, a village in Dordogne in southwestern France, with the intent to discover the story of our early anatomically modern Homo sapiens ancestors. To be accurate, the individuals who lived in this area were identified as Cro-Magnons. Although archaeologists unearthed the remains of only eight individuals in 1868, the subsequent analyses of the skeletons and their immediate surroundings in addition to the previous knowledge of early Homo sapiens permitted the anthropologists to partially reconstitute their typical daily life. The skeletons indicated the epoch during which they lived along with their anatomical peculiarities and alimentary habits. The habitat provided insights into their practical and intellectual skills. Now, imagine you are one of the vacationers who spend his or her holidays in France. Imagine you and I are propelled in the past and I metamorphose into an early anatomically modern Homo sapiens, such as a Cro-Magnon individual. I invite you to compare the physical and intellectual facets of our two personalities.

Welcome in the Upper Palaeolithic, which started forty thousand years ago and finished ten thousand years ago. In those days, Homo sapiens materialized into different forms, from Cro-Magnons to Neanderthals. Scientists have deemed I lived about from thirty five thousand years ago to twenty-two years ago. That period has encompassed the Aurignacian, the Gravettian, the Solutrean, and the Magdalenian. Each one of those epochs symbolizes a stage in the evolution of Homo sapiens and its aptitudes. I lived with my band, which was composed of eight individuals, supposedly my family. When we died, we were in our household: a rock shelter. We lived in an area which experienced many climatic changes during the Pleistocene (from one billion eight hundred thousand years ago to eleven thousand fifty hundred and fifty years ago) but which was approximately the same as today, namely an area of sharp hills covered with forests or meadows and which offered many caves.

My silhouette was the same as yours. My means of locomotion was the obligate bipedalism and I walked fully erected. Besides, the proportions of my skeleton were identical to yours. Did I look like a kind of bestial person? Certainly not! For the first time in the Homo evolution, my skull was round, like yours. Furthermore, in opposition to my predecessors, my forehead was vertical and I had relatively small browridges. I had clearly distinctive canine fossa, a definite chin and pyramidal mastoid processes. It might surprise you, but my face was similar to yours. Contrary to the popular belief, I never walked in a simian way and I never bore a resemblance to a mix between you and a monkey! My anatomy was so next to yours that, if I opened my mouth, you could have seen I had a generalized dentition as yours. The ghost of a smile appears on your face: you are asking yourself if I intend to prove I am as clever as you are. The answer is certainly "yes"! My cranial capacity indicated that my brain had a volume ranging from about one thousand two hundred to one thousand four hundred centimetre cubes. Physiologically speaking, it seemed I had the same intellectual capacity as yours. However, although I was equipped to speak, scientists have not been able to discover if I had a complex language because the sound could not be recorded in those days and I have not learnt to write yet. Finally, geneticists have tracked my genetic legacy to you thanks to mtDNA through matrilineages. Indeed, we bequeathed our mitochondrial DNA to our offspring, and consequently, to you, because the mtDNA was not altered by the recombination during the reshuffling of chromosomes when the meiosis happened.

Although our physical and intellectual abilities were identical, my eating pattern was somewhat different. I was a forager, also known as hunter-gatherer. I consumed both flora and fauna species. However, those species were wild because I did not master the art of cultivation and domestication yet. Some of my descendants, during the end of the Upper Palaeolithic, learnt to tame some plants and animals such as the wolves. Nevertheless, as far as I was concerned, my dietary habits included grains and vegetables that were available in this area. Moreover, I was proficient in hunting big games such as aurochs, my contemporaneous bovines. Such a diet has showed I was adept at producing tools for acquiring or processing the products of my gatherings and hunts into edible alimentation. That is why I had a generalized dentition with smaller molars and incisors than my ancestors. Indeed, it was easier for me to masticate initially tough grains that I had crushed thanks to my up-to-date stone "kitchen utensils." In addition, I was able to cut the carcasses resulting from my hunts up with acute stone tools into manageably eating pieces. Consequently, it seems that the twenty first millennium eating patterns have been to a great extent the direct result of my alimentation. Another consequence of those enduring eating patterns is the fact that your anatomy has not significantly evolved since the Upper Palaeolithic period.

My stone tool production was characterised by the fact that my blades were extracted from prepared cores rather than using rough flakes as my ancestors did. Your scientists have revealed that that aptitude pertained to an Upper Palaeolithic stone tool industry, which name is Aurignacian, and that was initiated about forty thousand years ago. That manufacture is typical of my kind. I was able to fabricate cutting tools as some kinds of knife. With those cutting tools, I was capable to carve my meat. In addition, I was proficient in transforming branches into sticks. Besides, I was able to make stone points or heads that I could install on my sticks to create spears and harpoons. With those tools, I was capable of hunting big game in the distance contrary to the Neanderthals who needed to jump onto their preys to kill them. Since I was particularly clever, I even invented a spear-thrower to propel my spears towards secluded animals. Some of your anthropologists might venture to say I made bows and arrows. Now, you can understand how I have obtained my food supplies and my subsequent generalized dentition. My descendants and I have established the bases for your cultural expansion.

Although my anatomy and subsistence pattern were extraordinary well developed, the most surprising facets of my life lied elsewhere. First, I was clever at converting the hides of my preys into somewhat tailored clothes for I was capable to shape the pelts with my cutting tools and for it has seemed I could make needles. Besides, my intelligence and my dexterity led me to recuperate deer antlers and mammoth ivory tusks to engrave them with adroit adornments. As regards body ornamentations, I produced diverse jewels such as beads for necklaces as well. However, my most magnificent decorations were "Venus figure," which were portrayed with an amazing realism, and figurines that apparently represented fertility supernatural beings, for their feminine traits were exaggeratedly pronounced. Furthermore, I had mastered the knack for producing pigments from natural materials. Thus, I used those colours to paint decorations on the walls of my cave. I mainly depicted the animals I encountered during my hunts with simplicity but outstanding resemblance, such as bears, aurochs, and rhinoceroses. Finally, although it was not my case in Les Eyzies, we buried our death with elaborate items in their graves. Your third millennium cultures have, to a large extent, benefited from our cultural development.

Finally, you have certainly noticed that your prejudice about my congeners and me, the early anatomically modern Homo sapiens like Cro-Magnon, has evaporated. Thanks to our acquaintance, you have observed that I was physically identical to you. In no way have I been a kind of brutish primate far from looking like you. Since our differences have not lied in biological points, they have been in our cultures. The epoch in which I lived in, the Upper Palaeolithic, has been a period of astonishing innovations and realizations in both technology and arts. I have been engaged in a stage of creation of innovative and multifarious tools that have been the most apparent components of our cultural evolution. Early anatomically modern Homo sapiens have elaborated multifaceted techniques and methods that have been the proof of great-intellectualised activities. Moreover, arts and traditions have demonstrated our cerebral aptitude for reflection. They have also highlighted our refinement of our symbolic representations. The corner stone of the comprehension of our epoch have resided in your ability to appreciate the value of our cultural development. The amazing development of our species, in a relatively short period of time proportionate to our predecessors, and its prevention from extinction until your twenty first millennium have revealed the barely credible aptitude of the Homo sapiens individuals to adapt in its ecosystems to protract its survival.

Writing Feedback / To rack their brains to find our answers; Anthropology essay [2]

Hello,

Could you please read my Anthropology essay and give me some feedback?

The prompt is:
Discuss the issue of using nonhuman primates in medical experimentation. Are you for or against this practice? What ethical concerns are raised by this practice? What can you suggest doing in place of this practice?

Thank you in advance.
Frederic

To rack their brains to find our answers

At the turn of the third millennium, medicine keeps improving curative and preventive treatments. However, one could raise a quite significant issue about the means utilized to test such treatments. What can prove those tests are less of a hindrance than a help for us? Although searchers endeavor to conduct laboratory experiments to perfect the treatments, they must test them in practice before proposing them for human use. That is why tests on animals, and particularly nonhuman primates, are carried out. Nevertheless, that procedure raises numerous concerns. Indeed, the necessity of medical experimentations on nonhuman primates can be assessed as either biological or cultural viewpoints. On the one hand, from a purely biological point of view, medical experimentations on nonhuman primates may not be always necessarily appropriate. On the other hand, from a cultural viewpoint, medical experimentations on nonhuman primates depend on philosophical and emotional issues.

First of all, medical experimentations on nonhuman primates are precious from a biological perspective. Indeed, some nonhuman primates share with humans more than ninety percent of common genes. Such an amount of genetics resemblance is quite useful to assume that a medical experimentation conducted on some species of nonhuman primates, such as chimpanzees, may prove useful for future human applications. However, researchers must assume that the genes of nonhuman primates may result in a reaction that could be similar in the genes of a human. Nevertheless, since statistically speaking, that genetic similitude is so noticeable that the chances of dissimilarities in the responses to an experiment might not be very singular. For example, somatic and sex cells behave in the same way as regards the procedures of replication and division.

Moreover, the physical aspects of nonhuman primates and humans are not very different. Those species share much common morphological evidence. For instance, those species are made up of a trunk, four limbs (two arms and two legs), and a head that all have the quite similar uses and functions. In addition, physical anthropologists have emphasized their aptitude to grasp, known as prehensibility, their stereoscopic vision, or their omnivorous diet thanks to a generalized dentition. Consequently, nonhuman and human primates show sufficient similitude in order that researchers consider conducting medical experimentations on nonhuman primates with the assurance that the findings could be useful. For example, the substitution of a heart by a pacemaker may happen in the same way.

In opposition, a sensible issue arises about medical experimentations on nonhuman primates. Although those experiments may prove advantageous, the exploitation of nonhuman primates is not always the most appropriate form of experimentation in a biological approach. For instance, as regards cells experiments, mice are usually employed because the cost, waste of time and manpower are alleviated in comparison with nonhuman primate equivalent requirements. The gains emerge from the differences in reproductive strategies of those species. Indeed, mice, as many rodents, have developed a reproductive strategy, known as r-selected, which enhances the production of large numbers of offspring with reduced parental care. On the other hand, nonhuman primates have developed a reproductive strategy, known as K-selected, which emphasizes the production of only few offspring with a tremendous investment in terms of parental care. So, in the same span, researchers can subject more organisms to tests. Moreover, since mice are smaller than primates, the costs linked to the use of cages are beneficial. Therefore, the need for high performance rates in medical experimentations lays emphasis on species with high cost-cutting and time-saving advantages.

Those points prove useful that types of experimentations. Nonetheless, my personal experience with scientific and technical tests has tended to reason me into remaining in alert. Indeed, although statistics may provide a sense of confidence in the improbability that an event may occur, I have always encountered those so-called quasi-implausible exceptions during the passage into practical applications.

Conversely, medical experimentations on nonhuman primates raise an intense debate from a philosophical viewpoint. First, morality may hinder anyone from conduct medical experimentations on nonhuman primates on the ground that those species are too closely related to humans. In that case, one considers that nonhuman primates have a culture. That implies that one ignores that nonhuman primate proto-cultures do not amalgamates the four essential characteristics of human culture. First, the activities must be learned. Besides, that learning must be active namely transmitted extragenetically and through symbols. That is to say that the communication must not happen thanks to gene transmission and must use objects or words which represent something else. That means, and it is the third feature, that an organism is able to develop abstractions such as generalizations, assumptions or ideas. Finally, an organism must produce objects with the intention to create something new with raw materials. However, nonhuman primate proto-cultures lack at least one of those features.

Second, ethics may allow one to conduct medical experimentations on nonhuman primates on the ground that those species are only vaguely related to humans. For those individuals, because of a religion or a rational view, fauna is divided into two categories of organisms: humans and the others. And, in the in case in point, nonhuman primates belong to the category of the nonhumans. Furthermore, to conduct medical experimentations on that type of organisms, one must presuppose that humans have the indefectible right to impair or kill the nonhuman organisms. But that is a question to be settled with one's own conscience. It may appear cruel to think such a thing. Nevertheless one who would contemplate judging such a stance will undeniably demonstrate ethnocentrism and therefore will lack the necessary cultural relativism required by the scientific method, insofar as one utilizes anthropology and not a religious belief to reflect over that question.

Finally, medical experimentations on nonhuman primates raise controversies about the possibility to employ nonhuman primates as guinea pigs. From an anthropologist viewpoint, I would tend to think that, insofar as nonhuman primates meet the biological requirements for a medical experimentation, those species should be used for securing humans' health. Indeed, I would tend to accept the sacrifice of few nonhuman primates rather than to accept the suffering or death of a human individual. My stance is available insofar as those nonhuman primates originate from reproductions centers and are not taken from their natural habitat.

Apart from biology and philosophy, stands the emotional viewpoint. Indeed, emotions may prevent researchers from conducting medical experimentations on nonhuman primates. For instance, medical research is undertaken on nonhuman primates to discover how the brain of primates functions. That kind of experimentations may require performing trepanations to operate on parts of the brain. Those experiments involve the acceptance to seriously damage experimental subjects. Therefore, researchers who establish relations based on emotions with nonhuman primates may find it difficult to simply see them as test subjects. As far as I am concerned, I have two cats and I cannot envisage harming them even if it could save me.

Medical experimentations on nonhuman primates, whatever they may be, raise several contentious questions ranging from biology to philosophy or emotion. To avoid utilizing nonhuman primates in those experiments, in the present state of our scientific and technical knowledge, alternative experimental subjects may be employed to perform medical experimentations. One solution may be to utilize, as far as practicable, other animals or even plants. One other solution may be to offer people who are sentenced to death or for whom doctors have given up hope the possibility to donate their body to science to serve as living experimental subjects. As regard the latter, however, strong oppositions would arouse. But what about the western pharmaceutical firms which have ever tested their products in Africa or Asia without warning those populations? Thus in 1532, even then, the French writer and physician Rabelais wrote in Pantagruel "Science without conscience is but the ruin of the soul". Consequently, researchers, philosophers, environmental activists, animal defenders, and simple citizen have all their say in this matter and could congregate to exchange their views through symposiums. This seems to be a quite idyllic vision of the world, but the reality of the field stresses the fact that the debate over medical experimentations on living organisms is an enduring one because it is no easy task to find out viable solutions.

Writing Feedback / Search to procreate overweighs the pressure over food sources; Physical Anthropology essay [2]

Hello,

Could you please read my Physical Anthropology essay and give me some feedback?

The prompt is:

If you learned something about evolution that you had never thought about before and it surprised you or if you are still thinking about this idea, tell me what this is and tell me why it is profound to you

Thank you in advance.
Frederic

Since the onset of the physical anthropology course, I have been reflecting over a quite singular question: since the primary primates' objective is to survive, why do they search to procreate, what overweighs the pressure over food sources, and thus reduces their chances of survival? As a consequence, I have initiated a long rumination about that issue. First, Darwin's evolutionary theory emphasizes that advantageous characteristics accumulate in a population because natural selection sects for those traits. Consequently, the reproductive process is likely to provide primates with indubitable advantages since it is still in use. However, what are those benefits? In what ways are offspring helpful for their parents? Finding viable explanations proves to be no easy task, but it seems that the different examples can be classified into four categories. The reproductive process may be a favorable trait because it enhances the social status, offspring helps tighten social bonds and primates seem to experience sexual pleasure.

The reproductive process is beneficial because it allows primates to affirm their dominant status in a group. First, a male primate who mounts a female is terminating a process of ascendancy in the dominance hierarchy of his group. Indeed, to reach this stage he has had to demonstrate his physical power over other males. He has had to subdue them as soon as the female had proved to be fertile, for example through the estrous swelling of genital tissues in female chimpanzees. Moreover, during the preliminary period of mating, he has had to be previously strong enough to outsmart or defeat other individuals. To succeed in it, he had had to be fitter and more powerful than his congeners while intimidating or fighting them to obtain food and water resources. That was also partly due to beneficial traits he had inherited from his parents trough their genes. In addition, since he is still alive at the moment of mating, it is because he has had been successful in prevailing over aggressive interactions with other individuals on a daily basis, over intruders from other groups or over predators. The female, in addition to meet the same requirements to survive, has had to display as many intense signs as possible indicating she is in estrus, such as visual or olfactory stimuli. She has had to be fit enough to be fertile and to exhibit her sexual receptiveness, for example female chimpanzees must have her genital area clearly swollen and brightly colored.

Consequently, such two individuals show other members of their group they belong to the dominant class. That is an advantage because they can benefit from a kind of deference from lower-level individuals who let them in peace for some time and therefore facilitate the copulation. However, there is a drawback to this process. Indeed, in case of emergence of a lethal sexually transmitted disease in one of the upper-level individuals, they communicate that infection within the dominant class. Therefore, the group reduces and is only made up of lower-level individuals who impair the future of the group because they cannot be powerful enough to survive, and if they can, they do not transmit advantageous traits to their offspring. As a consequence, although the reproductive process is valuable because it permits an individual to affirm his dominant status in his group, it may seriously threaten his life, the survival of his class and even the continuation of his species.

The reproductive success is valuable because it reinforces the social bonds in a group. The social behavior of primates is quite complex and incompletely understood, even now. However, the reproductive success has indubitably an influential and profitable impact on the social interactions between primates. For example, the fact of succeeding in mating with several partners may arouse a kind of affective emotions in the partners and thus create a feeling of attachment within a group. That phenomenon stresses what seem to be the crossed effects of endogamy associated with polygamy or polyandry. Moreover, the reproductive success increases and ameliorates the social ties because it permits the individuals to valorize affiliative behaviors, such as the reconciliation or the consolation, and alleviates aggressive interactions thanks to the offspring. Indeed, if a male mates with a female and the latter mate with another male, she will be empowered by the two males as a kind negotiator to relieve tensions in case of conflict. Moreover, most primates favor the reproductive known as K-selected. In the particular case of the bonobos, a female who is in charge of her own baby can also care babies from other females. Consequently, if problems arise between those females, they will be less inclined to fight because they previously experienced amicable relations.

Accordingly, the reproductive success proves its value in promoting group cohesion, weaving lasting relations between fit reproducers and maintaining order. Thus the copulation is eased. However, the more social interactions the more conflicts may break out. The most striking example is epitomized by infanticide. Indeed, scientists explain that infanticidal males do not eradicate their own offspring and that, subsequently, he procreates a new baby with the female. Therefore, that behavior inevitably arouses jealousy between males and abrades the social fabric within a group. That is all the more acute in species that support K-selected reproductive strategies.

The reproductive success is advantageous because it offers primates the possibility to experience sexual pleasure. Sexual intercourse provides the primates with satisfaction. For instance, bonobos rub their genitals together with partners, males or females, when they feel affection for them. When they experience sexual pleasure, their bodies produce endorphins. Those biochemical compounds supply a sense of well-being and are so powerful that they act as natural pain-killers. Therefore, individuals who come across that feeling are more able to quietly respond to the other individuals in their group and stimulate benevolent behaviors, for instance to barter for food, and boost their chances of gaining much food to eat during the exchange. As they are more serene, they can proceed to engage in courtships. They greatly augment their probability to mate since agitated individuals frighten their partners. Finally, tranquil individuals are more focused when they fight against intruders or predators that allow them to mastermind counterattacks or escape dangers.

Therefore, those who feel sexual pleasure significantly expand their life-span. The primate species known as bonobo epitomize that phenomenon. However, sexual pleasure causes inconvenience to the individuals who experience it. Indeed, neglected individuals may suffer from resentment and behave aggressively with their partners. Rejected suitors may sense jealousy towards more lucky individuals. Swindled individuals during an exchange of food supplies may be offended and show antipathy towards the crook. All those behaviors exemplify the fact that sexual pleasure is not necessarily the best way to a better world. That strategy has reached high level of intense hatred within some groups. That has even been partly one of the reasons that have motivated a primate species to create intricate systems to settle those disputes. That species is known as Homo Sapiens and the individuals settle their differences in courtroom thanks to attorneys.

Notwithstanding the advantageous characteristics that the reproductive process may provide, the disadvantages still remain substantial. Furthermore, those conclusions do not completely satisfy my curiosity and I keep bombarding my mind with other questions. Indeed, to the best of my knowledge, scientists have discovered how cells divide and replicate but not why they behave in this way. Cells do not have any interest in doing that. They do not enhance any social status, weave any social bonds, or experience any pleasure. Consequently, I wonder if our lack of knowledge about cells prevents us from seeing a kind of social fabric between cells or if there is a kind of life continuum that could be inscribed in undiscovered infinitesimal parts of cells. As I am Cartesian and certainly an all too often acerbic French, I cannot refrain myself from thinking than answers must come from science and not from religious or philosophical considerations.Anthropology essay

Writing Feedback / Reflective essay: From highway to hell to shot to thrill [3]

Hello,

could you please read my essay and give me some feedback?

Reflective essay: From highway to hell to shot to thrill

Does one really establish foundations for their forthcoming online learning at APUS? Most freshmen who attend APUS may be anxious to start as soon as possible the study of courses of their dreams. However, freshmen have either dropped out of a brick and mortar college or they have never studied at university hitherto. Consequently, they have already encountered difficulties in studying or they are likely to run into them. Thus, to what extent could those individuals demonstrate an innate aptitude at succeeding in APUS? Since APUS is an online university, the teaching staff does not want to take so serious a risk. Therefore, APUS dispenses a kind of opening course known as "RQ295 Foundations of Online Learning". This course is meant for providing APUS freshmen with academic assets, which will be beneficial for their immediate academic journey and their future career. What are the diverse notions studied in this course? What are the benefits of such a course? The course is structured on two main themes. The first goal is to familiarize the students with electronic classrooms and consistent study habits. Next, the second objective is to allow students to identify their advantages and drawbacks in order to narrow their gaps and expand their assets in the academic, professional and personal fields.

On the one hand, the objective of the "RQ295 Foundations of Online Learning" course is to provide students with the familiarization of efficient tools and techniques to succeed in their academic life. Actually, every freshman must be apt to navigate through the APUS website, particularly the electronic classrooms, and the online library. I have learnt how to choose my forthcoming courses, enroll in those courses, and keep an eye on my academic plan. For instance, I have gained that experience through an exam, which required explaining what stages I had followed to enroll in a course. Thus, this course has been beneficial because I am able to pursue my academic advancement towards a Bachelor Degree.

Moreover, I have broadened my experience of electronic classroom by working efficiently together with the instructor and my virtual classmates. In addition, I have learnt how to achieve assignments and exams. This course has met my expectations because I has learnt how to utilize the tools of the virtual classroom (e.g. how to submit an assignment to the instructor) and how to communicate with each other (e.g. how to post a reflection on the classroom forum or directly respond to the instructor thanks to electronic mails). This course has been helpful since I will exercise those experiences to work with ease in more and more information technology driven companies.

I have been taught how to organize my thoughts to fulfill an assignment. For example, I have had to read documents, and then ruminate over the subsequent notions to respond to at least one comrade. Sometimes, I have had to carry out research in the online library to write essays to let the instructor assess my critical-thinking and writing skills. Those works have necessitated me to master the management of deadlines, the organization of my thoughts, and the employment of redaction tools (e.g. a mature vocabulary, grammar, punctuation). As a result, I have discovered consistent scholarly activities or enhanced my familiarity with a worthwhile intellectual routine. That expertise will prove to be valuable to my career because I will be appreciated for the merit of my structured thoughts, my time management, and my communication skills.

On the other hand, the objective of the "RQ295 Foundations of Online Learning" course is to allow students to assess their potential. First, I have learnt how to recognize my fortes and limitations in the field of academic written exchange of ideas. For instance, thanks to essays I have demonstrated my ability to support my claims and express my creative writing style. Thus, the instructor has appraised my value, she has corrected me, and finally she has led me on the pathway towards the academic excellence. Accordingly, this course has been profitable to me because I will be capable to detect my flaws in my professional written exchanges, and correct them. That part of the course has proved to be highly significant to me. Actually, as a non-native English speaker, and since I am willing to work in an English speaking environment, I need to know the most efficient and accurate techniques to improve my command of the English language.

Then, the instructor has facilitated my endeavors for discovering my motives. Indeed, thanks to readings and classmates' interactions, I have learnt how to discern my deepest motivations that had pulled me on the university studies resumption road. In the future, thanks to this worthwhile course, I will be aware of my inner incentives that could be of help when I will have to make decisions about my professional or academic choices.

Furthermore, I have found out my learning style through drills. Thus, I have broadened my awareness of the different factors that hamper or ease my learning activities. For instance, I have been taught how light, food, odors, environment influence my physical capability and therefore my intellectual performances. Thus, I will increase my capacity to unveil what sometimes appears for inexperienced people as mysterious impediments or aids in my future academic, professional, or personal life, as a result of this course. That component of the course has proved to be extremely important to me. Indeed, I know how to enhance the atmosphere and ameliorate my position to improve my learning nowadays.

Primarily, the "RQ295 Foundations of Online Learning" course appears to be a necessary and efficient help to aid students in organizing their immediate and long-term aims for academic and career fields. The course allows students to evaluate their writing and research proficiency, expand their study patterns, and extend their expertise at interacting in the virtual classroom. Those abilities are not only indispensable for academic success but also profitable for career building and boosting. This course demonstrates the advantage to provide every student with the same basic tools and techniques for capitalizing on university success to gain a Degree and achieve further career evolutions. Consequently, this course is a kind of instrument for increasing intellectual achievements and an encouragement for pursuing the college journey. If one may deem that an individual without a Degree in today's world is likely to drive his career on the highway to hell, one can be assured that beginning at APUS with the "RQ295 Foundations of Online Learning" course will give him the chance to experience an actual and unforgettable shot to thrill. Therefore, if you are ready for a good time, take this course and you will notice that hell's bells sound will grow more and more distant and you will approach success.

Writing Feedback / "To build a fire" - Analysis of the man's character [2]

Hello,

could you please read my essay and give me some feedback?

the prompt is:

Students will write an original essay analyzing the man in "To Build a Fire" (Jack London) Students will convey their sense of the man's character and what details in the story led them to this view. Students will use quotes from the text to support their thesis.

thank you in advance.
Frederic

To build a fire: To live and let die

The illustrious author Jack London journeyed to Alaska in 1897. Eleven years later, he wrote one of his most appreciated works, "To build a fire", based on his rich experiences in this sub-polar area. Although, at first sight, "To build a fire" appears to be a simple adventure story, the hero's end is rather puzzling. Actually, the finale paragraph takes aback: why is the main character suddenly desirous to die whereas he has strived to survive along the whole story? The man's intentions are not obvious at first glance. Nevertheless, traces can help the reader to discover the man's desire. The purpose of the subsequent analysis is to demonstrate that the man's character is a person with suicidal tendencies and therefore his plight is not the fruit of a thoughtless behavior.

Right after the first two paragraphs, which introduce the reader with a description of the situation, Jack London asserts that the man "was quick and alert in the things of life, but only in the things, and not in the significances". This sentence's aim is to present the man's character as a person who does not realize the consequences of his actions.

However, the fourth paragraph proves he is far from being irresponsible. Indeed, the man's character conducts an experiment. He spits several times to verify that spittle "had crackled in the air". As a result, that test convinces the man that "undoubtedly it was colder than fifty below". Since he carries out experimentation and he is able to reach a conclusion, he confirms he can have a mature reflection and therefore he is responsible.

The next paragraph provides clues of his will to minimize his chances to achieve his travel. Actually, the man "was glad" to undertake a journey "without a sled, traveling light" whereas no evidence is given in the story that explains why this is an asset for him. The reader only knows that "a foot of snow had fallen since the last sled had passed over". The man never affirms that this amount of snow or a weighty load could slow down or hamper him. On the other hand, such an amount of snow exhausts a trekker who is not equipped with snowshoes and London never mentions such items in the text. Consequently, since the beginning of the story demonstrates he is fully responsible. He most likely wants to enter the forest with the deliberate intention to expose himself to serious danger.

Moreover, the reader is informed in the fifth paragraph that the man "carried nothing but the lunch" and the fourth paragraph stresses his food is only made of some "biscuits". In addition, in the eighth paragraph, the man is not particularly hungry but "he decided to celebrate" an event "by eating his lunch" although it could have been more valuable to him to restrain from eating at this time and keep his biscuits for a later meal. Therefore, once more he jeopardizes his survival because he deprives himself from keeping a reserve and deliberately runs the risk of lacking alimentary supplies in the future.

From the onset of the story, he is fully aware he is on the verge of commencing a progression in the forest although the temperature is extremely cold and he is bound to be short of supplies. At this very moment of his journey, not only did he ignore the advice of the old-timer from Sulphur Creek, who warned him that "no man must travel alone in the Klondike after fifty below", but he also makes every efforts to reduce his chances of success. He could have decided not to engage in this journey and he can still make the choice to turn back. No forms of determinism govern the man because he can take his own choices and he can anticipate the consequences of his actions. Furthermore, he is presumably preparing his future predicament and his subsequent death. A strange parallel could be drawn between the not so evident London's suicide and the man's fate. One could argue that the man's character embodies Jack London and thus, the author could express a secret desire to lay down arms after enduring fights during his life. Could the short story "To build a fire" be a kind of swan song from a man who desires to "live and let die" his existence?

Writing Feedback / Evaluation essay - Criteria for selecting cocoa varieties [4]

Hello,

could you please read my essay and give me some feedback?

the prompt is:
You will complete and submit an evaluation essay. Be sure that the evaluation criteria are clearly stated in your thesis.

thank you in advance.
Frederic

Criteria for selecting cocoa varieties: Food for thought

1735 is a watershed in the chocolate history. That year, the Swedish natural scientist Linné scientifically classified the Cocoa tree with the botanical Latin name "Theobroma cacao L.", namely "the food of gods" as the Swiss chocolate manufacturers association "Chocosuisse" observes. In those days, cocoa displayed an exceptional quality to deserve such an appellation. Indeed, chocolate presented an unquestionable interest through its intrinsic taste but also its appeals to imagination for exotic countries. However, nowadays, cocoa varieties may be evaluated on gustative, aesthetical, therapeutic, and economic perspectives. Since cocoa is widely utilized in the art of cooking, every potential consumer has prerequisite demands as regards its aroma. Moreover, the cosmetics industry increasingly incorporates cocoa in its products. In addition, medical experiments prove that cocoa has a valuable incidence on health. Finally, economic consequences of the cocoa international consumption influence economy all around the world.

The basic gustatory elements of appreciation for evaluating processed cocoa, named chocolate are the look, the odor, the taste and the aftertaste. Those criteria are significant because they activate a phenomenon of recognition from our previous experiences with chocolate. Barring allergic people, the great majority of Westerners has already enjoyed pleasurable instants with chocolate. Therefore, those decisive factors are powerful emotional mechanisms that provoke a desire for tasting chocolate. The most explicit evidence is a child who smells a chocolate aroma or catches a glimpse of a chocolate bar. His insistence with his mother to obtain the fruit of his desire is undeniable.

The beauty enhancement industry benefits from the cocoa applications in the human aesthetic improvement. The utilizations may be directly applied to skin care or to general attractiveness articles. For instance, several aesthetic institutes offer skin rejuvenation services such as facial masks or body creams . Furthermore, perfumers incorporate a flavor of chocolate so that a fragrance exhales an intense character. Consequently, cocoa varieties are selected depending on their biological actions on skin or the concentration of their aromas.

Medical research provides evidence that cocoa is a rich source of elements for health benefit. Indeed, clinical dietitians emphasize research findings on chocolate. Cocoa supplies essential minerals such as magnesium and phosphorus. They maintain and ameliorate brain cell performances. Moreover, cocoa furnishes powerful chemicals, such as antioxidants called phenols, which prevent the bad cholesterol from provoking plaque increase in the arteries and thus abate the risk of heart attacks. Consequently, the alleviating or invigorating therapeutic effects of cocoa are essential reasons for deciding on the merit to select specific varieties.

The cocoa beans trade and cocoa processing industry corollaries are linked to macroeconomic or microeconomic trends all around the world. Actually, the International cocoa organization declares that producing countries are undertaking reforms of cocoa production and commerce policies. Those nations meet the demand of Western consumers for products related to sustainable development and faire trade. Therefore, cocoa consumers may facilitate or impede national economies of cocoa producing countries through their requirements.

Factors such as savor, cosmetology, cure, and finance are means to evaluate and then select cocoa varieties. Whatever may be the initial cause for assessing the value of a cocoa variety, the overall impact remains economic. Indeed, the relation that binds the producer and the acquirer continue being the central point of an economic exchange. Therefore, the pleasure that pushes to apply a particular choice between various chocolate brands, the future prospect for increasing one's attractiveness or the expectation of potential benefits for medical treatments leads to exercise a tremendous force on future North-South economic relations. In the absolute, one could argue that a more socially aware consumer behavior in Western countries could finally allow those producing countries' populations to enjoy the gustative, aesthetical, therapeutic, and economic advantages that cocoa provides. However, will those socially aware criteria be sufficient? That furnishes food for thought.

Writing Feedback / "Letter from Birmingham jail" - rhetorical analysis [2]

Hello,

could you please read my essay and give me some feedback?

the prompt is:
what elements of "Letter from Birmingham jail in response to public statement by eight Alabama clergymen" (written by Martin Luther King Jr.) make it persuasive?

thank you in advance.
Frederic

From time immemorial, the promoters of social justice utilize rhetorical strategies to persuade theirs opponents of theirs claims. The proponents of the movement for civil rights for African Americans have made an intensive use of those strategies to advocate their cause. On April 16, 1963, from the jail of Birmingham, Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote an extensive missive to eight clergymen who had attacked his work for civil rights in a public statement released on April 12, 1963. Martin Luther King, Jr. primarily aimed this letter at those eight leaders of the white Church of the South. However, the eight clergymen's letter and the response from Martin Luther King, Jr. were publicly published. Martin Luther King, Jr. wanted to convince of the utility of his commitment in this particular area at this specific moment. To persuade his readers, Martin Luther King, Jr. predominantly employs Aristotle's three types of persuasion that are appeals to ethos, pathos, and logos. First, he appeals to his own reputation and wisdom. Second, he tries to arouse emotions or sympathy in the readers. Finally, he appeals to logic, supported with evidence and citations from influential thinkers.

Martin Luther King, Jr. wants to be the spokesperson of the African American community in the United States of America. His intention is to prove his opponents he has sufficient authority to promote the civil rights cause on behalf of his community. The first example that illustrates Martin Luther King, Jr.'s use of this strategy is present in the second paragraph of his letter: "I have the honor of serving as president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference". Thus, he reminds his interlocutors of his position of leadership in the religious community. This allows him to stand in the case of equal qualifications with the eight clergymen. Furthermore, in the third paragraph, he states, "Like Paul, I must constantly respond to the Macedonian call for aid." Consequently, he contends he is a prophet for freedom like Paul, but also like Jesus in the same paragraph. This provides him with the highest level of authority in the religious field. He suggests he has the support of God to wage his war against injustice. Therefore, since God has chosen him, it implies he is of higher moral standards. Finally, in the fourth paragraph, he advances "Moreover, I am cognizant of the interrelatedness of all communities and states." Martin Luther King, Jr. wants to remind his readers of his belonging to the assembly of the enlightened citizens. Consequently, he has the necessary wisdom to voice his opinions.

Martin Luther King, Jr. intends to create a feeling of proximity and sympathy for the civil rights cause. His purpose is to arouse emotion in his readers, both WASP and African American communities, to abate the aggressiveness coming from the WASP citizens and revive the fire of nonviolent contestation in the African American minds. Martin Luther King, Jr. emphasizes the injustice in the daily life of the members of the African American community in the fourteenth paragraph. Thus, he intends to give the WASP reader an insight into the abject situation in which the African Americans are. He wants to sprinkle sparks of rejection against immoral behaviors. Moreover, in the forty-fifth paragraph, he exemplifies the police evil repression on protesters. Martin Luther King, Jr. wants his interlocutors to imagine the pain and the humiliation of ill-treatments. Likewise, he desires to provoke a moral rebellion against hatred and condescendence exerted towards the demonstrators. Lastly, in the forty-seventh paragraph, he stresses the heroism performed in minute contestations against the oppression. Martin Luther King, Jr. aims at commending those achievements and encourages their proliferation through the African American community. He wants to stimulate a feeling of pride in anti-establishment actions. Martin Luther King, Jr. is a fervent user of logic, notably to justify why each of his contemporaries should compel with the authority of God. The sixteenth paragraph is a conspicuous illustration of appeals to evidence from prominent philosophers. His demonstration commences with the explanation of the fairness of a law. To support his affirmation, he quotes St Thomas Aquinas who reached the same conclusions several centuries earlier. Subsequently, he cites Martin Buber, a Jewish philosopher, to explain why unfair laws abase the segregationists. Finally, Martin Luther King, Jr. mentions Paul Tillich, an illustrious Protestant theologian, to corroborate his contention that segregation is not only morally detestable but also sinful. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s purpose is to buttress his argumentation with quotations from esteemed personages in the religious and philosophic fields. He searches to prove that every citizen must abide by the American laws enacted by the Supreme Court. Nevertheless, he maintains a firm position for yielding to a higher authority: morality.

In his "Letter from Birmingham Jail in Response to Public Statement by Eight Alabama Clergymen", Martin Luther King, Jr. desires to justify the importance and especially the legitimacy of his participation in the events in Alabama to erect his ethos as respectable to his audience. Indeed, he must establish his authority as both a minister and a representative for African Americans to establish equality between him and the eight clergymen to be credible to his audience and erase all potential condescendence. Furthermore, he plays with emotions to abate oppositions and reinforce his vision of the fight for Civil Rights. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s aim is to create a feeling of identification with the civil rights' cause in the mind of his readers in order to expunge any Manichean thinking. Finally, his audience is in a spirit of conciliation and therefore is ready to listen to his discourse. Henceforward, Martin Luther King, Jr. demonstrates the veracity of his claims and the legitimacy of his fight thanks to evidence and logic. In this way, he discloses his personal ability for debating but also the African Americans' capacity for defending positions in forthcoming discussions. Martin Luther King, Jr. utilizes reason to construct a rapprochement with the WASP community as well. Actually, he reminds the WASP community of its anterior fights against both the British oppression and the Nazi regime. Thus, he intends to illustrate with analogies that the fight for African Americans' civil rights is not so far from the WASP community prior demands. Consequently, he obliterates the false dichotomy that runs rampant in the WASP community, namely the requirements for civil rights are not as justifiable and moral as the independence of the thirteen colonies or the suppression of the Nazi anti-Semitism. An important element of this Letter from Birmingham Jail is that Martin Luther King, Jr. concludes his missive with an appeal to peace and unity. With those words, if the readers have just forgotten the entire discourse, the readers keep in minds his motivation for appeasement and concord.

Writing Feedback / Essay on the sociological influences of the Greek Orthodox Church [2]

Hello,

Can someone please proof read and give me some feedback?

Thanks!

Greek Easter brioche: Sociological influences of the Greek Orthodox Church in the twenty-first century Greece

On Easter Sunday, in April 2007, Greek families, in Greece or in the worldwide Diaspora, share the traditional Easter brioche. The consumption of this cake ends the period of Lent in the orthodox religious calendar. Beyond the symbol of the Jesus's resurrection and its subsequent promise of Eternal Life, Easter epitomizes the features of the interrelations the Greek Orthodox Church with the Greek society. What is the uniqueness of those relations? How do those distinctive interactions materialize?

Greek clergy helped create the independent Greek State and the Greek Church has maintained a powerful influence on the public administration. During the Ottoman rule ranging from 1453 to 1821, the Greek Church sheltered and distributed supplies to the opponents of the Muslim invaders. Moreover, the Orthodox clergy taught the Greek language to children at night. By actively participating in the liberation of the nation, the Greek Orthodox Church preserved the national identity personified by its multi-millenary language and culture. This commitment is currently observable in several elements of the Modern Greek State. First, the national flag displays a cross in the upper left corner that emphasizes the recognition of the Greek nation to the crucial role of the clergy for its four centuries of fierce cultural and physical contribution in the resistance to the invaders. Second, the Greek constitution does not establish an unambiguous separation of the Church and the State. Indeed, the constitution secures the Greek Orthodoxy as the nation's official religion and legally assures its moral and cultural acknowledgement as an institution of the Greek State. Consequently, the Greek government disburses the salaries of the personnel's Orthodox clergy on public funds. In addition, the Greek government authorizes the civil servants to exhibit their orthodox faith through religious icons in public administrations. Lastly, religion affects the education in public schools. For instance, the school year customary commences with a religious benediction administered by a papás, a local priest. Prayer is mandatory every morning. Orthodox religious education is derogatory for the pupils and has a formal assessment during the examination for the High School Diploma. Although The Greek Orthodox Church retains restricted direct political influence, its leader His Grace Christopoulos stands firmly for conservative and ultranationalist opinions. He remains the spearhead of the highly controversial concept of the "Great Idea" that promotes the physical reconquest of Byzantium and institutes this city as the foundation of a brand new Helen Empire.

In reference to the biblical shepherd, the Greek Orthodox Church acts as a guide and a safeguard, who leads and protects his flock, for mainstream Greece. Primarily, the most obvious signs of the Greeks' devotion emerge from daily occurrences encountered by foreigners. For example, icons, which portray and above all convey the presence of religious characters such as the Virgin Mary, Jesus or saints, hang in numerous shops, offices, taxis, buses, or houses. That attachment to the icons reaches its climax when entering a place of worship, the faithful kisses those sacred representations. Strolling through the streets of the capital city or a tiny village, one can notice that approximately twenty five percent of Greeks cross themselves when they pass a church. Orthodoxy accompanies the Greeks from their birth, with the baptism, to their death, with a religious celebration in a house of worship, not to mention their religious marriage or, more surprisingly, the benediction of new firms. Nowadays, ninety-eight percent of the Greek population is Christian Orthodox. This facet has always been so profoundly ingrained in the Greek identity that identity cards mentioned the religious membership until December, the thirty-first, 2000, contrary to all other countries belonging to the European Community. Orthodoxy has forged the national union and has continually cemented the construction of the national identity. On the other hand, Greece has only acknowledged civil marriage since 1982. Traditionally, Orthodox Church conditionally authorizes remarriages but definitely reproves divorce. Therefore, divorce rate is low. However, because of its traditional acceptance in this area, wives habitually condone their husbands' adultery. That convention generates a flourishing market of prostitution and stimulates human trafficking from Eastern Europe. For another thing, priests encourage the married couple to produce offspring since family is the crux of the Christian theology. Orthodox reactionary vanguard promotes procreation to increase the birth rate. The ultimate goal is to strengthen the Greek nation in front of the Islamic Turkish menace. Furthermore, the Greek Orthodox institution allows married men with children to enter the become priests. However, the supreme authorities, the bishops, are exclusively bachelors. That imperative accentuates the disparities between urban and rural religious communities. Actually, metropolitan priests are usually educated and thus have a bright future ahead of them whereas country ones have often entered the priesthood to escape pauperism. That situation emphasizes the gap between a provincial clergy sensitive to the preoccupations of its parishioners and an essentially Athenian hierarchy out of touch with people's predicaments.

Orthodoxy is the bedrock of the contemporary Greek society. Greeks share a common culture that derives from collective Christian beliefs that have produced a relatively homogenous society. Actually, the Greeks' attitude amalgamates the Church and the State, and often the Hellenism integrates the Orthodoxy. The sociological weight of the Greek Orthodox Church in this third millennium Greece is manifest and palpable in all aspects of both public and private life. However, in an era of Europeanization and globalization, the Modern Greek State will face the ancillary effects of migrations from the Near East and Africa. Forthcoming religious and political leaders will have to conduct the evolution of Greece. In the next years, the debate over the official acknowledgement of religious minorities might arouse. Religious and political leaders will compromise with question of the woman's emancipation and the ensuing crisis of identity that will shake the family cells of this patriarchal society. Will Greece be able to handle those issues in the same way as the nation has managed the necessary transition of its language, from the Ancient Greek language to the internet and cell phone-based Greeklish (portmanteau word for the Greek language written with the Latin alphabet)?

Undergraduate / economic causes; Essay on the reasons for attending APUS [2]

Hello: this is the prompt:

You are beginning a new experience by attending APUS. Take some time to reflect on your decision to embark on this journey. Think about the reasons behind your decision to be a learner at this time. People are motivated to attend college for various reasons. It may be to increase their knowledge, to learn a new skill, to prepare for a career, to make friends, etc. Why are you attending college? What do you hope to gain from the experience? What qualities or skills do you have that make you suited for studying in a technological age? What will you do that will make you successful at this? What things do you feel will be a challenge to you and how will you overcome them? Cite examples and provide reasons and support for your answers.

This is my essay:

Dire straits or money for nothing?

The decision to attend college has undeniably always been of tremendous significance. However, the third millennium offers new possibilities because in parallel of the traditional brick and mortar colleges, digital universities have progressively appeared over the past decade. However, what triggers someone to enter such a kind of virtual institution of higher education? What can expect an individual from them? Does it necessitate particular competences? Do the curriculums present new or supplementary impediments? What are the ingredients of a successful story? Such questions haunt the nights of countless would-be students, and especially one of them: me.

Economic and social reasons are the major constitutive factors that sparked off my motivation for attending college. Conventional wisdom has it that a degree has monetary implications on the employment market. However, in 1998, a study conducted by Institute for Higher Education Policy confirmed that degree holders harvest more financial benefits than high school graduates or dropouts. The first clue is that a Bachelor notably increases the earning power by about 75%. The second indicator is that unemployment rate with a Bachelor is half as important as with a High School Diploma. The third gain is in relation with savings since a graduate has a superior pecuniary potential and therefore economizes more. The fourth point is concerned with working conditions. Indeed, graduates habitually keep white-collar jobs. Accordingly, the employee's situation is less strenuous and health impairing. The fifth indicator is of noteworthy weight in global economy for linked with the professional, and to some extent personal, mobility.

On the one hand, among that trouble, two other social motives are fundamental for my common law wife and me. Actually, our goal is to create a family and provide our household with maximum security in the long term as regards health protection and quality of life for our future progeny.

All those pointers emphasize the non-degree recipients' concerns. Lastly, partly due to the evolution of the global and French Defense Industries added to my personal situation, since I am currently unemployed and only holder of a High School Diploma, these considerations are all the more pertinent for me. Those reflections aroused a firm determination in me to pursue further studies not only at a college but also at an American and military specialized university, and in the case in point: American Military University.

The journey I have just embarked on would be wholly rewarding if I could improve several aspects. First, my aim is to ameliorate my professional outlooks. I intend to orientate my career toward domains in which I am interested in working for, namely the International Relations and the Military History. For that reason, I have chosen to apply for a Bachelor in International Relations with a concentration in Regional and Comparative Politics and I want to adjoin a minor in Military History. I also plan to enroll in various courses which central theme is Special Operations. Second, I expect to broaden my job opportunities. Insofar as the American Military University syllabus requires intensive writing, I have the hope to approach academic fluency and style in English. That ability will help me to obtain a job in an English speaking company. Nevertheless, in addition to the pleasure felt when mastering a foreign language, this skill will mainly flatter my ego and might open vistas on Graduate Schools or journalism. Third, I desire to initiate a preparation for research methods in the fields quoted above by taking courses in research methodology. Finally, even if I did not work for an English speaking business or for unrelated fields I shall always be literate in topics that fascinate me, such as global politics and military history. Another benefit from my encounter with the academic field is the possibility to develop a personal and professional network through forums and emails with my classmates.

Studying in the technological age comes down to study in the same way as in antiquity but with high-tech tools. Actually, students ranging from the Plato's Academy to the Harvard's lecture halls necessitate the same expertise. This is neither a godsend nor an innate talent but an aggregate knowledge that requires painstaking and industrious efforts. Thanks to my education in a French Defense Department school, I have learnt a scientific method for schoolwork. Specifically,

I scrutinize the question to extract the topic and the purpose and thus direct further explorations. Next, I brainstorm to investigate as many ideas as possible. Subsequently, I found my research from a wide variety of sources such as books, magazines, and websites. Finally, I analyze raw data to produce synthesized and relevant information, and consequently achieve the elaboration of unequivocal theories or concepts. Moreover, I have been working since fourteen years and have frequently been using that methodology.

I will lean my studies on a practical and efficient routine. In the beginning, I will define the tasks assigned and categorize the adequate data to fulfill the assignment. Second, I will look for sources and cogitate to appraise their relevance. This will initiate a selection of the finest records within the resources. Afterward, I will synthesize the multiple facts. Subsequently, I will engage in a critical thinking procedure to evaluate both form and content to estimate the quality of the organization plus the substance of the beliefs. Finally, I will present the result of that work.

Despite that seems to be a strong background to undertake undergraduate studies, some arrows pierce my Achilles' heel. Actually, I have never worked with electronic resources. Therefore, I desire to become skilled at locating and utilizing appropriate sources available within the online library such as online catalogs, periodicals, e-books, databases, Internet online resources, and community or government information. Furthermore, my previous experience mainly concerns technological applications, figures and statistical calculations. Consequently, I want to acquire the skills to identify and apply specific criteria to appraise the value of primary and secondary sources in social sciences and humanities such as interviews, surveys, and experiments but also in electronic resources, e-mail, online discussions.

My reasons for undertaking higher education are firmly rooted in economic causes. Furthermore, my motivation drinks in the source of higher earning and facilitated employment promises. Not only is my first intention to attend college the fruit of an obligation, but it also has required important sacrifices for my common law wife and me. Therefore, I have the firm intention to benefit from a current window of opportunity although the journey will resemble more the Odyssey of Homer than a Sunday walk in the countryside. Nevertheless, I know I will get nothing for nothing and do not want to compromise the possibility to access to a more remunerating future. As for knowing if "money can't buy happiness" is true, this is another debate.

Institute for Higher Education Policy. Reaping the Benefits: Defining the Public and Private Value of Going to College.

Writing Feedback / I was about to climb into a battle tank; Essay on Child's play [2]

Hello,

could you please read my essay and give me some feedback?

Before repying, you should keep in mind that it is normal if it doesn't sound American because I am French and therefore English is not my mother tongue.

thank you in advance.
Frederic

Experience essay - some feedback?

My task was to revise an anterior essay (previously posted on this page: Essay on Child's play). The process I have followed is bellow. Could you give me some feedback? Did I ameliorate my essay?

I made a fresh start with my first essay. I tried to read it as if it were somebody else's paper. Initially, I found the purpose was not consistent throughout my paper. I endeavored to choose a better purpose to improve the consistency from the introduction to the conclusion. Then, I stated an obvious thesis to give the readers an insight into the purpose of the paper and to guide them through their forthcoming reading. I used this thesis as an Ariadne's thread to write the paper in order to avoid wandering away. As a result, I erased the previous introduction and conclusion to start anew. When I wrote the introduction, I wanted to provide the reader with a succinct background to introduce the purpose and to establish a thesis. Finally, I depicted the parallel between the emotions I felt and the sensation of power experienced by officers during World War I. I struggled to preserve an academic language and to enliven the text to avert boredom. I strived to fill the text with emotions to arouse interest in the reader. On the other hand, I find it difficult to sprinkle the text with a few technical words to emphasize the topic but without overwhelming the reader. To unveil the emotions I felt a few years earlier, I sought to witness the scene as if I had been someone else. As far as unity is concerned, I attempted to keep as close as possible to the thread of my paper: the thesis. Consequently, I had to remove sentences that were useless for the "plot", and rewrite others. To be continually coherent throughout the paper, I narrowed the scope of the event I related and focused only on my emotions. Ultimately, I used short sentences to accelerate the reading in order to place the reader in an emotional situation more or less similar to the one I experienced. Next, I chose limited wider implications and future developments in the conclusion.

The latest revision:

Memory essay: From a position of power to the power of a position

The Marne is a famous French area because it was the scene of fierce battles during World War I. Those fights epitomize the expression of power in all its forms. A morning in March 1995, I was about to climb into a Leclerc battle tank located in the heart of this area. I was there to perform my first gunneries with this vehicle and thus to terminate a long preparation started a year earlier to become a testing operator for GIAT Industries. However, surprisingly enough, I was also on the brink of initiating my longest personal quest. That day, I encountered the most intense emotion I have never felt before. In the image of officers at the turn of the 20th century, I came across a formidable sentiment of absolute power over my acts.

We were in a barracks located at the heart of a triangle constituted by the villages named Mailly-Le-Camp, Mourmelon, and Suippes. What is surprising for a newcomer in this region is the landscape platitude. That apparent dullness was contrasting with my interior exhilaration. At eight o'clock, while the sun was rising, the officer accountable for the shooting range came in order to give us the codes required for the communications between the tank and the watchtower. A few minutes later, my boss transmitted the last recommendations and gave some encouragement before I penetrated into the Leclerc at the gunman position. The pilot, the chief, and I took our respective positions into the tank. The pilot started the turbine that produced a powerful sound, the same as a helicopter taking off. The diesel engine automatically switched on a few seconds later. It rumbled in the countryside, while drums rolled in my head, as for indicating the warning signs of an attack in the plaines. The chief initiated the electrical system of the turret. Orders were given. As an officer who marshals the troops, I collected my thoughts. Once the checklist was satisfactory, I took the turret controls. It boils down to raise an extraordinarily lethal weapon. I felt an overwhelming sense of power in the same way as a commandant who leads his troops. Then, the pilot took the tank up to about fifty kilometers per hour on the uneven path. I positioned my eyes on the sight and aimed at the moving target. I indicated the type of ammunition on the panel control. The automatic loader immediately selected the right round in the storage and loaded it in the cannon. Billions of electrons rushed through electronic equipment to execute my instructions. Then, I triggered the laser rangefinder, which provoked the activation of the target tracking system. I was unaware of the outside world. I was a commander on the threshold of launching an assault. I adjusted the stabilized sight. The target was not able to abscond from its fate. Numerous seconds had elapsed before I had the authorization from the chief to open the fire. He was still securing the last checks. Suddenly, "fire" he said. I applied a firm pressure on the ignition switch. The round was fired in the blink of an eye. Thousands of electrical and mechanical parts had just obeyed me to hit a 2000 meters distant target and smash it to smithereens. I was empowered to obliterate virtually all types of military vehicles or shelters. I was filled with puissance. The subsequent gunneries continued with the same process. Finally, the officer certified that all my gunneries were acceptable.

The feeling I experienced that day was a sensation of omnipotence. For the first time in my life, I have assumed a complete control over my life and my actions. Since that day, I have commenced to search ways of mastering my existence. Actually, I have been probing the use and abuse of power. It amounts to learn how to manage my professional and personal life. In addition, I have been gaining knowledge of exercising power over subordinates to better my management skills. What are the effects of the power given by a position of authority over someone? Does power ameliorate or corrupt human nature? Does the word "power" entail "absolute success"? Nevertheless, I can ascertain that in the case in point I am powerless to provide answers.