Victory for the ACT Student Text 15e

R EADING Q UIZZES • 147

NATURAL SCIENCE: This passage discusses human social evolution and adaptation. Man, so the truism goes, lives increasingly in aman-made environment. This puts a special burden on human immaturity, for it is plain that adapting to such variable conditions must depend on opportunities for learning, or whatever the processes are that are operative during immaturity. It must also mean that during immaturity, man must master knowledge and skills that are neither stored in the gene pool nor learned by direct encounter. Rather, they are contained in the culture pool—knowledge about values and history, skills as varied as an obligatory natural language or an optional mathematical one, as mute as levers or as articulate as myth telling. Yet, it would be a mistake to leap to the conclusion that because human immaturity ƒ‡• ’‘••‹„Ž‡ Š‹‰Š ϐŽ‡š‹„‹Ž‹–›ǡ ƒ›–Š‹‰ is possible for the species. Human traits were selected for their survival value over a ˆ‘—”Ǧ –‘ ϐ‹˜‡Ǧ‹ŽŽ‹‘Ǧ›‡ƒ” ’‡”‹‘† ™‹–Š ƒ ‰”‡ƒ– acceleration of the selection process during the last half of that period. There were crucial, ‹””‡˜‡”•‹„Ž‡…Šƒ‰‡• †—”‹‰ –Šƒ– ϐ‹ƒŽ ƒǦ making period: the recession of formidable †‡–‹–‹‘ǡ ƒ ͷͲǦ’‡”…‡– ‹…”‡ƒ•‡ ‹ „”ƒ‹ volume, the obstetrical paradox—bipedalism and strong pelvic girdle, larger brain through a smaller birth canal—an immature brain at birth, and creation of what Washburn has called a “technical-social way of life,” involving tool and symbol use. Passage II 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 70 11. The primary purpose of the passage is to: A. refute some misconceptions about the importance of human immaturity. B. introduce a new theory of the origins of the human species. C. describe the evolutionary forces that formed the physical appearance of modern humans. D. discuss the importance of human immaturity as an adaptive mechanism.

12. It can be inferred that the obstetrical paradox is puzzling because: F. it occurred very late during the evolution of the species. G. evolutionary forces seemed to work at cross purposes to each other. H. technological innovations have made the process of birth easier. J. an increase in brain size is not an ordinary evolutionary event. Note, however, that hominidization consisted mainly of adaptations to conditions in the Pleistocene. These preadaptations, shaped in response to earlier habitat demands, are part of man’s evolutionary inheritance. This is not to say that close beneath the skin of man is a naked ape, that civilization is only a veneer. The technical-social way of life is a deep feature of the species adaptation. But we would err if we assumed that man’s inheritance placed no constraint on his power to adapt. Some of the preadaptations can be shown to be presently maladaptive. Man’s inordinate fondness for fats and sweets no longer serves his individual survival well. Furthermore, the human obsession with •‡š—ƒŽ‹–› ‹• ’Žƒ‹Ž› ‘– ϐ‹––‡† ˆ‘” •—”˜‹˜ƒŽ of the species now, however well it might have served to populate the upper Pliocene and the Pleistocene. Nevertheless, note that the species typically responds to these challenges by technical innovation rather than by morphological or behavioral change. Contraception dissociates sexuality from reproduction. Of course, we do not know what kinds and what range of stresses are produced by successive rounds of such technical innovation. Dissociating sexuality and reproduction, for example, surely produces changes in the structure of the family, which ‹ –—” ”‡†‡ϐ‹‡• –Š‡ ”‘Ž‡ ‘ˆ ™‘‡ǡ ™Š‹…Š ‹ turn alters the authority pattern affecting the child, etc. Continuing and possibly accelerating change seems inherent in such adaptation. This, of course, places an enormous pressure on man’s uses of immaturity, preparing the young for unforeseeable change—more so if there are severe restraints imposed by human preadaptations to earlier conditions of life.