[ol]
[li]When the temperature goes up, violence is on the increase. Ask any cop.[/li]When the thermometer tops 90[sup]0[/sup], all the good sense is stewed out of everybody’s noodle, & fists (or bullets) begin to fly.
[li] The phrase “Hot Tempered” means “easily angered”[/li]
[li]Some cultures located near the equator have the reputation of being quick to anger or passionately angry.[/li]
[li]Man evolved during an ice age, when the average temperature was lower.[/li][/ol]
Could it be that the human brain, being evolved to operate in a low temerature environment, malfunctions in a hotter environment, becoming less rational?
If this turns out to be a better Great Debate, I would be greatful to the Moderators for the appropriate action.
In keeping with my views on intellectual honesty, I must point out that this thread is inspired by a plot device found in a novel by a Mister Pratchett.
Sure, heat makes people uncomfotable and uncomfortable people are more likely to act irratably. I’m sure that a cold person would be really crabby, except they’re too cold to fight.
That’s because anger induces a phisiological responce which flushes the extremities and muscles with blood, making them flush and the person to look and feel hot.
That’s just because you come from a different culture and you preceive other cultures to be more ‘barbaric’, quicker to anger, more passionate, more artistic. I’m sure that Arabs would have considered the Vikings to be especially angry and passionate.
Ice age doesn’t equal cold. It just means that the average earth temperature was lower, not that most humans lived in a colder climate.
You’re kidding right? 32oC? It gets to 32oC here about 6 months of the year and I’m only 10km north of the tropic. Places like tropical Africa or New Guinea probably register days above 32oC all through the year. If your theory made sense then everyone in the tropics would be dead.
The phrase hot blooded means impulsive.
The phrase hot lover means amorous.
The phrase hot damn implies (paradoxically) that the subject is cool.
The phrase hot property means desireable.
The phrase hot potato refers to something completely undesirable.
The phrase hot water refers to a situation to be avoided.
Is there any coherence here?
Which ones? The quick to anger Rastafarians of the W. Indies? The bloodthirsty Nigerian goatherds? The implulsive monks of Thailand? The ravening hoards of Congolese pygmies? I’m having a hard time thinking of any equatorial peoples with a repuation as being anything other than slow and laconic or measured and spiritual, and those are trite stereotypes.
Firstly I’d like a cite for that. Bearing in mind that the exact date for human emergence seems to swing between 125 000 and 250 000 y.a. that’s a fairly suspect statement. even if it were true H. sapiens is a tropical species. Even in an ice age these areas were warm.
“When Trinkaus fed measurements of Neanderthal bones into his ‘limb thermometer’, the result suggested that they were adapted to an average temperature of about 0oC- very like ice age Europe. But with cro-magnons he got a very different figure, one thta indicated their homeland was 20oC, suggetsing they came not from freezing, glacier capped Europe but from the tropics. The results were supported by other fossil finds.”
“The conclusion is straightforward says Stringer. Homo sapiens is an African species.”
“Then about 40, 000 modern humans began to infiltarte Europe… Neanderthals were sunstituted by a race of hominids that had evolved in hot tropical climes.”
McKie, R. Ape:Man. 2000. BBC Worldwide.
No. Brain temperature is the most stable of all bodily temperatures. Core temperature in humans is fairly stable anyway, but the brain in particular demands and receives very even blood flow and temperature. As I write this the temperature is 32oC outside, probably slightly higher in here because of the computer. I hope I’m still being rational.
And for that I applaud you. However humans do not have brains of impuire silicon, and with a few exception this board is not frequented by trolls.
