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One of the debates that have shaken the heads of the American people for a long time is that relates to the migration of ‘the
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One of the debates that have shaken the heads of the American people for a long time is that relates to the migration of ‘the peopling of the America.’ The main reason as to why it has been the hottest debate is that it is not known exactly how and when the migration took place. Various theories tend to explain the exact time of the migration with each of the theories having a different account to that of the other. Every team seems to have contradictory stories with that of the other publishers for every story that emerges, and therefore the conclusions are always different. The two main models have been proven to be reasonable according to a review by the archeological, geological and paleo-genetic research (Fiedel, 2004). However, the review disregarded the other couple of theories claiming that they are not reasonable.
According to advocates of the interior, the people of the southern Siberia are believed to have traveled on foot, moving eastwards over the land bridge of Beringia current day Alaska (Pitblado, 2011). The movement was motivated by the large herds of wild animals considering that the ancient people relied on game meat for survival and therefore they had to follow their source of food. According to history, Beringia had been previously exposed for many times in the past million years especially when the sea levels dropped. During the end of the ice age, humans began to move away from Siberia heading eastwards inhabiting the land of Beringia. The interior route to entry into America has been a dominant model for a long time and has as well been one of the reasonable theories explaining the peopling of the America.
The other theory is the coastal route that is also referred to as the kelp highway model. The Kelp model has gained traction over the last decades. The model suggests that the inhabitants of the northeastern Siberia migrated from the region following the coastal areas by boat and this included at times along the sea ice (Erlandson et al. 2015). The voyage passed through the northern Pacific heading all the way to America where the people settled. The migrants not only settled in America but continued with their journey down the coasts to which is modern-day Chile. With the migrants being well known for hunting and gathering, they, therefore, depended on wild animals, seafood and fruits from the bushes. Due to this reason they had enough reason to settle in the region. The coast of Chile was full of all kinds of foods that could sustain the migrants from Siberia. Among the foods that were in plenty included fish, shell fish, kelps and the seals which provided a good meal for the people. Apart from the foods, the coast had had rich waters that provided a conducive environment for the people to settle. Thus, the coastal route also the Kelp Highway is one of the refutable theories that try to explain the peopling of the America.
The two models that are the land bridge of Beringia and the Kelp highway models are crucial in explaining the peopling of the America (Erlandson et al. 2007). They are both theories that make sense in the manner through which the people of America came to be, and this is explained by the routes that the people are assumed to have followed. The two theories are similar in that they have some components of their stories being the same and therefore they are very close in relation to the explanation regarding even the origin and final settlements. The two models are similar in that they have a common origin. The migrants are all known to migrate from Siberia in both models, and this means that there was a common place of origin. Siberia can, therefore, be regarded as the main origin of the American people. As it is well known that people migrate due to various reasons, the migrants had to search for a better place to which could offer plenty of food for their population.
The two models as well are related in that they both agree that the people from Siberia took their journey heading eastwards. With the two theories explaining that the people moved from Siberia journeying to the east, they had a common aim, and this was to populate the American nation. There is a great connection between the first setters of the American nation and those of the Ancient Siberia and this evidence have been made possible through DNA sequencing that has shown close links between the two populations and this makes the two theories to be more relevant. Apart from being relevant, they are also similar as they indicate a common people linked through DNA (Schurr, 2000).
It has also been agreed upon that the migration of the two models took place around the same period, and this is estimated that it was within the last 25,000 years. This is attributed by the data obtained from the genetic configuration whereby the scientists perceive that the first settlers of the American nation and the Siberian populations were separated and this also led to the genetical isolation of the two groups. It is also essential noting that the isolation alone of the two groups in Siberia and the first settlers in America could not be used to determine the time of travel of the migrants into America. There is a possibility as well that the people who are the direct ancestors to the first settlers of America were stilled living in Siberia on in the regions of Beringia by the estimated time. Therefore, the migrants could only have been separated from the rest of the original populations possibly for a millennia before starting their journey and heading east towards the American nation.
The Beringia interior model has been criticized with the critics citing that the recent paleo-genetic and the geological studies suggest that there was no way to which the migrants could have used the foot to travel from Beringia towards the interior of America for the period between 13,500 years (Hill, 2006). The studies had scrutinized various sites as well as different types of evidence, and this made their conclusions reach different travel dates. The migration of the people towards the east was barred by the Laurentide and the Cordilleran ice sheets making the crossing journey impassable. The other theory of the coastal route has as well been criticized with the arguments taking different flavors. Some of the critics claim that some of the artifacts derived from the earliest archeological sites were either product of natural erosion or had been inaccurately dated and that they were not from the human hands. Other critics suggest that there were some misinterpretations by the anti-interior peers on some of the significant findings in the most recent papers.
The two models as well differ in the sense that there somehow different times to which the migration is estimated to have happened. The other difference between the two theories is that the migrants used different routes to make their way and finally settling in America. Besides, there is a disparity in the method through which the migrants used to close the ice sheets with the Beringian theory suggesting that they waited for the ice to melt down paving their way through. On the other side, the coastal route argues that the migrants used boats, sailing eastwards towards Chile. Despite the criticisms, the two models can be said to be right as there are some truths in them that link the first settlers of America as well as the remnants of Siberia.
References
Erlandson, J. M., Braje, T. J., Gill, K. M., & Graham, M. H. (2015). Ecology of the kelp highway: Did marine resources facilitate human dispersal from Northeast Asia to the Americas?. The Journal of Island and Coastal Archaeology, 10(3), 392-411.
Erlandson, J. M., Graham, M. H., Bourque, B. J., Corbett, D., Estes, J. A., & Steneck, R. S. (2007). The kelp highway hypothesis: marine ecology, the coastal migration theory, and the peopling of the Americas. The Journal of Island and Coastal Archaeology, 2(2), 161-174.
Fiedel, Stuart J. 2004. The Kennewick Follies: “New:” Theories about the Peopling of the Americas. Journal of Anthropological Research 60:75-110.
Hill, Matthew E. 2006. Before Folsom: The 12 Mile Creek Site and the Debate Over the Peopling of the Americas. The plains Anthropologists. 51:141-156.
Pitblado, B. L. (2011). A tale of two migrations: reconciling recent biological and archaeological evidence for the Pleistocene peopling of the Americas. Journal of Archaeological Research, 19(4), 327-375.
Schurr, Theodore G. 2000. Mitochondrial DNA and the Peopling of the New World. American Scientist. 88:246-253.
Nietzsche – God and Selfishness
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Nietzsche – God and Selfishness
If Nietzsche is correct and there is no God and selfishness and apathy for others is the proper characteristic for humans, then I don’t think that human beings could be limited in anything since there will be no one supreme being to control good and evil. Christianity teaches that being selfish is a vice and that God does not advocate such, God wants us to be selfless and kind sharing with the less fortunate what we have in abundance. In the event therefore that God does not exist or is dead, humans would not adhere to such as it is the human nature to be selfish and therefore, without God, there is no order and without order, there is no limitation for humans. The law of natural selection would, therefore, take its due course in the sense that everybody would be pulling on their sides and this implies that only the strongest would survive. The bible teaches against killing and the absence of God, therefore, means there are no such teachings to guide morality and thus people will as well kill to survive. The weak will no longer have an opportunity to survive.
I think that Nietzsche is correct in his assessment of human beings that they are ultimately selfish with stronger exploitation of the weak and rising to the top. However, this does not apply to all the humans, there is a certain percentage who are extremely selfish and would do anything to acquire power. According to Nietzsche, his recordings implies that “to be a human is to be a beast and to be a superior beast, they have to attack, suppress, control, subjugate and exploit the weak beasts”. Dominance is the key in the land of beasts as it enables them to control the other population. There are other beasts that also wants to take control but they have to fight for the dominance. It is true and the same applies to people in that individuals exploit others in pursuit of happiness. Most of them are happy seeing others suffering.
In another recording, Nietzsche says that “utility cannot account for a person that is better than the other, and the better person’s happiness”. The statement is true for the general welfare of the people because an individual surviving on the welfare don’t get better as the overreliance on the welfare weakens an individual. The strong will remain to be strong while those depending on the welfare remain to be weak. The society becomes a man eat man society where the strong prey on the weak as there are no avenues to protect them. The interests of the strong are deemed to be right and therefore oppression to the poor for dominance and control as well is right according to Nietzsche assessment.
Nature has its way of shaping a person’s behavior, but apart from nature, the past experiences of a person can also help in s
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Nature has its way of shaping a person’s behavior, but apart from nature, the past experiences of a person can also help in shaping the behavior of the person. According to psychology, learned behaviors with reinforcements either positive or negative are essential to the modification and shaping of a desired behavior. Since I was a small child, I used to be an arrogant person, and to whom never put anything into my head no matter how serious it was and this frustrated my parents so much. For various occasions before joining my academics, I used to do nothing for myself and neither did I appreciate the person who either came my way and assisted me nor did I anything good out of it as I believed that I was there to be assisted and not to appreciate those who helped as I thought it was their duty.
Days passed with my parents getting very annoyed, I joined my schooling, and with the same mindset, I never took anything seriously. I made many friends some of whom were very close, but unfortunately, they were very serious in their education. We did our first exam, and due to my poor and awful habits I didn’t do well but failed. Back home, my parents knew my capabilities and believed that I could do better and even said that I could take the first position in our class. However, this could not stick in my head but only landed on deaf ears, entering on one ear and finding a throughway on the other. My parents were not strict, and therefore I couldn’t feel the effects of their frustrations on me. As the year was close to ending, we sat for the final exam that was supposed to graduate to the next class. Unfortunately, the worst happened, and I never scored the minimum marks to take me to the next grade.
Back at home, I had to break the news to my parents with the feeling that whatever I was delivering was worse, but due to my careless behavior, that never mattered to me. My parents were frustrated and with bitterness decided to withdraw all their attention to me. All the luxuries that I used to enjoy back at home including watching the television, having my clothes washed and even receiving no punishment now started to shift to what I had not expected. My father went an extra mile and headed for the school and asked my teachers to be strict on me. There too, I was made like a prisoner, and the teachers had to assign me special homework that I had to complete and achieve a certain percentage. If I failed, I had to be punished, and back at home, the same was happening.
My parents promised to reinstate my luxury and even promised more as long as I did better in my exams. Not only was I to receive positive rewards for better performance but as well the negative rewards could befall with all the luxuries being pulled off in the event I did not make better performance in school. With all these conditions, I realized that I was not doing my self any better by not performing and came to know that everybody especially my teachers and parents were happy when I had done better. Slowly, I made good progress, and to their promise, I received several gifts and appreciation. After a certain period, I realized that I did not have to work hard to please another person but could as well do it for my benefit. I decided to put more effort and maintain my status as I was also happy with my performance having beaten the previous giants I the class. If it wasn’t for the rewards and punishment, I could not have identified my potential and therefore, behavior reinforcement aided in shaping my academic achievement and responsibility.
The behavior theory can be used to explain the reason as to why I was able to learn a new behavior, shifting from the previous unwanted behavior (Dovidio et al. 2017). The unwanted behavior on my part was that of non-performance and indiscipline both in school and at home which angered my parents and teachers and devoting their time to reshape my ways. According to the behavior theory, the behavioral psychologists believe that a person can never change or shape behavior on their own and therefore an external stimulus must be present to influence the desired behavior. The behaviorists such as B.F. Skinner do not believe in free will, and thus they believe that one has to learn through a system of reinforcement as well as punishment in the immediate environment (Skinner, 2014). Despite the critics, the behavioral approach is very effective as long as one doesn’t care by thinking what others are thinking as long as the desired behavior is achieved. The influence of the behavioral theory tends to affect people every day as well as throughout their lives as behavior is learned through experiences that do not cease to influence the lives.
Operant conditioning is a perspective that tries to explain the behavioral theory by depicting that behavior is influenced by a stimulus from the outside environment and continues to shape the behavior of the person (Mazur, 2016). A shaped behavior may be subject to relapsing, and this can be attributed that learned behaviors need to be reinforced for a certain period to make sure that the learned behavior is able to stick as learned. In operant conditioning, there are two types of rewards, and this involves punishment that can be positive or negative. Both positive and negative reinforcement are used to reward certain types of behaviors whether wanted or unwanted.
Positive reinforcement involves the promotion of a particular behavior that is desired. Various actions can be deemed to be positive reinforcement, and this maybe rewards such as gifts or verbal appreciation to make the person associate the behavior with the newly acquired behavior (Crone, Hawken & Horner, 2015). On the other hand, negative reinforcement involves punishing the person by denying them rewards whether material or verbal rewards and instead substituting the reward with a harsh punishment. Exposing a person to a harsh punishment for a behavior that has been newly acquired makes the individual aware that the behavior is not needed and thus they are forced to drop it and adopt the desired ones.
Apart from the desired behaviors being obtained through reinforcement, they can also be acquired through intrinsic values. A person can learn that when they do a certain thing, they are often rewarded, and they feel happy about it, and therefore it becomes a motivation compelling them to work harder to obtain more of the behavior to foster their happiness. Motivation can, therefore, be intrinsic and extrinsic as well. Intrinsic motivation refers to the driving force that compels a person to adopt a certain desired behavior that is rewarding (Rheinberg & Engeser, 2018). On the other hand, extrinsic motivation refers to the driving force that comes from the outside, a stimulus responsible in forcing the desired behavior into the person leading to the extinction of the previous undesired behavior.
Being brought up by parents who at first did not punish me made me believe that everything was normal and that no effort was needed for me to acquire the knowledge that was essential in making me pass my examination. In the beginning, therefore, I can attest that lack of motivation or punishment hindered me from exploring my abilities and therefore hindered even the intrinsic stimuli from reinforcing positive behavior that is the biter performance in school. The trend, however, got reversed when the external stimuli that happened to by both my parents and the teachers made some advances towards the acquisition of a new desired behavior. The stimuli, in this case, are therefore the teachers and the parents that necessitated the need for a behavioral change.
Positive reinforcement was done through rewards as well as verbal communication through congratulatory messages, and this, therefore, was a motivation to doing even better in my studies. In the times which I failed my exams, the rewards were substituted with punishment, this time negative punishment that was responsible for helping me associate the punishment with failure and therefore to cease the punishment, I had to perform better. The continued failure of the exams attracted more punishment even worse than the initial ones, and this discouraged me from performing poorly in class.
Positive reinforcement was associated better performance, and I was treated nicely both at home and at school, and therefore to make this trend continue, I had to revert my awful ways of performing poorly to the full dedication of my time in learning so that I could make my parents proud. In addition to making my parents proud, the positive rewards played a significant role in arousing the intrinsic stimuli for positive performance. I did not relapse but instead took the positive steps in maintaining the behavior making it possible to be maintained until present.
Parents play a critical role in shaping the behavior of their children and therefore to make their children grow with a positive and desired behavior they have to cultivate it at a younger stage as it will be difficult to rectify the behavior when the person is grown up. Reinforcement, therefore, plays a crucial role in shaping the behavior of a person and therefore the behaviorists were not wrong in suggesting that behavior is learned and is influenced by a stimulus.
References
Crone, D. A., Hawken, L. S., & Horner, R. H. (2015). Building positive behavior support systems in schools: Functional behavioral assessment. guilford Publications.
Dovidio, J. F., Piliavin, J. A., Schroeder, D. A., & Penner, L. A. (2017). The social psychology of prosocial behavior. Psychology Press.
Mazur, J. E. (2016). Learning & behavior. Routledge.
Rheinberg, F., & Engeser, S. (2018). Intrinsic motivation and flow. In Motivation and action (pp. 579-622). Springer, Cham.
Skinner, B. F. (2014). Contingencies of reinforcement: A theoretical analysis (Vol. 3). BF Skinner Foundation.