Evidence: In the video The Theory of Race one of the theories for skin color is the

depigmentation of darker skin so that more vitamin D can be absorbed with less light exposure.
You need vitamin D to produce healthy offspring. The farther you go to the North, you get less
sunlight during the winter months. Since melanin is a natural sunscreen, there was a decrease in
the darkness of skin color in Northerners because less melanin needed to be produced.
Evaluation: The film was produced by electric films who produces high-quality documentaries,
and whose reputation is made on the facts. It would not be in their best interest to report facts
inaccurately. The person who is featured the most prominently is Nina Jablonski who graduated
from Bryn Mawr college, and now teaches at Pennsylvania State University. These universities
are reputable. Nina, herself, has spent her whole life researching this. She was awarded the
Guggenheim Fellowship which has been awarded to Nobel laureates and Pulitzer prize winners. I
find information valid.
Evidence: In the article, Racial Odyssey it is said that the reason we have different colored eyes
is to adapt to the different spans of light we are exposed to Darker skinned individuals have more
pigmentation as opposed to Europeans have lighter eyes because of the longer twilights and
greater reliance on firelight. The less the pigmentation the more sensitive the eye is to the colors
at the red end of the spectrum. This displays natural selection by the most variable iris variation
becoming most prevalent in our ancestors different environments.
Evaluation: Though I found this one of the most interesting articles I read, a lot of the evidence
appears unsubstantiated. There are no references at the end of the piece. This was an article
featured in Science Digest magazine, which leads to its credibility, but the magazine was also
discontinued in 1986. Even if this was fully backed up, it is highly likely that there has been
further research to refute this. When I researched, this further it has been found that blue eyes are

a mutation written from a reputable science online publication 30 years after Racial Odyssey. I
would like to study further, but it seems that the answer is much less concrete than the article
suggests.
Evidence: In the articles, How the Hobbit Shrugged: Tiny Hominids Story Takes New Turn and
The Littlest Human the species Homo floresiensis is discussed. It is shown that these dwarf
humans evolved on a small island in Indonesia. It was also theorized that the skeletal remains
that were found were a homo Erectus that suffered from microcephaly, but further evaluation
shows that this is a byproduct of natural selection. One of the observations was based on the way
the shoulder is formed, adding credibility to the fact that H. Floresiensis is a descendant of H.
Erectus. My teacher also said, referring to this topic, that they looked at elephants that colonized
islands. They became dwarfed as well. The smaller a person is, the more likely they are to
survive, where resources are limited, and over time that makes the species as a whole, smaller.
Evaluation: The article is from Science magazine, which was founded by Thomas Edison in
1880. It has over 500,000 readers each week and is dedicated to being a reputable source of
information. This magazine is funded by AAAS which stands for the American Association for
the Advancement of Science which the main goal is to advance science throughout the world.
They have members in 91 countries, and professionals in their field writing the articles. Although
it does not have citations or references, the magazine's reputation makes it a credible source.
Also, my teacher has been established for multiple reasons as being a trustworthy source of
information.
Evidence: In the article, Food for Thought, it is suggested that with our bigger, growing brains,
we produced a higher need for a variable diet that consisted of much more animal matter than
seen previously. Modern chimps eat only 5 to 7 percent of their calories from comestibles, while

hunter-gathers eat 50-60 percent. Some of our earliest ancestors developed adaptations such as
heavily built mandibles, sagittal crests, and huge molars to chew through their heavy fibrous
diets. On the other hand, early members of Homo have no sagittal crest, relatively small molars,
and smaller jaws, because they evolved to a more diverse diet where food was being cut, cooked,
and more easily chewed. This shows how we ultimately have the facial structure we do, based on
the evolution of our ancestors teeth.
Evaluation: This is the magazine Scientific American which is a highly reputable magazine.
Their entire goal is to give their reader the more accurate and updated information in the world
of science. In the past 170 years, many notables have contributed to this publication including
Albert Einstein. It is the oldest continuously published a magazine in the United States. They
deal with facts and stories. If they were to be inaccurate, they would lose readership, and
ultimately make the magazine itself less profitable. I find their reputation to be one of reliability
and one this information valid.
Evidence: In the article, the Finding Lucy, the Australopithecus Lucy is discussed. They discuss
what it means to be a hominoid. It is said that is an erect walking primate. Lucy standing 3 feet
tall represents homo Habilis. She was 25-30 years old and is a complete fossil record od an erectwalking human. She represents a long line of different hominoid speciation, ending with our
own. Working from 6 million years ago, to now, we have made quite a voyage, from walking on
two legs, to building fire, to creating the world we know now.
Evaluation: This article was written by Donald Johanson, who was the curator of physical
anthropology at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History. That adds tremendous credibility to
the ethos of the argument. He is now the director of the Institute of Human Origins at Arizona
State University, which is a reputable school. His fellow writer Maitland Edey was an editor for

Time-Life books, which is a highly-remarked company. They won a National Book Award for a
publication based on this research. I also feel like it would be counterintuitive for our teacher to
put together a list of readings for us to read throughout the semester that wasn't reputable. Her
main object is to teach us about a field she is passionate about. She would want us to have as
accurate and thorough understanding as we can. I do not feel she would throw a red herring in
their just to see if we bite, so based on her already established credibility, and the credibility of
the author and publication of this particular piece; I find it valid.