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First studied as an adaptive mechanism specific to humans, [1] cognitive specialization has since evolved to encompass many behaviors in the social realm. Organisms have evolved over millions of years to become well-adapted to their habitats; this requires becoming specialized in behaviors that improve an organism's likelihood of survival and reproduction.
Adaptations in humans can be physiological, genetic, or cultural, which allow people to live in a wide variety of climates. There has been a great deal of research done on developmental adjustment, acclimatization , and cultural practices, but less research on genetic adaptations to colder and hotter temperatures.
Conditional adaptations detect and respond to relevant environmental cues, altering developmental pathways in ways which better adapt an individual to their particular environment. These adaptations allow organisms to implement alternative and contingent life history strategies, depending on environmental factors. [28]
Human beings have their existence in a uniquely human context, as well as in a cosmic ecology. Human beings are aware and are aware of being aware—i.e., they are conscious. Human consciousness always includes an awareness of oneself in the context of other people. Human beings have the ability to make choices and therefore have responsibility.
Cave paintings (such as this one from France) represent a benchmark in the evolutionary history of human cognition. Victorian naturalist Charles Darwin was the first to propose the out-of-Africa hypothesis for the peopling of the world, [39] but the story of prehistoric human migration is now understood to be much more complex thanks to twenty-first-century advances in genomic sequencing.
This is a uniquely human experience, as other animals are able to give birth on their own and often choose to isolate themselves to do so to protect their young. [2] [citation needed] An example of a genetic adaptation unique to humans is the gene apolipoprotein E (APOE4) on chromosome 19.
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A cultural universal (also called an anthropological universal or human universal) is an element, pattern, trait, or institution that is common to all known human cultures worldwide. Taken together, the whole body of cultural universals is known as the human condition .