Sample Student Midterms 2004    

Darwinian implications and theory related to Ice Explorations

       This mid-term examination will explore objective 3-cultural issues. More specifically objective 3b, linking issues to this notion of Darwinian evolution and being able to survive as you adapt. Cultural issues have a vast realm, but in the interest of space Ice survival should limit my thoughts. Joanna Opaskar of the 2002 class writes that these stories attempt to bring the reader to today’s contemporary life style, which is not very hard to do when you start mentioning phrases like negative seventy degree nights keep the culture shock to a maximum throughout the tales. To survive in the ice means more than merely bundling up, it is much more physical than we could ever imagine. In fact looking at pictorials taken from the accounts suggests that everyone appeared to be in shape some what because being overweight, although one might think of it as advantageous, is really not.

     Charles Darwin was a biologist who developed a theory concerning living things and their natural survival techniques in nature. This theory is known today as a form of his popular Darwinism or Natural Selection, with its basic premise being that the weak will eventually die off. Polar explorations of the early 1900s had an uncanny way of bringing his theory to life or death so to speak. I will focus my attention on Ice and cold water expeditions of the “Pym” reading, Scotts journals, Cherry-Garrards “Worst journey in the world” and others. Since Pym is a fictional story I am forced to lean more towards the real life accounts of the Ice survival stories.

     The main reason I chose this for a topic because I felt it to be relevant to the bitter cold and the frequency of death for some and not for others. Why do some people die in the cold and others don’t? Well, I think the answer is both simple and very complex. The answers lie in or own biological functions, as Darwin would say. Without going too deep into genetics or microbiology Darwin’s theory would suggest that over thousands of years we humans could develop certain resistances to things if exposed. This is a macro level thought because certainly in a person’s lifetime one can be conditioned to function in the cold. These men did a lot more than just function though, they worked and often worked themselves to death. I am mainly talking about human bio tolerances that can be taken to the absolute extreme such as the case of Cherry-Garrard’s “Worst journey in the world”. To me and perhaps several others, temps in the negative seventies would constitute a worst journey.

       “The temperature that night was negative seventy-five degrees, and I will not pretend that it did not convince me that Dante was right when he placed the circles of ice below the circles of fire”(P76). Taken from the worst journey this quote tells of extreme human sacrifice and bravery. A fire death is relatively easy and quick, but a death from the cold is a slow agonizing one that starts from your feet and slowly works its way north. No wonder why these guys took great pride in foot care.

       Ice explorations of the early 1900s included written accounts of daily activities. Scott, as he traced the footsteps of Edmunson, who made it to the South Pole about three week’s prior, had men dying on him. At one point in the stories the author mentions that a negative thirty-degree day was pleasant. Furthermore quite a few people often brag about being in severe weather, as if it was a contest to tell whom had been in the worst conditions. Cherry-Garrard tells of people who claim to have been in negative fifty-degree temps but yet had nice dry cloths, plenty of sleep, and air mats to sleep on and those people remember the ordeal like it was nice. He suggests that there is no way to have any of those comforts in weather like that. A pleasant negative thirty-degree day is almost proof that Darwin’s theories should be law. It takes a slow grueling process to condition a man to think of that kind of weather to be “pleasant”. Often times the worst possible conditions will illicit silence from the people having overcome it and lived to talk. From personal experience as I talked a little in class about my cold weather and uncomfortable settings serving in the US Army’s Operation Joint Endeavor-Bosnia Hertz Covina, cold weather operations are a slow Darwinian adaptation that I have no problem talking about, but negative five temps dwarf negative seventies.

       Hope and fear are a couple words I can think of that drive the human psyche to stay alive. Barbara Sharp from the 2002 class asserts that bringing fear to the reader keeps him/her interested; otherwise Pym would be rather boring. I know personally I would have been very uninterested in these stories if there would not have been people dying. Sounds pathetic but hey bad news has a greater effect on humans than good news. I couldn’t stop flipping the pages not knowing if people in the Ice stories would eventually result to cannibalism. Especially when the characters eat everything around them I kept telling myself ‘who is going to be the first to get fricasseed”.  In the Scott’s journals as well as Pym people just gave up and thus died. Darwin would say these individuals are simply weak not to hang on. Sounds mighty harsh but so is nature and often times very unforgiving. In contrast, the characters of Pym biggest fears were being eaten by sharks not being frozen essentially by your own bodily fluids (sweat can kill).

       Adaptation for survival is explained in detail in chapter three of Darwin’s highly acclaimed book “Origin of the species”. In polar explorations having fleshy feet is not what you want. A heavily callused foot comes from miles and miles of walking and feet being constantly frozen and then thawed out. “The structure of every organic being is related, in the most essential yet often hidden manner, to that of all other organic beings, with which it comes into competition for food or residence, or from which it has to escape, or which it preys”. In David Brainard’s “Six came back” this struggle for survival and food takes a turn for the worst and had a terrible end for a young private who was caught time after time stealing rations. A little oil here and shrimp there may have temporarily healed his hunger but brought about great demise for the young lad. In the end orders were given to shoot the private dead because it was apparent he wasn’t going to stop and the greater good of the company was at hand. That same tale as well as other brought about out this notion of adaptation because crews often ate anything that was devourable including their own leather shoes, sleeping bags, and certain soft palatable rocks found on the ground. Eating rocks and other things otherwise uneatable shows an adaptation of the human stomach and digestive track to be able to change under the circumstances.

       In conclusion looking at Darwin’s theories and relating them to these horrific accounts brings chills to my spine and also joy to know that humanity is safe from the dangers this earth’s surface can offer. Looking at the all these tales, all that suffering and death was for the enjoyment of discovery. There were no deadlines or reasons these people had to make these trips. Just goes to show you that humans can and will continue to go out of their way to search the perils of this earth and struggle to survive and find every resource.