Do we determine our environment more than our environment determines

[Loren Booda]

Do we determine our environment more than our environment determines us?

 

[Eddbio]

There is evidence that different human mating strategies around the world are affected by the environment; polyandry, monogamy, polygamy, polygyny and polygynandry (Can you say it without sounding drunk?). Also promiscuity. They can be determined by the harshness of the land. But it is also a cultural thing. As these types of strategies can be designed to keep or accumulate land in the familly.

It is very circular. As we live in our evironment we influence it and in turn are influenced by it. I am thinking of the theory of the bacteria that once breathed CO2 and passed out o2 as a waste product until the atmostphere was changed to the oxygen rich one it is today.
I think most certainly we determine it more and more as our technology and population centres grow. A city is basically a human built environment. Perhaps we will end up like the bacteria and have to evolve to suit the world we have changed.

 

[Xnn]

Humans first evolved around 2.5 millions years ago, about the same time that Earth's climate became more chaotic. Previous to this, there was a time span of about 500,000 years during which human evolution had stalled. Intelligence may have provided a decisive advantage in a changing world. After all, humans are now able to adapt to more climates than any other species.

It may be a threat to humans' long-term future on the planet, but climate change may have helped bring us into being in the first place, some scientists say.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/02/0202_060202_evolution.html

and

Marine-core records show that a cooler, drier, and more variable global climate regime began about 3.0 million years ago (Ma), gradually intensifying into northern continental glacial cycles by 1.0 Ma. The climate shift between ~3.0 and 2.5 Ma thus marks the onset of Northern Hemisphere glaciation, and this coincides generally with the timing of the origin of the genus Homo.

http://scienceweek.com/2006/sw060217-4.htm