CSS Forums - Environmental Determinism: Geography II

[B][SIZE="5"]Environmental Determinism[/SIZE][/B]
[SIZE="3"]Environmental Determinism, also known as climatic determinism or geographical determinism is the view that the physical environment, rather than social conditions, determines culture.
Those who beleive this view say that humans are strictly defined by stimulus-response (environmental-behaviour) and cannot deviate. The fundamental argument of the environmental determinists was that aspects of physical geography, perticularly climate, influence the psychological mindset of individuals, which in turned defined the behaviour and culture of the society that those individuals formed. For Example, tropical climates were said to cause laziness, relaxed attitudes and promiscuity, while the frequent variability in the weather of the middle latitudes led to more determined and driven work ethics. Because these environmental influences operate slowly on Human biology, it was important to trace the migrations of groups to see what environmental conditions they had evolved under.
key proponents of this notion have included Ellen Churchill sample, Ellsworth Huntington, Thomas Griffith Taylor and possibly Jared Diamond. Although Diamond's work does make connections between environmental and climatic conditions and societal development, it is published with the stated intention of disproving racist and Eurocratic theories of develoment.[/SIZE]

plz comment and place suggestion..whether it is enough for a short note or require more detail....