Tutor profile: Isabella P.

Why is it so important for humans to have emotions (as much as we may not want them)?

From an evolutionary perspective, emotions help us react to important challenges in the environment. Without a fear response, our minds and bodies wouldn't be prepared to fight or flight from threatening stimuli, and humans might have died out from being eaten by larger prey. Dodo birds, for example, didn't have a fear response center in their brains and did not run away or fight when being preyed upon by humans. Thus, the dodo bird species quickly died out after being discovered by humans because they didn't detect danger.

What is a bicameral legislature and why was it written into the US Constitution?

A bicameral legislature is a law-making unit with two separate assemblies. In the U.S. Congress, these two assemblies are the Senate and the House of Representatives. These two divisions were created to balance the difference in size and population of the states. Therefore, the Senate consists of 2 members of each state (100 Senators for 50 states), which gives equal representation to each state. The House of Representatives, meanwhile, reflects the size and population of each state; states are divided into equal districts, and one Representative for each district. California has 55 Representatives for its 55 districts, while a smaller and less populated such as Rhode Island only has 2 Representatives for its 2 districts. This structure allows for checks and balances within the legislation that is equal for all states.

Do we perceive the world as it truly is?

Not really! There is a whole lot going on in the objective environment that our perceptual systems can't truly determine. Luckily, evolutionary pressures helped us (humans) evolve a network of built-in systems that allow us to make inferences about our environment for easier navigation of the world