he artist Leonardo da
Mona Lisa, produced a drawing called the
Vitruvian Man. In it, da Vinci depicted his idea of the perfectly sized and proportioned male body. But is this really what a perfect body looks like? And if it's perfect, does that make every other type of body flawed?
Or maybe those are the wrong questions and the idea of a
"perfect" body is actually what's flawed.
An Imperfect Man
Consider Michael Phelps. The winningest swimmer of all time,
Phelps earned 28 Olympic medals. His body does not look like the Vitruvian Man. In fact, Phelps' body is quite unusual. The best swimmers tend to have long torsos and short legs.
Phelps is 6 feet 4 inches, but his torso is as long as what you would expect to see in a man who is 6 feet 8 inches tall. His legs are the length typical of a man who is 5 feet 10 inches. Phelps has long arms too. Like the Vitruvian Man, most people have a wingspan roughly the same as their height.
Phelps' wingspan is 6 feet 7 inches, three inches longer than his height.
His ankles are (reportedly) double jointed, and thus extremely flexible.
And his feet are big--he wears size 14 shoes. So Phelps' legs act like flippers
when ne swims
No one could argue that Phelps has a perfect body in da Vinci's sense. But is it correct to say it is imperfect? What does
"perfection" mean when we are talking about human biology?
Does it even exist?
What Is Physical
Perfection?
Maybe perfection has more to do with how a body works than how it looks. How we function actually depends upon how well we fit into our environment.
Heres an example from
the animal kingdom. Imagine a population of brown rabbits and white rabbits in a snowy field. Under these conditions, predators are less likely to see and catch the white rabbits. In a summertime field--all brown soil and green and golden plants--white rabbits are more visible and easier to catch. Neither white nor brown fur is perfect for rabbit survival. Rabbits need different
How the author distinguished their position from position. Explain what you have learned from thinking about the different positions. Give examples from text
The author distinguishes their position from the idea of a perfect body by questioning whether the concept of a "perfect" body is flawed itself. They argue that perfection may have more to do with how a body functions rather than how it looks. The author uses the example of Michael Phelps, who has a unique body structure that differs from the traditional notion of a perfectly proportioned body. However, the author questions whether it is correct to label Phelps' body as imperfect. They suggest that perfection should be defined by how well a body fits into its environment and fulfills its functional purpose.
From thinking about the different positions, I have learned that there are multiple perspectives on what constitutes a perfect body. While da Vinci's Vitruvian Man represents one idealized standard, Phelps' body challenges that notion and raises the question of whether perfection can be solely based on appearance. It highlights the importance of considering a body's functionality and how it adapts to its surroundings. The example of rabbits in different environments further emphasizes that different traits may be advantageous or disadvantageous depending on the specific context.