The Five Pods

The planet next door .. Poster courtesy of Wikipedia

FREAKY FRIDAY

After weeks of drought, we are being deluged with rain today. I’m surprised at how busy everything is. I had to fight for a parking place at Tom Thumb. We Dallasites rise to the challenge of inclement weather!

TO THE MOON

Today’s topic harks back to one of my first blog entries, Destination Moon. In that blog, a main suggestion was to use more robotic devices for a lot of the grunt work – remove the expense of manned shuttles. I still recommend that and have more to elaborate these 10 years later.

AND THE MOON FIRST

There are two Mars initiatives right now – a NASA manned mission for 2035 and a Dutch consortium aiming for a much more ambitious 2024 manned mission. Mars is an 8 month journey away.. Its thin air and arid surface are little more inviting than our moon. The moon is only 240,000 miles away from Earth – a hop and a skip. Were anything to go wrong with lunar supplies or setup, a correction could be on the way in a matter of hours. The moon is completely without air – its challenges are more extreme. All the better to have that be our exploratory playground. If we can conquer the moon, Mars should be a piece of cake with its CO2 atmosphere and water rivulets. Baby steps first – and the Moon is our perfect setting for that.

FIVE PODS

My idea for a lunar colony involves robotic delivery and assembly of piece parts before a human even arrives. The basic infrastructure of the colony is ready and waiting for humans to make it hum as an integral whole. Let me describe briefly the 5 basic “pods” that would need to be landed – these aren’t necessarily order of importance:

ENERGY POD – The energy pod would be either a solar or nuclear powered generator of electrical current to power and control just about everything else.

AIR POD – The air pod would contain copious breathable air in the same mixture as the Earth’s biosphere.

WATER POD – The water pod would contain fresh, drinkable water. The pod would be huge, like a water tower reservoir on Earth.

REQUISITIONS POD – This pod might be the most interesting.. It would contain food, clothes, medicine, building supplies, tools, and just about anything needed by the lunar inhabitants. Its contents would be air and temperature controlled to maintain earth-like quality.

RETURN FUEL POD – This pod, like the H2O pod, would be very large. It would contain thousands of gallons of rocket fuel (also temperature controlled), for return space journeys.

The pods would be robotically landed and assembled. Fuel and food would come last, when the receiving pods were tuned correctly. Obviously the colony would have many other things going on -- landing areas, transmission lines, dormitories etc. But these 5 initial pods would lay the groundwork for everything. The assembly could be done remotely from Texas or Florida. All systems would be “go” before any lives are at stake. Why would I have such elaborate fantasies about a space colony? Because I think we are at a juncture where it could really happen – such ventures might be undertaken for real. If a Mars Rover can take panoramic pictures and soil samples, a Lunar Robot could snap pre-fitted pods and pipes together. Let’s just do it in a logical order – Moon first, pods first. Humans, safely and comfortably, would come next.

© 2015 Snillor Productions

A Looking Glass Universe?

It came from Inner Space - Pic courtesy of Wikipedia

by Trebor Snillor

“You tear apart the baby’s rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived, could tear apart.” -- Francis Church, contributing editor of the New York Sun, 1897

Today’s topic is in the area of “weird science”. I’m neither a chemist nor a biologist so I’ll serve up these ideas as speculation. The reader can hurl it to the trash bin as necessary. 

Mainstream Christianity and “mainstream” atheism are uncivil enemies toward one another – the unkindest of adversaries. But they oddly share something in common. Both areas of thought tend towards reductionist thinking. The idea is that humans are the “summa” product of all creation – that anything smaller than us is merely a mindless constituent ingredient in our biological bill-of-materials. Darwinists and Christians are both egotistically infatuated with human-kind – just differing on how we got here.

Religion uses the sky as a metaphor to God – He and the angels reside in the Heavens. Atheism also looks to the sky.. Cosmic rays and solar radiation are thought to cause biological mutations to the DNA. The SETI projects looks skyward and beyond for intelligent life. Both ways of thinking share a similar “bigger is better” idea. Be it God or some ultimate scientific Truth – it looms much larger and higher than us.

Conversely, we look at small things with an odd sort of disdain. Cells, molecules, prions, atoms and even sub-atomic muons – are seen as mindless mechanistic wind-ups. They follow a rote, robotic ritual with no intelligent guidance. Much like a tether ball circling a school yard pole, electrons are seen as thoughtless orbs that obey some simple orbit. In fact, we may even conjecture a smallest particle or time slice – a simplicity that defies all simplicity.

I would like to suggest that we are looking in the wrong direction for anything of substance. The sky gives us nothing but the stellar byproducts of a formative event – gas clouds and nebulae that are lifeless in any way we think of life.

INSIDE JOB

I am proposing something else very different – intuitive on my part. I think we were created by a masterful intelligence but the act of creating was done entirely from the inside out. Something manipulated the bonding properties of atoms and molecules to build living systems – from inside the atoms themselves. The creative capacity here is mind-boggling, it would be like humans aligning stars by gravitational manipulation. There is also some implicit idea that whole civilizations or sub-universes could exist at a micro-molecular scale. “Absurd” you say.

REDUCTIO AD COMPLEXITY

There is much about our thinking that is arbitrary and even well, blinders-on. We know only an alphabet that starts with “A” not “Z”. A globe that would show Australia on top would be all wrong – primarily because of our concrete, conventional mindset. Humans are in a technological infancy.. Of all that is real and relevant we probably know about one tenth of one percent. We don’t know what causes aging or cancer. We don’t know the origin of life and we don’t really understand dark matter. This is not to denigrate science or philosophy – only to say that the journey has barely begun. We aren’t there yet, nor are we even close.

LOOKING GLASS UNIVERSE

Moving beyond the laws of mere physics or chemistry – is there some advanced sub-universe where people are thoughtful and today’s pressing problems have been solved?

There might very well be “somewhere over the rainbow” – a futuristic world where people treat each other decently and priorities are set right. But that rainbow is contained in a dew drop, a tiny smattering of nothingness that just happens to contain all of reality. We humans are lumbering giants full of pride, ego and pre-programmed fallacies. At some point we need to slow down and see what obviously is, even if it’s very small and not directly visible.

© 2014 Snillor Productions

Imagining Mars

Mars now - Pic courtesy of Wikipedia

by blogSpotter
Today’s blog entry will delve into “near-term” science fiction.. I speak of the colonization of the planet Mars. I figure that the human race has a few million years to hang around; maybe in that expanse of time we’ll decide to quit killing each other over religion and money. Maybe we’ll decide that territorial dominance, self-aggrandizement and ego expression are less noble than collective, forward endeavors.

We’ve already landed men on the moon, and rovers on Mars. I figure that humans dedicated to the task could colonize and even terraform the red planet if we so desired. It would probably have to be a multinational, consortium project due to the expense. I’d like to divide my conjectures into 3 groupings to help explore the possibilities: Infrastructure, planetary observations, sociopolitical ramifications.

Infrastructure
o Mars would need mega nuclear and solar power plants to juice up the following projects..
o An artificial magnetosphere would be needed to block cosmic rays.
o Aero engineering would be needed to create an artificial nitrogen/oxygen atmosphere.
o Atmosphere would be engineered with extra greenhouse gases to thicken and hold the air.
o Aqua engineering would be needed to import, tap or make water, which would be scarce.
o An elaborate network of tanks, pipes and sprinkling systems would be needed planetwide to provide water for agriculture and human consumption -- all needed for a planet devoid of rivers and lakes.

The Planet Afterwards
o Mars would have a desert climate and water would be recycled obsessively.
o Weather would be mild and pleasant -- it would largely be artificial. Rainfall and atmospheric changes would be as programmable as a shopping mall thermostat.
o Because Mars has no continental drift, and little tectonic activity there would be no mars quakes or tsunamis. There also would be no hurricanes or tornados.
o Martian days have an extra 45 minutes and the year is twice an Earth year … Mars would have to observe a new clock and calendar. Travelers would have a huge jet lag between planets. Mars might be more relaxed, with its lengthened day.
o Because water features (lakes, oceans, rivers) would be nonexistent, Mars would not have a self-sustaining water cycle. It might happen over eons of aqua engineering and planetary sculpting.
o What took 3 billion years of molecular evolution to happen on Earth would happen almost instantly on Mars in a mere thousand years.

Sociopolitical Implications
o Human settlers would play God more than any doctor ever did in a delivery room. Humans would decide where savannas, pine forests, tundras, farms and human settlements would go.
o Like Noah with his ark, humans would select which species of plants and animals to bring over -- zoologists would be in demand.
o The mother of all quarantine situations would exist - bacteria, plants, animals and humans considered to be undesirable on Earth would be sent on an 8 month return trip back to Earth.
o Mars might very well have a peaceful, one-world federation, a world without war.
o Extremist (terrorist, fundamentalist) religions would be nearly absent not necessarily because they are denied but because such countries of origin (in Africa and the Middle East) lack the resources to colonize space.
o Mars, which was lifeless before will now have the most advanced humans, technology and genetically engineered life forms found anywhere.

Mars is an excellent “training” planet in that it’s relatively close and Earth-like. As humans start to excel in Terraform Science we’ll tackle Venus, Europa and other more challenging locales. To be sure, humans will not be creating life -- we’ll merely be extending the intelligent life processes that are already at work here. With forethought and planning, we can create a garden planet where human and animal rights are respected. Biodiversity and environment will also be respected -- Mars’ near-term survival will require it.

Is this all a pipe dream? Of course it is, but I think we might rebuild the technical momentum we had in years before. Humans are in a holding pattern right now -- with materialism and cultural turf wars. If even one group can break free away from the myopic nastiness of “self” we can venture boldly forth into the final frontier.

© 2013 blogSpotter

Vertical Evolution

DaVinci's Vitruvian Man - Picture courtesy of Wikipedia

by blogSpotter
Who was Gordon Rattray Taylor? He was a little known British journalist who wrote on niche topics such as biotechnology and evolution. As he was dying of cancer in 1981, he put the finishing touches on his magnum opus, The Great Evolution Mystery. The book was a commercial dud when it was published in 1983, but has since been reevaluated and much more appreciated. Taylor doesn’t answer any long-standing questions, but in the book he asks several very worthy questions about evolution.

We have now, as in 1983, two prevailing paradigms to explain the origin of life. In the ivied towers of academia there is the theory of Natural Selection – it basically asserts that life has evolved from an accumulation of beneficial mutations in organic matter. Those mutations are random in nature and have happened over eons. Gordon Rattray Taylor pointed up some problems – particularly with organs of extreme perfection such as the human eye. Such complexity would be unlikely to happen from “happy accidents” – the delicate structure would require special timing and tuning. Taylor’s objections were embraced by the religious community who likened Taylor’s eye concept to the pious William Paley’s watch.

The (Christian) religious community itself believes that a super human intelligence created life in one great instance, in the Garden of Eden. The time is “backed in” by religious scholars using the genealogy of the Old Testament – anywhere from 6,000 BC to 4,000 BC. Even supposing some forbears lived to be 100, this date would be in glaring contradiction to modern geological data. 6,000 BC is recent in geological time and fairly standard techniques have established the earth itself to be nearly 5 billion years old. Life itself probably surfaced over 3 billion years ago. Taylor wasn’t devoutly religious nor was he trying to promote a particular faith – he didn’t adhere to the Bible genealogy idea. Taylor was accepting of basic earth and fossil facts … he just wanted to have all the evolutionary elements fall in place and make sense.


Taylor's book - cover and contents - Pictures courtesy of Secker and Warburg

Taylor was likely on to something. In chapters like “Puzzles and Plans” he notices that evolution seems to follow a winnowing, narrowing process which would almost imply intelligent selectivity. I would join Taylor in posing these kinds of questions. If we go with Darwin’s theory, we must inquire:

- Why have we observed no new species?
- Why have we observed no seriously, naturally mutated species?
- Why is there not one other species of animal that offers competition to humans?

Biology texts of the last 50 years love to point out an English moth which switched from white to black so its wings would be well-camouflaged against factory soot. Another text talked about a species of fish in Africa which changed the color of its scales. In both cases, we’re looking at a minor variation – probably the activation of a preexisting gene. Nowhere have we seen anything sprout horns or wings unexpectedly – unless via deliberate lab tinkering. With due respect to beavers who make dams and ants who build nests, no other species is a master architect. Chimps and gorillas, our closest natural relatives, live in primitive clans. They can poke ant hills with sticks and make grass beds.

WATCHING THE WATCHERS

Taylor suggested, but didn’t say outright, that there might be some other kind of force at work. I myself think that organized religion is partly right – there is a super human intelligence. However it is fallible and it works through evolutionary process. There was no grand concoction in the Garden of Eden.

Here are some speculative answers to the questions above. Let me emphasize that these are my own ideas and not Taylor's…

- Humans are the last major new species. Evolution is intelligently driven and doesn’t reinvent the wheel.
- There are many amazing new mutations – but they are subtle and they happen almost entirely in humans. The greatest debates about physical design have already been won and lost – most mutations are to the soft brain tissue of humans. They are probably too minute for even the most advanced human geneticists or DNA experts to unravel.
- Evolution is efficient, selective and intelligently directed. Once a species has a major “design victory” the intelligence driving other species has some ability to realign itself with a “superior” animal. There is some type of dissociative and mobile property in the driving intelligence.

These ideas would probably be disturbing to conventional theists in several ways. Humans are still "superior" by way of evolutionary selection, but the process isn't as tidy as one would like. We actually are derived from animals and the distinction between adjacent species is murky, somewhat clouded. There is an uncomfortable nearness, even overlap with creatures we'd just as soon consign to a zoo.

This idea might also open other cans of worms – are some human subspecies “selected” over others and if so, which ones. What would be the criteria or the signs to see? We live in a world rife with clues – clues planted by a fallible super (but not supernatural) intelligence. There are biological signs all over the place – the truth is immutably there with much of it spelled out in our DNA and other parts spelled out in rich fossil deposits. If we can get past our own self-centered concerns and petty materialism, we can crack these biological riddles once and for all. In the meantime, we can give credit to Gordon Rattray Taylor for asking the right questions.

© 2011 blogSpotter

The Three Earths

It started with three... -- Picture courtesy of Wikipedia

by blogSpotter
Today’s topic is admittedly weird and out there; I haven’t done a topic like this in a while. Jackson Browne sings of the place “where the road and the sky collide”. I’ll be talking about a place where science and religion collide, and maybe that’s what Jackson was getting at (although probably not -- the lyrics almost sound apropos).

I’ve spoken in previous blogs about my speculations that there is a God who is both fallible and finite. If you go back and look at some of my previous blogs, you’ll see the overall bent. See these blog entries of mine: God Talk, Amazing Blue Marble, Delusional About God or Apostate Scientist. In accordance with Christian tradition (and to save space) I use the masculine, singular pronoun “he” in referring to God. I could just as sensibly and easily say “she” or “they”. I occupy an almost solitary niche -- most people are either academic atheists or believers in an Abrahamic “mono-” God who is all-knowing and all-powerful. I think both extremes are poor models -- they don’t correlate to the world that actually is.

My God concept is that of a Finite, Intelligent Force (FIF). This FIF is infinitely more interesting than the empty vessel that is random mutations (atheism) or the self-contradictions of an all-powerful God who makes phenomenal mistakes and has to share power with a presumed devil.

FIF is …
Fallible
Finite in his physical dimensions
Striving toward good though sometimes falling short of the mark (like us)
Co-located with his creations

Now, why did I have to lay so much theological foundation to a planetary topic? Because my readers, no science topic is stand-alone. Astronomy ties to physics which bleeds into chemistry which seeps into biology which absolutely is imbued with philosophy and yes -- theology. It’s all a brew that works together. My thesis is that our solar system itself was intelligently created by FIF (See FIF definition above).

At the inception of our solar system, FIF, being both fallible and pragmatic, created 3 potential Earths -- Venus, Earth and Mars. FIF had a measure of deterministic control over the path each would take, but (like fallible humans) wished to hedge its bets with three trials. Anyone of these planets could’ve been made to spawn life but FIF chose a path of less time and work (obviously that being Earth). Let’s look briefly at our two sister planets, the runners-up.

VENUS

Venus takes an entire year to rotate on its axis -- it has no moon. The planet is furnace-hot with incredible air pressure and toxic gases. Any life-harboring planet would have to be part of a binary planet system with a moon that creates tidal forces and diurnal life cycles. My speculation is that Mercury was an intended moon for Venus; unfortunately Mercury fell into the direct orbit of the Sun. FIF could’ve modified the spin and size of Mercury to keep it as a Venusian moon but that effort probably would’ve added billions of years to the advent of life. If there were no Earth or Mars, Venus would be the blue marble, but we might now just be entering the age where oceans are formed.

MARS

Mars actually has two moons -- Phobos and Deimos. It also resembles Earth with ice caps and even has a 24-hour diurnal cycle similar to the Earth. Mars is significantly smaller than Earth and would need a thicker atmosphere (actually more of the Venus greenhouse effect) to maintain anything like deep oceans and breathable air. Again, these are things that FIF could’ve handily brought to Mars but it would’ve added millions of years to the planetary evolution. If there had been no Earth or Venus, Mars would be the blue marble but we would just now be entering something like the Devonian era (vertebrate fish).

In point of fact FIF could probably create life anywhere -- even Jupiter, Pluto or empty space. But FIF is more like us than we want to admit. FIF is probably bound by time and resource considerations. FIF might even be characterized by impatience (not unlike us). Where could all the needed life ingredients be brought together, to create life in the most efficient, least laborious way? Planet Earth was the chosen locale, with it’s substantial mass and reliable moon. Now, a fruitful omnipotent God might have given life to every planet there is-- that didn’t happen. A colliding-molecules atheist universe wouldn’t have even spawned proteins or prions much less humans. FIF serves as a better explanation for both life’s origins and life as we see it today.

In a few million years humans will probably overrun the solar system with life on every surface even remotely subject to colonization. FIF will finish its work with its own FIF-like creations -- that being the human race.


© 2010 blogSpotter

Apostate Scientist

The man who said too much -- Picture courtesy of Wikipedia

by blogSpotter
Who was Fred Hoyle? He was a noted English Astronomer (member of Royal Astronomy Society), known primarily for his theories of stellar nucleosynthesis. He passed away in 2001, at age 86, and his presence is still felt. His presence is felt not so much for his ideas on stellar processes as for the firestorm created by his "alternative" cosmology. Hoyle stirred the pot by suggesting that there was a fallible intelligence responsible for Evolution, thereby putting himself front and center as an "apostate" scientist. Before further elaborating about Hoyle’s ideas, let's mention the two religious philosophies that basically have dominated western society in the 20th and early 21st centuries:

1) “Abrahamic” religions -- Judaism, Islam and Christianity. These religions postulate an all-powerful, perfect God; they feature messianic figures (speculative or realized) and each claims to be a "one true" religion based on an embrace of faith. All three believe that God has some type of implied power-sharing arrangement with Satan.

2) Darwinism -- Darwin's theory basically asserts that random molecular mutations can recombine enough to yield an intelligent, fit animal. The combinatoric requirements for this to happen (even across 15 billion years) are staggering. It's a leap of faith to think even an amoeba could happen this way much less a cat or a bat. Thusly in my book, Darwinism gets cast as a great world quasi-religion. It's based on an article of faith as flimsy as any religious mythology.

In this breakdown, I'm omitting quite a few other things -- Hare Krishna, Scientology etc. In the Western scientific community, most university professors holding any sway fall into one of the two "majors" I've listed above. Fred Hoyle is noteworthy because he stepped very pointedly aside from either group -- he proposed that there is a God, in fact a tangible one. He suggested a fumble-bum, engineering God who can make mistakes. Rather than a Devil, per se, he speculated that this fallible intelligence might be periodically divided or at cross-purposes to itself.

He famously likened Darwin's theory to a wind blowing thru a scrap yard and accidentally assembling a Boeing 747, thereby incurring the wrath of devout Darwinians everywhere. By the same turn, Christian creationists loved that a Royal Astronomer was debunking Darwin's idea. They did (and still do) haul out Hoyle to explain their own fanciful idea of humans cavorting with dinosaurs. They promptly will place Hoyle back in the closet when it looks like they might be embarrassed by his "fallible God" stuff -- no need to go overboard on it. Where Christians see Hoyle as a boon to their debate, mainstream Darwinists have been very incensed -- science author Robert Shapiro even suggested that Hoyle was insane. It's interesting that people from opposite camps are so excited (one way or the other) by Mr. Hoyle.

I like Hoyle's approach -- it's fairly consistent with what we see around us. Am I in total agreement? Of course not. Hoyle basically advocates panspermia, where biotic material falls to the Earth's surface by some kind of intelligent direction. Would this be from solar wind, comets or something else? The panspermia theory doesn't answer the origin of intelligence, it just changes the setting from Earth to space. So where did space intelligence come from? I don't care for his panspermia "mechanism" but what I like about Hoyle is the idea that theism doesn't require belief in supernatural phenomena, miracles or any suspension of scientific method. Do I foresee anytime down the road that Hoyle will be embraced as a great sage? No, I don’t. Hoyle is an apostate to both the major religious movements mentioned above. He presents the idea of a God who might be traceable, knowable and even subject to study. It's blasphemy I tell you. And blasphemy that provokes dangerously tenable ideas.

© 2008 blogSpotter

Fermi Revisited

Enrico Fermi, a man of many thoughts -- Picture courtesy of Wikipedia

by blogSpotter
I haven't written a blog that was really "out there" for a while, so I thought I'd broach a science topic. This one is a little past mixed with future.

Enrico Fermi was a Nobel Prize winning Italian physicist who worked on the Manhattan Project. He was a brilliant quantum theorist; he immigrated to New York in the late 1930's due to the rise of Mussolini and threats against academic freedom. Also his wife was Jewish and they feared for the whole family's safety. In America, he made many great contributions -- Time magazine ranked him as one of the 20 greatest scientists in the 20th century. Tragically, Fermi died at 53 from stomach cancer contracted in experiments with radio active material. One of Fermi's most celebrated contributions is more in the domain of pop culture than hard science. In 1950, Fermi originated "Fermi's Paradox" -- a speculation about other intelligent life in the universe.

FERMI'S PARADOX

Basically it says, "Why aren't they here". Fermi postulates that if intelligent life was a natural, random occurrence anywhere in the universe there surely would've been other planets that preceded us in establishing advanced civilization. These advanced civilizations would surely have developed interstellar space flight; even with current speed/technology limitations it seems we would've seen their spaceships cavorting around us. But we haven't. Why not? Various naysayers have challenged Fermi's assumptions. Maybe they exist in a different "fold" of space-time, maybe they don't look like anything familiar, etc. In spite of others' objections I think Fermi had a point, and I could embellish it with my own speculation.

BLOGSPOTTER'S PARADOX

An advanced civilization (let's say, 1 million years advanced beyond us) would probably not limit itself to interstellar flight. It would probably engage in planetary engineering whereby whole solar systems could be manipulated, even manufactured for the service of intelligent life. We would not only see their space ships flying by, we'd see their artificial, macro-planetary structures through telescopes. Much as putative Martians could infer earth intelligence based on buildings, highways and power lines, we could infer a distant intelligence based on symmetrically aligned planets, non-spheroid objects and other evidence of intelligent tinkering. But ... we don't see any of that. At best, we've seen a couple of planets circling distant stars in what might be a "life belt". But we have no real evidence, no stirrings of life in any of these places.

THEY'RE ALREADY HERE

BlogSpotter will put forth another speculation and this one is really out there. It's more to kick around and abuse than really take as a concrete idea:

The Earth itself is a portal for intelligence (all intelligence) within the universe. Somehow, any creature which achieves a certain level of organization and self-awareness finds itself here. Thus you have creatures that look alien right here among us -- insects in particular. Viruses, bacteria any manner of biotic entities -- end up in Earth's bionosphere. The idea is that planet Earth is somehow a collection point, maybe a sought-after destination for sentient beings. The obstacles of space and time might be overcome by a sci-fi contrivance, maybe a worm hole. I have not a shred of proof for any of this, but it would be the making of a good sci-fi story.

In all seriousness, it looks like Earth is the only planet where life is happening. Maybe it is a gateway, a portal of sorts and we have yet to figure out why. I do think there are other possibilities. Some Fermi critics said, "Maybe you're not looking for the right sign -- your criteria is too limited". There is some merit to that. I can close by saying "Something's afoot" but I have the humility to say I don't know what, how or why. I'm not going to make up a story or concoct a religion to explain any of it, unless there are royalties involved. :-)

© 2008 blogSpotter

Tomorrow Started?

Has it happened before? -- Picture courtesy of Wikipedia

by blogSpotter

I’m sitting in the North Park Starbucks on a Friday day off. Am amazed at the number of working age people (no students, no retirees) who are here. How do you join that elite group outside of being self-employed or unemployed? Earlier, an entire middle school class was herded into the AMC Theaters for some kind of Earth Day movie. My teachers never took me to a fun shopping mall for a field trip. I got to see an electricity plant and a computer parts factory – they suffer in the comparison to North Park which offers Abercrombie and Mrs. Fields Cookies.

None of this has to do with today’s title, “Tomorrow Started” -- a 1980’s new wave song title by the group Talk Talk that has always intrigued me. The album featuring that song, It’s My Life, has cover art that shows puzzle pieces with various animals falling out of the sky. What to make of all that? Maybe it does nothing other than provoke the thoughts of an over-caffeinated blog writer. 

Has tomorrow already started? Or does time flow relentlessly from past to future? There are some interesting aspects to the question. Some physicists claim that if you were incredibly small and could enter a black hole, you could go back in time. At 200 earth pounds, I’m too big for this earth scale much less that scale. According to Einsteinian physics, space and time are on some kind of continuum – perhaps manageable by some technological genius. 

A favorite argument against time travel is that we’d be seeing visitors from the future gallivanting around earth as tourists visiting the early 21st century. While here, you think they might also impart the cure to cancer, or an effective design for a nuclear –powered automobile. But nay, we only see our humdrum present with its humdrum possibilities. There is one loose thread here … the visitor might satisfy the above-mentioned criterion – small enough to enter a black hole. Thus it’s here, but so incredibly tiny that we fail to see it. For that matter it might need some incredible telescopic powers to see us.

Does intelligent complexity necessitate a particular size, scale or dimension? As anthro-centric humans, we fairly assume that an intelligent being would be made of organic molecules, be our scale of size and have a DNA blueprint. We are certainly an example where that’s the case, but are we proof that it’s always the case? I’ve never followed Star Trek episodes, but I know they must’ve covered this. 

I’m skipping the refill here at Starbucks. I’m too shaken up by the possibilities. There’s a chance, however small and beyond bizarre that Talk Talk is on to something…. Tomorrow Started. It might also mean that yesterday is approaching. Let’s try not to think about that too much, unless we can choose which yesterdays to relive.

© 2008 blogSpotter

A Roadmap for Primates?

An olive baboon contemplates the importance of being a primate -- Picture courtesy of Wikipedia

by blogSpotter
Candidate Mike Huckabee was recently quoted saying "if you want to believe you came from a primate, that's your business". The irony here is that humans are primates. We are in the same lineage as lemurs, monkeys and apes. What features do we share with other primates? Here is a short list:

• five fingers on each hand
• generalized dental pattern
• primitive (unspecialized) body plan
• opposing thumbs
• forward-facing color binocular vision
• adaptive to many environments; not overly specialized, omnivorous
• nonaggressive physical build (no fangs, claws or hulking muscles)

The primate's "primitive" body type is what made him the master over other animals. The primate's hands were never transformed into flippers or hooves. Some mammals sacrificed their front limbs for use in locomotion. Carnivorous mammals developed dagger-like teeth and sharp talons for bringing down prey. Primates maintained their hands for multi-purpose tinkering, and their fore limbs were never sacrificed to a single-minded purpose. Oddly, two lowly non-primates, squirrels and opossums, have a survival advantage over more sophisticated creatures like horses and dolphins. Their advantage is from having digits that can grasp, like those of a primate.

What does any of this matter? It has philosophical and theological implications for the amateur naturalist such as me. Neo-Darwinists loathe believing that Evolution moves in any direction, much less in a progressive way towards an 'end game'. The pattern of Evolution suggests that there truly is a direction. Look at our taxonomical system: kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, and species. Starting from species and working backward, each stratum's most recent entry is further and further into the remote past. Humans (a 'new' species) date back @ 2 million years and a new order probably hasn't occurred in tens of millions of years.

Many religions including Christianity detest believing that humans came from apes. The fossil evidence is overwhelming that we did come from apes and it doesn't particularly bother me to think we evolved that way. In your mother's womb, you progress from a zygote, to a fish-looking embryo, to a squalling newborn. That progression is more dramatic than ape evolution and it happens before our very eyes.

ON BECOMING A NON-PRIMATE

What bothers me is not the idea of 'evolution with purpose' or proximity to apes. What stokes my curiosity is how animals with which we share ancestry branched away from us at some point in time. Dogs and humans probably share an ancestor with a primitive "prosimian" mammal. Humans even share an ancestor with snakes if you travel as far back as the age of salamanders. But at critical junctures, some species forsook the very features that made them potential primates. A lizard mutant lost its legs to become a snake. A prosimian traded hands for paws. It's all neither here nor there you say -- water over the dam.

Let's move the clock forward to more recent evolution. Baboons are a large, successful breed of monkeys -- they rival apes in their intelligence, dexterity and social structure. But the baboon has a dog-like snout, canine teeth and even a bark of sorts. It's also comparatively aggressive. Gorillas are also a very recent evolution. The silverback male can tear a man from limb to limb if so inclined. What strikes me with these two examples is that they violate the "nonaggressive" criteria laid out above. It's as if the primate features serve as a sort of guideline, and straying far in any direction condemns a species to “animalhood”.

Could it be that the “lost souls” of religious stories are not figures burning in Hell, but instead they are the animals that we have as pets and livestock? If Evolution is continuing along this track, there are probably human subspecies that risk spinning away from the primate evolutionary roadmap. Humans have added verbal aggression and lying to the “fangs and claws” listed above as non-primate qualities. Lawyers and car salesmen come to mind. There are also humans who tend toward overspecialization in particular areas (avid swimmers?) or particular diets (vegans?) or particular trades. Could it be that the winnowing process continues its selection based on the primate roadmap?

THE AVATAR

My guess is that the winnowing process is still at work. In describing it, one has to be careful not to slip into the quicksand pit of racism or eugenics – I’m hoping to steer clear of that. My conjecture is that Evolution will continue to refine and define what is to become the “ultimate human”. This process might work in conjunction with man’s own technological achievements. Possibly at a time when man is nearly immortal and no longer even needs to reproduce, the ultimate human will arrive. It won’t be a race or subspecies but precisely one person. In Scott Adam’s “Dilbert Principle” he describes the concept of an Avatar – one wise, knowing man. I’m conjuring to mind a very similar thing.

Religions have this concept particularly in the idea of a Messiah. However the Avatar will most likely be a person with modest mannerisms – not any type of public, bombastic or bragging individual (primate principles, remember). This person will keep his special designation to himself, assuming that he has any outright awareness of it.

AND IN CONCLUSION…

We live in a strange world where religion and science are at irresolvable loggerheads with each other. It’s unlikely that any religion will be proven to be ‘the real’ one. Equally unlikely is that scientists will convince believers that Evolution really occurred. Theists will never convince agnostic scientists that any type of God exists. What is more likely is that each group will go confidently and serenely about its business, tuning out anyone who disagrees. And that one who possesses an ultimate Truth will go quietly about his or her business – making no waves for people who have already decided what the case must be.

© 2007 blogSpotter

If You're Happy and You Know It ...

Take one tablet daily... -- Picture courtesy of Wikipedia

by blogSpotter
I've always found it interesting to gauge and compare the levels of happiness I see in other adults. Happiness is an abstract idea; I'm sure that some people can project joy when they hide an inner sadness. Still others may grimace and complain but actually have inner contentment. On the whole, I can tell these cases and most people are not such good actors. For the sake of simplicity, I'll describe three states of happiness:

1) Clinical Depression -- You feel sad and hopeless. Nothing brings you joy and you have nothing to look forward to. Appetites are diminished and energy is low. People who are clinically depressed may have trouble with the simplest tasks -- grooming, preparing breakfast, driving a car. The condition is so extreme that the clinically depressed will seek out medical help if they don't lapse into drug or alcohol abuse.

2) "Normal" -- Most people are on this even keel. You have a realistic understanding of life's problems and down moments, but it is countered with optimism, energy and self motivation. The "normal" person will not be giddy or ecstatic most of the time, but will allow himself a daily chuckle and will smile periodically. This person is under no delusions about self-importance or the ease life's immediate pressures, but has a basic positivity that carries him forward.

3) "Manic" -- This person is bouncy, jovial and always smiling or cracking jokes. They appear never to be down or sad. They may be truly manic and starting new projects, spending big sums of money or taking center stage. There may be a heavy dose of ego in such people; when they aren't clinically manic they frequently are leaders of society. Their glass is half full and soon to be overflowing. One manager at my company must fall into this category. I never see him that he isn't grinning from ear to ear. "Hi! How ARE ya??" He's glowing and happy just getting on the elevator at 7:55AM.

About 11% of women and 5% of men fall into category 1 (clinical depression). They might start out seeking common ways to chase the blues away : religion, music, cognitive therapy, etc. For "normal" people experiencing a temporary low, these forms of therapy might fill the bill. But the clinically depressed person needs in-patient therapy and physical evaluation -- there could be a chemical basis for long-lasting and often irrational feelings of despair. Antidepressant medications can come to the rescue for such people.

Antidepressants you say? Yes; this category of medication is in its relative infancy. Until the 1950's Saint John's Wort and opium were the only known antidepressants. One was largely ineffective and the other was addictive. Then in 1952 Jean-Francois Buisson in France discovered that isoniazid, a tuberculosis medicine had some antidepressant effect. Shortly thereafter, scientists researching anti-shock drugs discovered that tricyclic compounds could also alleviate depression. Imipramine became the first commercial product from this study. Unfortunately, this first generation of antidepressants had serious side effects -- dry mouth, blurry vision and fatigue among other things. There was a three-decade "Dark Age" where these were the only types of medications available for clinical depression. In the late 1980's, Prozac was introduced by the Eli Lilly Company. This new class of drugs was termed SSRI (Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitor); it worked in ways far more subtle and with way fewer side effects. SSRI's have been so popular that the "normies" who aren't even clinically depressed have stocked them in case of blue moods. Prozac was blamed early on for some patient suicides but the connection was never proved -- clinically depressed people are more likely to commit suicide. Zoloft, Wellbutrin and some other variations have since joined the Prozac family.

Where does that leave us now? In a better place by and large. Must say, when I do see the naturally manic person, I want to deck him. God has given him the ultimate SSRI -- he can strut thru life confidently, with no problems to speak of. I can tell you how it is from here in the light gray zone. If I won the lottery, I'd still play the blues pretty frequently. There is no rhyme, reason or logic to it -- some of us were just destined to hear the blue notes and that's all there is to it. Can I groom myself, prepare breakfast or laugh at a joke? Absolutely. Am I overflowing with ebullient cheer at 8AM on a work day? Absolutely not. Does that make me precisely "happy" or "unhappy"? Well those adjectives are gross simplifications for one's basic outlook. We're frequently some of one and a shake of the other, simultaneously. I'll say that I have a sense of happiness that's tempered by a sober reality. Considering some of the alternatives, I'll go with that.

© 2007 blogSpotter

Delusional About God?

Who do we blame for life? -- Picture courtesy Bantam Books

by blogSpotter
I'm listening to Richard Dawkins' book, The God Delusion. Dawkins is a well-known British science professor best know for his strident atheism; two of his other best-sellers are The Selfish Gene and The Blind Watchmaker. Much of his book targets organized religion rather than God per se. He describes the God of the Old Testament as a "sadomasochistic, capricious malevolent bully". He lambastes the Gospels of the New Testament, saying that Matthew, Mark, Luke and John were cherry-picked from eight other Gospels that had their facts provably wrong. Dawkins says that the four Gospels chosen are inconsistent about such things as the whereabouts of Joseph and Mary. (Were they in Nazareth, going to Nazareth, why did they have to go to Bethlehem?) He says the translations from Aramaic are fraught with serious translation problems. The word for "virgin" also means "young lady". The word "carpenter" can also mean "learned man". And so forth ... I myself am not a fan of organized religion, so much of the critique made sense although it might be a bit on the nasty side.

Now Dawkins seems to be upset with scientists such as Michael Faraday or Fred Hoyle who have some kind of God belief. Fred Hoyle is noted for saying that life evolving on Earth by Natural Selection is about as likely as a wind blowing though a scrap yard, assembling a Boeing 747. Dawkins says that Hoyle knows nothing about Natural Selection (NS) and that NS is anything but chance. He waves the term NS around describing it as "elegant" and "beautiful" but never says to anyone's satisfaction how the molecular mutations are anything but chance. There's no suggestion as to why a collection of molecules has a motivation to grow, mutate or do anything in particular. What I'd say of Darwin's Natural Selection is what I once heard said of New Jersey -- "There's no there there". Even if you tried to go with that theory, there is some type of implied intelligence in something that does the "selecting". Fred Hoyle was absolutely right and he doesn't have to be talking about anything as advanced as a cricket. A complex protein or virus would never happen purely by random molecular collisions. I submit that Neo-Darwinists are a delusional group unto themselves.

Dawkins' other main argument is that someone would have to design God. I have a reply of sorts. Can you imagine the intelligence it would take to create you, fallible though you are? It might not take someone infinitely intelligent to create your cerebral lobes, etc but it would take someone pretty damned smart. Let's set our own goal as being merely that smart -- not at all smart enough to create the Universe. Now -- once we have achieved that state of awareness I submit that you only have to be a tad smarter to understand what created the creator. We answer one question at a time, and then we come closer to answering the Ultimate Question whatever that may be.

A second delusional group are people who are willing to ignore a mountain of geophysical and fossil evidence to claim a literal embrace of the Bible. This same group claims an all-powerful, omniscient, supernatural God who is external to the Universe. They believe that God created us like play dough figures, all in a single, highly productive swoop. Now, there are some problems with that idea. If we were an original handicraft why did God give us vestigial organs? We have an appendix which is a remnant of a herbivorous ceccum. We have a coccyx (tailbone) which is a remnant of a monkey tail. We also have ear muscles no longer in use. Not only is there monkey business here, but God also made some big "fubars". The human anatomy is full of mistakes -- many of them related to our recent bipedal status. We have hip joints ill suited to bearing the weight of the trunk. It leads to hip degeneration and even femoral neck fractures. We have knees with inadequate tibial cartilage, leading to frequent knee problems. The female pelvis is too small for the human baby's head leading to frequent birth problems (probably due to rapid evolution of head size). If starting from scratch, wouldn't God have done it flawlessly? As a computer programmer, I'm well aware of putting Band-Aids on old systems to add on something new. Because of time and budget constraints, we programmers don't get to "start fresh". Humans look like the product of corporate evolution, not instant infallible creation. As H.L. Mencken said, it's obvious that life was designed by committee.

So, what kind of God are we left with? One that is finite, fallible and within the Universe. If that is so, why can't we see Him? It could be that this Intelligent Wumpus doesn't want to be found -- he could be victimized by his own clumsy creations. It could also be that he exists in a different scale or dimension that makes him invisible to us anyway (though nevertheless real). Is he a God of magic and supernatural abilities? No -- he is more likely a God of practical approaches, frugal with resources and gradual in his achievements -- very much like us, his creations. The "miracles" to behold are those that you already see -- highly complex, organized matter.

© 2007 blogSpotter

Forever Tuesday

Turning on and Tuning in -- Picture courtesy of Wikipedia

by blogSpotter
LSD will turn 70 next year. What is LSD? It's lysergic acid diethylamide. It was invented at Sandoz Laboratories in 1938 by a research chemist named Albert Hoffman (who just turned 100 last year). Hoffman was working with a rye fungus called ergot, looking for nothing more than a headache remedy. It wasn't until five years later, 1943, that Hoffman began to suspect the mind altering qualities of LSD by accidental ingestion. He then took a deliberate dosage of 250 micrograms to verify his suspicion. That was an enormous dose by current standards -- 25 micrograms is the "norm". LSD is very potent. Hoffman then took a famous bicycle ride in which he hallucinated that trees were melting. The next day, he awoke with a sense of expanded awareness and credited LSD with his newfound wisdom.

LSD quickly garnered attention for its mind-bending effects. Sandoz gave it freely to doctors studying schizophrenia (among others) and gave it the commercial name Delysid. As it grew in popularity, some doctors actually prescribed it for depression and anxiety. In 1961, Harvard psychology professor Timothy Leary received an LSD study grant. In one of his studies, he found that 83% of LSD users had profound, beautiful insights from their drug use. LSD became the "super muse" of the art and music community. Aldous Huxley, Allen Ginsberg and Anais Nin were among its users. People claimed to feel visionary and born again under its influence. The Beatles, the Doors and the Grateful Dead were among the multitude of musicians that turned on and tuned in. Oddly, some of the most beautiful music of the 20th century ("A Day in the Life", "Tuesday Afternoon") was probably LSD-influenced.

Alas, nothing good is forever. There had to be some kind of bummer to bring everyone back down and there was. LSD caused "bad trips" where people would experience pain or ghastly imagery. It was thought to cause permanent psychosis in some users and traumatic flashbacks in others. For these reasons, it was banned in the USA in October 1966. LSD took some other bad raps at about the same time. Both the Army and the CIA had been using LSD for mind control experiments (eg, Project MKULTRA). The subjects of the experiment were soldiers and citizens unaware that they were being used as guinea pigs. Such experiments were outlawed under the Ford Administration and laws of informed consent were later enacted.

And so, what is the status of LSD today? It is alive and well in the underground recreational drug market. It's frequently dispensed on blotter paper in tiny dosages of 20 to 30 micrograms. In 2006, the British Journal of Psychiatry actually suggested that LSD might be reevaluated for its medical use. Maybe after the passage of 40 years and the reduced hysteria, the drug could be tested in a more controlled fashion. I can't imagine what illness I might have, where the antidote gives me melting trees and time dilation. But what the hey -- I've had some killer head aches. What harm is a Salvador Dali world, if I can feel good again? But maybe we should refrain.

Speaking of refrains, I'm thinking of, "I read the news today Oh boy ...” LSD gave us some bad trips and some really good music. What to make of something that has such powers? The genie needs to stay in the bottle for now. When Sandoz comes out with a version that only makes us visionary or only sends us on a good trip -- then maybe we can let the genie back out of the bottle.

© 2007 blogSpotter

The Real Missing Link

A Therapsid from the early Triassic -- Picture courtesy of Wikipedia

by blogSpotter
In discussions of evolution, the "Missing Link" always refers to some ape-man that provides a mid-point from ape to human. This conjecture is hardly interesting to me, though it's interesting and controversial to people who don't believe in evolution. Ape DNA is 98% the same as humans, apes originate from the same geographic areas as early humans, and most of all they physically resemble humans. Apes have the same gestation as humans, 9 months, and they even can be trained to speak primitive language. My imagination doesn't have to take any gigantic leaps to see a chimpanzee-like animal turning into a human.

Now, there is a missing link in nature that I find pretty puzzling -- it has hardly been addressed. I call it the reptile-to-mammal connection. Between fish and salamander, we have lungfish. Between tree mouse and bat, we have a flying squirrel. We have almost continual evolutionary calling cards throughout much of the animal kingdom. But for some reason, between tree lizard (an advanced reptile), and opossum (a primitive marsupial) we have nothing. For this discussion, I'm regarding marsupials as primitive mammals. No living animal species represents a plausible bridge of these two. The Australian platypus lays eggs and has venom glands, but still is overwhelmingly mammal in its behavior and looks.

The systemic changes that took place toward evolution of mammals were monumental: 4-chamber heart, mammary glands, external ears, internal temperature regulation, fur, etc. It's interesting to conjecture how it came about. One has to figure -- at no point did a marsupial crawl out of an egg laid by a lizard. There was a geneticist, Richard Goldschmidt, who once made such a conjecture -- the "hopeful Monster" theory. It has never been observed in nature, and it was mostly dismissed by other scientists.

There is ample fossil evidence of mammal-like reptiles that existed early in the age of dinosaurs. They were called synapsids and therapsids. They truly looked half lizard, half mammal -- their legs were notably more elongated than a lizard's, under the trunk of the body like a mammal. They must have been somewhat successful because they diversified and their fossils are everywhere to be found. None of these species survived into modern times though some lasted into the Jurassic era. My own conjecture is that the full progression from therapsid to mammal happened very rapidly and in one specific locale. ("Rapid" in genetic terms might be a few thousand years). So rapid and restricted was the change, that the "promotion" to advanced features was wholly inclusive to a tiny population, and all animals in that population were "promoted". If it had happened over a longer time frame, there would have been population drift and surviving "cousin" species.

What a shame that we have no living clues, only fossils. Arguably the largest, coordinated macro-mutation accomplished by evolutionary process, and we have nothing but two end points to look at. That fact, along with the complete disappearance of dinosaurs (arguably another transitional advancement over reptiles) suggests some very interesting biological events took place throughout the pre-Cenozoic era. The therapsid and its immediate successors are the real missing links – not the ape man. Maybe someday we can reconstruct what happened in that pivotal moment of evolution.

© 2007 blogSpotter

HIV Mysteries

Do we have all the answers? -- Picture courtesy of Wikipedia

by blogSpotter
The AIDS disease was discovered in 1981, and the virus responsible was discovered by (depending who you believe) Montagnier in 1983 or Gallo in 1984. The disease has claimed 25 million lives since it's discovery in '81. One dissenter in the science community, Peter Duesberg, stirred things up 15 years ago when he claimed that HIV was merely a passenger virus and other cofactors were needed for someone with HIV to reach a disease state. Among his observations:

• There is no HIV-specific disease. All the HIV-associated illnesses are previously known and can have other causes.
• Long incubation -- a virus disease usually has a short incubation, showing symptoms in 8-24 hours. HIV supposedly can take 5-10 years to show symptoms.
• In typical viral disease, there is a high % loss of target cells; HIV only infects 1 in 500 T-cells.
• Viral disease is self-limiting within a few weeks; HIV is not.
• Viral disease follows a random path; HIV seems to infect specific groups

For all of Duesberg's analysis, he lost his funding from NIH and he was labeled a loony. Duesberg seems to think that HIV is only a “passenger” virus and has nothing to do with getting AIDS. It’s easy to see how people could interpret his idea as homophobic – “It’s all those gay guys doing crystal meth”. Giving him the benefit of the doubt on that, he raises some legitimate points about how HIV differs from other disease-causing retroviruses. Here are some more observations regarding the American (but not African) pandemic:

• HIV infection is almost unheard of in lesbians who don’t do IV drugs (regardless of safe sex practices).
• HIV infection is almost unheard of in heterosexual males who don’t do IV drugs (regardless of safe sex practices).
• HIV/AIDS has never become a disease of the general population. It seems like heterosexuals having unprotected sex would be at risk, but it’s never become epidemic with heterosexuals.
• (Data from Duesberg): Of hospital personnel who’ve seroconverted from accidental needle pricks, nary a one has progressed to AIDS.
• There are a growing number of people who have the virus and no symptoms whatever.

Duesberg attributes the African pandemic to malnutrition, and some misdiagnosis. HIV transmission is caused by sperm-to-blood or blood-to-blood contact – the ritual of female circumcision could easily pass the virus if unsanitary tools were used. From some of what we see here, the disease is hard to get and even then something needs to help it along. I myself know of several people who’ve passed away from HIV, but most were drug users at some point. What I’d like to find, to help prove or disprove Duesberg, is someone with full-blown AIDS who is non-hemophiliac, non-IV drug user and also someone who has always led a somewhat “Mormon” lifestyle – no cigarettes, alcohol, recreational drugs to speak of. (Before or after infection).

My general conclusion is that HIV is necessary, but I’m not at all convinced sufficient to cause disease. Maybe there has to be some other disease cofactor at work. Duesberg raises good questions, but I wouldn’t throw the baby out with the bathwater as he appears to do. HIV/AIDS does behave in ways very unusual and the medical community still has many questions to answer. If people can remain objective in their analysis, maybe we can come to the most meaningful answers.

© 2007 blogSpotter

Unintelligent Design

What Would Darwin Do? -- Picture courtesy Wikipedia

by blogSpotter
Bruce Chapman and John West are President and Associate Director, respectively at a policy think tank called the Discovery Institute. In today's Dallas Morning News, they question why Darwinists are afraid to debate them -- they are Intelligent Design proponents. I can probably help to shed some light on this, since I have followed an unusual path to my own enlightenment. First of all, let's settle some terms:

Evolution -- Noun. Means 'gradual change'. And that is all it means. It implies no reason why the change happened. People on both sides of the issue have muddied the debate by saying that evolution necessarily means Neo-Darwinist Evolution. It doesn't mean that unless you place the modifier 'Neo-Darwinist' in front of it. You can also have Intelligent Evolution. Example, you say? American automobiles have evolved over decades from the Model T to the Ford Fusion. The change has been mostly gradual, across about 110 years. If you look at junkyards across America, you'll see the fossil evidence of old cars. The 50's might be likened to the Age of Dinosaurs. What caused the change? Intelligent design of course. Teams of highly trained engineers from the nation's best schools designed these cars. Sometimes, as with the 1964 Ford Mustang, we had 'punctuated equilibria' or 'macro mutation' but more typically the changes were gradual and progressive.

God -- Noun. A Higher Power, a superior intelligence. That is all. It doesn't say Jesus. It doesn't say Christian God. Just an unspecified superior intelligence.

Creation -- Noun. Act of creating. It doesn't say when or where or how. It doesn't say Garden of Eden. It just implies that something was created. That could be gradual, over time. It could be the work of many, and it could be the work of a fallible intelligence.

People such as the Creation Science Institute always frame this as a debate between atheists and Christians. Nothing could be sillier or more off-base. No wonder Darwinists don't want to join the debate. They don't want to cede even an inch over to rabid proponents of a particular faith. When I was about 26, I myself determined that there must be a higher power. Prior to that, I was a Darwinian atheist. My epiphany was not a Christian awakening -- it wasn't even connected to any organized religion. Mine was more a logical progression using even some of the logic of Intelligent Design enthusiasts. The likelihood of even advanced proteins happening accidentally is nil.

Until the debate is framed correctly, and the proponents of Intelligent Design can firmly disassociate themselves from witnessing for a particular religion, there will be no meaningful debate. Admittedly, I occupy an almost solitary niche -- the God of my understanding endorses no organized religion. A religious pamphet I picked up tells me that if my God isn't a particular type of religion, that God is by definition the Devil. Well, they say the devil is in the details and it may come to pass after all is said and done -- we'll find that only the Devil has the details.

© 2007 blogSpotter

To Sleep, Perchance to Dream

Discovering the virtue of naps -- Picture courtesy Wikipedia

by blogSpotter
Today's blog is about something that shouldn't be controversial but is -- the phenomenon of napping. I've always thought that sleep habits were a personal matter and there was no particular 'right' or 'wrong' to the matter. But as far back as Benjamin Franklin, there were already moral statements:

"Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise".

A rule of thumb is that adults need 8 hours of sleep a day. Some manic types may easily skate by on 6 or 7 hours and older people may snooze away 10 hours. I've thought as long as it totals to 8, who cares about start times, stop times or interruptions. I told a friend at my last job how I take a 1 hour nap as soon as I get home from work -- usually from 6-7PM. I go to bed about midnight and get up about 6:30AM. This gives me 7.5 hours, only .5 shy of the golden 8. I'm manic to put it mildly, so that's probably enough. My friend furrowed his brow in serious objection. "Is that good for you? I'd sleep all night if I did that". Well, I don't sleep all night -- I have a pleasant nap and rouse myself awake for another 5 hours of activity.

Other friends have taken Ben Franklin to heart, and there is a one-upsmanship about what time they arise. "I get up at 5 and read the Wall Street Journal". "I get up at 4:30 and go to a Spin class". To one-up these guys, you'd have to move into Matt Lauer territory and get up at 3:30AM. The other aspect of this schedule is going to bed at 8 in the evening. In summer, there is daylight streaming through the windows and another two hours of prime time television. Stores aren't even closed for another 1.5 hours. You've traded evening leisure for morning -- when TV is showing old sitcoms, religious programming and infomercials. It's still dark outside and the stores aren't yet open. You get to work at 8PM, and you've already been up for 4 hours (to me, that would almost be time for a 'napette'). For weekends and holidays, adult 'play' time is markedly later than the Ben Franklin schedule. Bars across America don't start to get business until 10PM, don't get crowded 'til 12AM, and don't quit serving alcohol 'til 2AM. This pushes it almost to Matt Lauer's wake-up time. Movie theaters show 1st-run movies as late as 10PM and some restaurants stay open until midnight. If it's a social life you desire and you're a single adult on the Spin Class schedule, your options fall back to matinee movies and dinner at Bonanza Steak House.

Let’s get back to naps. Dr. Dimitrios Trichopoulos, an epidemiologist at Harvard School of Public Health, has found that naps reduce stress and cardiovascular risk. People who nap at least 30 minutes a day, 3 times a week are 37% less likely to die from heart disease. Even occasional napping can give you a 12% reduction. The doctor even recommends workplace nap rooms where workers can take an afternoon siesta. Don't laugh -- it's been done successfully before. The Student Union at UT Austin has a large reading room with sumptuous couches -- they are primarily for napping, not reading. And students, young and vital, catch some zzz's before the afternoon class or tennis game.

In conclusion, to those with 'superior sleep attitude' ...your sleep preference just indicates how you prefer to spend leisure hours and probably reflects a little on your religious or marital status. It doesn't make you a better person in any particular respect. My hour of sleep from 5-6AM is as good as your hour of sleep from 8-9PM. I have an hour of more hustle-bustle and the morning person has an hour more of quiet reflection. Just have to add -- to each his own. Everyone is wired differently and has different demands on their time. And now I'll have that nap that I so obviously need.

© 2007 blogSpotter

A Species Out of Balance?

Is the human species in balance? -- Picture courtesy Wikipedia

by blogSpotter
From the time I first studied biology in junior high, I wondered why sexual reproduction became necessary in nature. Asexuality is perfectly adequate for one-celled creatures. Worms can get by, having both male and female organs. Why do higher-evolved creatures require a sexual distinction? Two creatures of opposite gender have to merge genetic material and then a "compromise" fetus is created. Charles Darwin saw a great significance in sex, but he mostly focused on the posturing of males to establish dominance over females. His theory was that males primarily serve a protective function and females search out the strongest mate.

Looking at the whole animal kingdom and not just select examples, Darwin's conjecture was woefully inadequate. There are species where males are an accessory -- a species of fish where the male is dwarfed by the female and is nothing but a sperm-donating attachment to her body. We also have sea horses, where the males are the caring nurturers. Even with wolves, females can outsize the males and be dominant. The gender differences don't hold consistently across species with regard to size, dominance, colors, aggressive behavior or other criteria. With Westernized humans, the females wear bright colors. With birds, the males wear the bright feathers and the females wear brown. With insects, the sex roles are turned on their head completely.

POLARIZATION OF THE SEXES

My own theory is that sexes represent some kind of fundamental, universal power struggle -- some type of balance that must be carefully struck. When the power goes out of balance, you have 'species out of balance'. In such cases, you will have extreme sexual dimorphism. Dimorphism is a physical difference between adult male and adult female of the same species. The physical attributes under consideration are not the genitalia but rather the secondary sexual characteristics. Secondary sexual characteristics include such non-genital attributes as body size, color of fur, or presence of antlers. In mammals, there are many examples -- certainly including humans. With bovine animals, the antlered males can be twice as big as the female. With a man and woman, brother and sister born to the same parents, the male can be two heads taller and weigh half again as much as his sister. The gender imbalance introduces odd results in nature:

• Difficulty in mating. Cows can suffer fractures and broken bones when a giant bull tries to mount a small yearling
• Increased mortality in birthing. Both mother and fetus are at risk if the mother is birthing an overly large offspring
• Sterility and homosexuality -- Increased risk of sperm/egg incompatibility; behavioral ambiguity due to extreme body differences

SEX AND SPECIATION

My own conjecture is that when the male and female become too different, the species itself is at risk. A few things may happen, according to this theory: feminine males may pair with hyper-feminine females to create a new species. Masculine females may pair with hyper-masculine males to create a new species. One can look at cats and dogs -- both carnivores that probably evolved from a ferret-like animal. The cleaving into two species probably happened with emergence of canine males and feline females that went their separate ways. There are other possibilities. The species could go completely extinct, leaving no surviving child species. The species might actually survive indefinitely, but as a static, non-evolving species – because sexual competition (and thus variety) is sharply reduced. The species with healthy "dynamism" is one in which the male and female are different, but the difference is one of minor style and not major substance. Thus, side by side -- the sexes should closely resemble each other. It is possible in nature for male to overwhelm the female and likewise possible for female to overwhelm the male. In both cases, we have dismal, species-stifling results.

MALE DOMINATION

The greatest examples of male domination in mammals are the bovine animals such as cattle. They actually form a patriarchal "society" where a bull is surrounded by a harem of females. In such societies, the main goal is for males to express dominance over passive females and male challengers. The very fact that bovine evolution sacrificed opposable digits for a clumsy hoof says all we need to know about this wayward direction. The species should be not about domination of a sex.

FEMALE DOMINATION

Hymenoptera (social) insects are the best example of this. A queen evolved to be served by sterile female workers and 'serviced' by males. She has no competition whatever, and lolls about to create larva for the colony. Wolves and hyenas have matriarchies where females will summarily kill the pups of a rival female. In both these cases, the male role has been subdued and the resultant society lacks competition or dynamism. The species cited here are certainly surviving. But they survive as the meat that we butcher, or insects that we spray with insecticide and exploit for honey. Wolves are near extinction for all their effort.

The animal with the greatest evolution potential is the animal that keeps the sexes balanced. They need not be the same of course; “vive la 5%” as they said in Adam’s Rib. But the sexes should work in harmony, and not be at odds with each other. Can a woman support her family? Can a man be a caring nurturer? The answers to these questions may help one determine how he or she figures in the gender balance. There’s nothing at stake, except for the species itself.

© 2006 blogSpotter.

The Virus Within, the Virus Without

Rotavirus, courtesy Wikipedia

by blogSpotter
Since various exotic diseases (HIV, Epstein-Barr, Hantavirus) became popular topics of the early 1980's, I've been interested in viruses, especially retroviruses. What makes the retrovirus interesting? It can copy its genetic material into a host cell, and make the imported material a permanent part of the host animal's genome. Scientists believe that as much as 8% of human genetic material is from ‘endogenous’ retroviruses, but can only guess what purpose any of it serves. The topic of retroviruses can lead to fanciful speculations (including my own, see last paragraph); several science fiction works cast a retrovirus as a villain’s modus operandi: Resident Evil, Doom and Stargate Atlantis to name three.

What adds to the story is that viruses are species-specific. A tobacco virus will eschew a pig, and a pig virus will shun a tobacco plant. The pig virus may take the great leap to something similar to a pig -- another mammal for instance. Is the virus making an intelligent selection? It certainly is expressing a chemical affinity, with seemingly intelligent results. Viruses also travel in ways almost as specific as a person booking a flight on orbitz.com. Methods of transmission include:

Mosquito
Ticks/Fleas
Skin contact
Breath droplets

There is speculation that a virus can alter the behavior of its host animal. Thus a mosquito could almost serve as a virus's private jet. Ticks and fleas themselves are species-specific, such that viruses on them (and in them) can make targeted landings. Obviously, skin contact is as direct as you can get -- a human who 'gets around' (Typhoid Mary let's say) could be a super-effective transmitter. Also worth noting, the least consequential viruses are normally those easiest to get -- breath droplets that give you the common cold for instance. The more 'intimate' connections seem to yield more astounding results -- permanent genome change or fatal disease. My own speculation is that genetic variety is sometimes enhanced by these mysterious viral agents, and the human body may 'open the door' for deliberate admission. Much like a company hiring a new employee, the immune system presumes it's chosen its new 'talent' wisely. This would assume that some viruses have a constructive purpose – who knows?

With biotic agents such as bacteria, you can’t judge them as universally harmful or helpful.. Some bacteria are flesh-eating deadliness at its worst. Other bacteria are actually good for you – bacteria that you get from yogurt benefit your digestion. Who is to say that the only good virus is a dead one? Maybe they perform in ways subtle and obscure – too minute for human observation. One thing to note – the virus makes it possible for genetic information to be exchanged outside of sexual reproduction. A truly permissive immune system might even admit genetic material from another species. Thus, a kiss is not just a kiss. A kiss may be very consequential – a genetic RNA infusion could result. You might or might not have physical symptoms. The world is a much more promiscuous, interesting place than we ever imagined. And these invisible cellular interlopers make it more so.

© 2006 blogSpotter.

Genius Infant

How does he do it?

You're a genius and you probably didn't even know it. Every human with basic language skills has performed a feat of genius-level magnitude, without any awareness of having done so. The feat is so humdrum, so commonplace and yet so awesome. The feat of which I speak is an infant's learning to speak, by passive observation.

If you have a child in a crib, you may dangle stuffed animals in front of him, or read him nursery rhymes. He'll gain from these experiences, but he has a more influential ‘teacher’. By just passively listening to adult conversations, or listening to a TV in the background, the child's brain will absorb incredible volumes of data that Mother Goose never imagined. Let us consider some speech concepts, from simple to difficult: noun, verb, adjective, adverb, preposition, verb tense, conditional phrasing, and function words. Nouns are easy, the ultimate in concreteness. You dangle a puppy over the crib and say, “doggie” – the child can make an easy connection. Not so easy is what’s overheard. The child overhears the father ask the mother, "Janice did you get a chance to take the car in for a brake inspection". The child's brain is parsing the sounds as the father speaks; it can tell “a” and “chance” are two different words. It sorts the words by part of speech at some point.

The mathematics and inference skills required for the above are amazing to me. If you placed the adult me in a crib in Beijing, and all I did was overhear adult conversations, I would be dumb and mute with regards to the Chinese language. I would still be dumb and mute after 10 years of doing that. A child learns fluent speech well before Kindergarten – the ‘wunderkind’ effect is not the result of teachers or nursery rhymes. It’s the result of sitting and listening – and long naps for processing. What I envision is that the brain stores every sentence in some type of giant matrix. The Mother of all multi-linear programs must scan the sentences for common use and for frequently used words. It may even do more incredible things – like storing a picture of the scenario with each stored sentence. For example, the brain will make note of these two vocalizations:
Honey, would you like some more eggs?
These eggs are runny.

The brain will correlate a small, white cooked food item with the word ‘egg’. But the four year old child also has some mastery of verb tense and function words. These are abstract concepts – a P.H.D. in linguistics might struggle explaining these things. A four year old of average intelligence has implicitly and yet passively grasped the concept with no instruction at all. My other guess about this universal precocity is that the brain is somehow pre-wired with some type of “proto” language, already built in – and it is still nonetheless amazing. You might say, “I’ve done nothing brilliant since infancy.” That may be, but embrace the fact that for a fleeting part of early childhood, you had skills of abstraction and correlation that rival Einstein’s. We are geniuses, all.

How Plant-Eating Dinosaurs Nearly Destroyed the Earth

Time to diet

I've always been an amateur naturalist, and always wondered (nerd that I am) what actually killed the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. An entire order of animals was wiped out, the world over -- not one species in any size or ecological category survived. That's incredible. Circa 1980, a scientist name Alvarez advanced the hypothesis that an asteroid killed the dinosaurs. An asteroid did strike the planet 65 million years ago, and iridium in the soil strata is consistent with that fact. The Alvarez theory became a 'darling' of the science establishment and has since been pretty well embraced. I never liked it because it didn't address some issues:

- Why did dinosaurs die, but other large, even cold-blooded creatures sailed thru with flying colors -- crocodiles, alligators, komodo dragons and sharks, to name a few
- Why did dinosaurs die completely, in every niche? seems like some smaller species could've squeaked by
- By 65 million years ago, there were only a handful of dinosaur species remaining; some process had already wiped out their numbers. An asteroid would merely have been the coup de grace. Why had they already dwindled so severely?

I did some research, and found that the Alvarez theory isn't universally accepted, there are many contrarians like me who disagree with it. Also, in my research I learned about an ecological disaster, created by highly evolved (for that time) animals that nearly threw the Earth's life cycle out of balance. Humans like to think that we are the worst thing that has ever happened. With pollution, strip mining, deforesting, hunting etc, we've caused immense destruction to the Earth. But nothing we've done compares to the damage of herbivorous dinosaurs. You see, in the Age of Dinosaurs, the land was covered with lush, fern forests. Angiosperm plants had not yet evolved. Dinosaurs would make a meal of the fern fronds, and all was good. Well, good except for the ferns. Ferns need their fronds to photosynthesize, and the leaves contain spores for plant reproduction. Dinosaurs would devour leaf, as well as stem, stripping the fern of its ability to grow or reproduce. A busy brontosaurus could probably strip a grove of trees in one day. With ferns getting depleted, it created starvation conditions for giant plant eaters. Furthermore, it threatened the entire planet by upsetting the exchange of gases between plants and animals. Fauna had become a serious threat to flora.

Natural Selection answered the dilemma in a couple of ingenious ways. The reader can decide for himself whether Natural Selection (NS) operates by intelligence or random selection, but suffice it to say NS did some brilliant things. (See my earlier blogs, God Talk and Amazing Blue Marble). Angiosperm plants developed rather suddenly. They offered fruits, berries and nuts to unobtrusive squirrels and newly evolved birds. Their leaves were tiny and inedible to ravening dinosaurs. This was a "win win" for nature. At the same time, nature developed T-Rex and velociraptors -- efficient killing machines, however unpleasant their demeanor. An ailing brontosaurus, trying to digest a meal of hackberry leaves, was no match for a vicious carnivore. Between starvation and predation, the herbivores vanished. One can only speculate that the small, nimble land animals surviving were inadequate food supply for T-Rex, and so it also starved.

Even in today's Cenozoic era, large animals are at risk for hunting, predation and starvation. Whales and elephants exist mostly at the mercy of, and as a curiosity to humans. But those species are very 'in check' -- they pose no ecological threat. Humans are indeed a threat to world ecological balance. It will be interesting to see how Natural Selection answers that call -- randomly or otherwise.

© 2006 blogspotter