the evolving mind

And third, both in the field and in the laboratory, studies of chimpanzee behavior are producing numerous, increasingly clear parallels with human behavior. It’s not just that these apes pat each other on the hand to show affection, or kiss each other, or embrace. Not just that they have menopause, develop lifelong friendships, and grieve for their dead babies by carrying them for days or weeks. Nor is it their ability to do sums like 5 plus 4, or to communicate with hand signs. Nor their tool use, or collaboration, or bartering for sexual favors. Nor even that they hold long-term grudges, deliberately hide their feelings, or bring rivals together to force them to make peace.
- Wrangham, R. & Peterson, D. (1)

A fundamental thrust of my undertaking is that of comparative psychology: to understand more about the human species by studying other animals, particularly the great apes. But is it a justified approach?

The Hebrew word “Adam” means mankind. When we compare the behavior of Adams to that of other primates are we committing the sin of comparing apples to oranges? To a degree—of course. But to another, greater degree the comparison is fitting.

Most of us have learned that there is a considerable degree of genetic similarity between primate species. In fact, human beings are more genetically similar to the chimpanzee than the chimpanzee is to the gorilla. But what about behavior? Genes are one thing, but are we really like other monkeys and apes?

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Is it a stupid simplification to say that liberals want to take us someplace different, while conservatives want to stay put or even go back?

The new Carnival of the Liberals is up here.

It seems to me (at least at this point in time) that most poetry takes aim at exciting the human limbic system: that part of our triune brain responsible for the generation and perception of the social emotions: anger, love, jealousy, sadness.  But then there is “higher” art that shoots for the more elusive target of the neocortex.  When struck we feel wonder, curiosity, awe: our imagination as much as our emotion is aroused (if, in fact, they can be completely teased apart).

That is what happened to me this morning when reading this bit of . . . science (!):

Take a gold sample the size of the head of a push pin, shoot a laser through it, and suddenly more than 100 billion particles of anti-matter appear. The anti-matter, also known as positrons, shoots out of the target in a cone-shaped plasma “jet.”

Okay, that snippet of a research finding may not appeal to the large crowd whose artistic taste extends to pulling a daisy apart and muttering, “She loves me, she loves me not.”  But it’s their loss.  For me: Wow!

Just as primates can communicate threat with their gaze, so can they reassure and invite.  Frans de Waal writes,

“Another point in common with the chimpanzee is the critical role of eye contact. Among apes it is a prerequisite for reconciliation. It is as if chimpanzees do not trust the other’s intentions without a look into the eyes. In the same way, we do not consider a conflict settled with people who turn their eyes to the ceiling or to the floor each time we look in their direction.” (9)

While a hostile, penetrating stare can signal being held at a visual arm’s length by the viewer, a “warmer” variety of visual attention will signal the equivalent of an arm outstretched in acceptance.  The authors of one study on the power of visual attention, “Explaining Effects of Eye Gaze on Mediated Group Conversations: Amount or Synchronization?” report,

“[S]ubjects took less turns when the amount of gaze was below normal.”  (10)

More specifically,

“[P]eople are significantly more likely to speak when gaze behavior of conversational partners is synchronized through time with their conversational attention.”  (11)

Yes, whether or not you are consciously aware of it, the likelihood of your speaking is influenced by the gaze of your intended audience.  “Speaking up” is just one type of many behaviors I am sure can be encouraged or attenuated by visual attention, real or imagined.

At this, she bowed down with her face to the ground. She exclaimed, “Why have I found such favor in your eyes that you notice me-a foreigner?” (Ruth 2:10)

—

 (9) de Waal, F. Peacemaking Among Primates, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1989, p.43 
(10) Vertegaal, R. & Ding, Y., “Explaining Effects of Eye Gaze on Mediated Group Conversations: Amount or Synchronization?” Proceedings of CSCW 2002 Conference on Computer Supported Collaborative Work, New Orleans: ACM Press, November, 2002,
p. 42
(11) Vertegaal, R. & Ding, Y., 2002, p. 47

Okay, I can understand the evolutionary advantage to sporting a biologically-expensive but oh-so-impressive flamboyant tail. You impress the ladies and the ladies mate with you and you leave more genes in the ol’ gene pool.

But what, pray tell, is the advantage to having variegated leaves, as in the case of the above backyard bougainvillea? Showy blossoms . . . sure. But leaves? They are a plant’s solar panels, the vegetative equivalent of energy generators. As far as I know, less green mean less chlorophyll means less power. How could that possibly have been selected for?

Oops. I forgot. The intelligent designer of landscapes, Homo fabulous, may have been the one doing the selecting.

I just consulted the Almighty Google, the most omniscient “being” in the known universe, and this is what I learned from one site:

Variegated leaves occur rarely in nature but are extremely common among indoor and outdoor ornamentals, where they have been saved as horticultural oddities.

So variegated leaves likely have nothing to do with a plant’s natural evolutionary fitness. Do they instead tell us something about the fitness of the men or women who plant them in their yard?

I think it was Rod Stewart who sang these lines:

If you like my gardens
and you think I’m sexy
c’mon sugar let me know.

Or something like it.

Did you know that fish elect a leader?  Well, maybe elect is the wrong word for it.  According a recent article over at ScienceDaily, Continue Reading »

Why are there few consistently rational people? By that I mean thinkers who apply the same criteria for explaining and understanding all phenomena, A to Z.

For example: A person finds an apple in his mailbox. Rarely will he conclude that an alien put it there, special delivery. Or that a god put the fruit in his box, first class. No. The man would engage in more rational behavior, such as glancing up and down the street, eyes out for a clue as to how and why it got there. Or he’d check the apple for a return address, and lacking that, shrug his shoulders and think, “must be a prank . . . maybe a kid walking to school hid his friend’s apple as a joke.”

Another person visits the zoo. There she observes animals having sex. She is not likely to think that they are engaging in an evil deed, not likely to conclude that Satan has motivated the zoo inmates to fulfill their carnal urge for his viewing pleasure. No. She’s likely to think that what the animals are doing has a fully natural explanation.

Every day we employ rational thinking as the best means for understanding our world.

But then there are those people who elevate types of events, or even just peculiar events, to a place beyond the reach of a rational explanation.

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Man, the above plant life I photographed last year while on vacation in San Francisco has no shame. Flaunting sexuality in public like that . . . .

But what was I doing “watching?” (No, I didn’t get a chubby while spying a bee probing between petals.  Still.) What I am now doing posting the provocative pics?  And what are you doing looking at them?

I’m just asking.

The Bible Belt has some dirty secrets.  And they’ll be dirty until they get brushed off.

It seems that paleontologists working in the deep South have unearthed whale fossils that clearly comprise a transitional form between a legged mammal and one with a tail fluke (view article here).

The crashing of the enormous fluked tail on the surface of the ocean is a “calling card” of modern whales. Living whales have no back legs, and their front legs take the form of flippers that allow them to steer. Their special tails provide the powerful thrust necessary to move their huge bulk. Yet this has not always been the case.

Reporting in the latest issue of the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, paleontologist Mark D. Uhen of the Alabama Museum of Natural History describes new fossils from Alabama and Mississippi that pinpoint where tail flukes developed in the evolution of whales.

Now why would the Gawd of Genesis play with the minds of fundamentalists like that?

Are fossils and the ossified beliefs of many religions at odds?  Hell ya.  And the hell is their own making — both the hell of fire and the hell of a cognitive dissonance caused by trying to reconcile religious dogma with modern findings.

Of course, many contemporary believers have stream-lined their ideology so that science can’t wreck it.  Oh sure, the Bible is metaphor . . . as it was to the ancients.  They totally behaved like it was metaphor.  Right.

Dig beneath the surface of modern religions and you will find the more bizarre forms of which they are descendants.  However, because religions evolved doesn’t mean they have progressed.

[A]s the Supreme Personality of Godhead, I know everything that has happened in the past, all that is happening in the present, and all things that are yet to come. I also know all living entities; but Me no one knows.
(Bhagavad Gita As It Is, 7:26) (4)

From his dwelling place he watches all who live on earth.
(Psalms 33:14)

He sees you when are sleeping
He knows when you’re awake
He knows if you’ve been bad or good
So be good for goodness sake!
(Santa Claus is Coming to Town) (5)

Through the ages humankind has believed in a number of mythological agents capable of seeing without being seen. Why is eye contact, gaze, and both seeing and being seen weighty matters to our species? One person staring at another person while the second person intentionally averts their eyes is the human equivalent of one dog sniffing another while the other does nothing. It’s about information. And information is power.

In a sense, the dog with its tail between its leg is “saying” I’m a nobody, I don’t even smell. I’m no threat to you, how can I be if I don’t broadcast my odor, at least not boldly so?  The dog that smells less has a limited scent-footprint; it is thus “smaller.”

Just as the subordinate dog allows the dominant to sniff without being sniffed, the subordinate human allows the more dominant to see without being seen. Continue Reading »