the evolving mind

As an amateur photographer I have noticed that I almost exclusively focus on beautiful sights. I’m sure most shutterbugs do the same. Still, why do we tend to capture images such as a bright red gerbera daisy versus, say, a dead fence swift lizard with fire ants crawling over its empty eye-sockets?

Is it simply because we want to remember and repeat just positive experiences? Perhaps. But in doing so, in cherry-picking what experiences to value, do we then misrepresent our experience and perhaps create a skewed model of the world in our minds? Maybe.

One of my primary criticisms of Christians is that they tend to cherry-pick which Bible verses to quote and identify as representative of their god’s word. The beautiful orange tree blossoms, sure, that is what Jesus was all about. The moldy, half-decomposed fruit in the grass beneath? Okay, that’s part of the picture, but not the important part. Or so they say.

 . . . We all say about our own experiences? Probably. Why? It makes us feel better, a distortion of the bigger truth be damned.

That is why, when confronted with a question of what is true, I tend not to trust my own experiences. I am aware that I tend to cherry-pick. And so I look for more objective sources of information.

Technorati Links: bible, knowledge

As a public school student I learned that living cells contain water. And what a precious resource it is. In desert regions, such as large areas of New Mexico, where the above photo was taken, the plants that survive to reproduce are those that protect their water. Without it, cells shrink and lose their ability to host that complex dance of chemical interactions we call life. And thus the development of tough membranes, thorns and spikes.

According to our current understanding, all cellular life originated in a rich liquid soup. The ocean? Puddles near the ocean? A clay shoreline repeatedly lapped by sea waters? Whatever the case, most lifeforms, including ourselves, have wandered quite a distance from our beginnings.

Technorati Links: biology

Resorting to deep-bellied sounds is almost universal across human cultures in situations where we want to create a lasting impression.   – Robin Dunbar (7)

Do you have an arm like God’s, and can your voice thunder like his?  (Job 40:9)

Have you noticed that when “God’s voice” is inserted into a movie or television show by Hollywood, it’s always baritone? Not once have I heard an off-camera pronouncement by the Big Cheese come in the form of a mouse-like squeak. Why is that? Because an almighty alpha is big. He has to be.

Interestingly, human males are, on average, larger than females and have lower-pitched voices. Is that one of the reasons we tend to follow male leaders? Marilyn Monroe’s ultra-girly voice may have worked well for singing a seductive, “Happy Birthday Mr. President,” but is that a voice we would follow into battle? Continue Reading »

Technorati Links: hierarchy, religion, sociology

Back in the 80′s I read a book about the connection between diet and spirituality. The author proposed that there is a hierarchy of diet types, progressing from the lowly carnivorous diet, through vegetarian into fruitarian, and finally arriving at the enlightened “breatharian” state. I’m not kidding. And the idea still lives. Here’s a quote from the Breatharian Institute of America: Continue Reading »

Technorati Links: atheism, skepticism

A recent science article proclaimed: First Humans To Settle Americas Came From Europe, Not From Asia Over Bering Strait Land-ice Bridge, New Research Suggests.

Research by a Valparaiso University geography professor and his students on the creation of Kankakee Sand Islands of Northwest Indiana is lending support to evidence that the first humans to settle the Americas came from Europe, a discovery that overturns decades of classroom lessons that nomadic tribes from Asia crossed a Bering Strait land-ice bridge. Valparaiso is a member of the Council on Undergraduate Research.

Those scientists and academics — always getting it wrong. Or are they instead always progressing toward the more right? Continue Reading »

Technorati Links: knowledge

Although small fish like herring can swim independently, they tend to school, to group and move together. The group tightens when a predator fish lurks, such as a barracuda. The reason is safety.

This year I missed celebrating Independence Day, seeing I was out of the country on July 4th. I find it ironic that in recent years independent thought of certain types has been portrayed as unpatriotic, as out-group behavior. Did the threat of barracuda-like terrorism cause people to want to group tighter and thus feel safer? Yet without the revolutionary, independent thought of early Americans (non-native), there would be no nation to celebrate the independence of.

Although I do not subscribe to the permanent social(ist) revolution Leon Trotsky advocated, I do believe that, for a people to be free, minds must be free: free to inquire and debate any and all topics. Call it permanent intellectual revolution. This behavior does not threaten good ideas – for they will remain standing after challenge — just bad.

Freedom, both physical and intellectual, is worth celebrating, as it was and is worth fighting for.

Now where’s the beer and hotdog I missed out on?

Technorati Links: sociology

Today over at Science Daily I found an article titled this way: New Evidence Of Battle Between Humans And Ancient Virus.  How, I wonder, did the ancient humans battle the virus?  Spears?  Clubs?  Voodoo spells?

Oh, the immune system did the “battling,” if we can accurate call it that.  Can we?  Did the human immune system instead “develop in response to”?  How else might we more accurately describe it, without causing the prose to completely atrophy?

Can prose atrophy?

Beyond the intentional, sloppy use of language in the article title and beyond, we find this paragraph: Continue Reading »

Technorati Links: creationism, philosophy

Nature blows my mind (figuratively speaking, of course). I particularly enjoy the vast variety of vegetation I find in my backyard alone, never mind in ecosystems distinct and/or distant from my small patch of suburban semi-wildlife. The myriad forms of leaves . . . the sheer multitude of shades of green . . . oh my!

One thing in particularly I find fascinating is the manner in which new/distal vegetative growth tends to be both more pliable and translucent. As leaves mature, and as newer branches become older branches, they tend to become stiffer and darker.

Do the varieties of cell characteristics cause in me a variety of religious experience? Continue Reading »

Technorati Links: humanism, photos

Contrary to the popular saying, “I’ll believe it when I see it,” the true skeptic will not place 100% confidence in their powers of observation.  Why?  Because they are flawed.  First, my senses are not organs of immaculate perception.  Second, countless psychological studies have shown just how easy it is to influence what we experience and remember.

A ScienceDaily article today bears this headline: Eyewitnesses May Misidentify Perpetrator Of A Crime Due To Stress Or Fear.  In previous generations and centuries, having an eyewitness was the gold standard in proving innocence or guilt.  Fortunately, science has recently developed more accurate tools (and much less subject to the influence of bias, etc.), such as DNA analysis of evidence.  As the article states: Continue Reading »

Technorati Links: philosophy, science

Particularly in the interactions of males with males and males with females, humans are prone to dominate and prone to submit.
- Christopher Boehm (38)

If the drive to dominate could be boiled down to the work of one gene we might be justified in calling it a selfish gene. Progeny is the payoff for male dominance – offspring that are likely to share the gene. The selective advantage over generations would be the distal cause of the drive to dominate. If we envision the drive as a virus – more active in some individuals (its environment), less active in others – we could predict that those “infected” with it leave more likewise infected offspring. And thus the virus, the drive, would persist and possibly thrive.
Continue Reading »

Technorati Links: dominance, hierarchy, primates