the evolving mind

A pickerelweed blossom.  But wait a minute . . . aren’t weeds supposed to be bad?  The origin of the word, according to answers.com is

Etymologically, “weed” derives from the Old English word for “grass” or “herb,” but during the Middle Ages the meaning has changed to indicate an undesirable plant that grows where it is not wanted, especially among agricultural plots. This has historically been the primary meaning of the word, although in the nineteenth century, American writers grew increasingly aware that calling a plant a “weed” was an arbitrary human judgment, as there is no natural category of weeds.

Grass in a vegetable garden — undesirable.  Native flowers in a lawn (a mono-culture of grass) — undesirable.  The pickererweek in my backyard pond — desirable.  I intended for it to grow there.

Okay, here’s a far-out analogy.  Weeds are like atheists.  Preachers, meanwhile are anal-retentive gardeners trying to keep their plants in a tidy row.  “Wait a cotton-picking minute!  You can’t grow like that, you venture outside the lines.  It will mess up my . . . er, Gawd’s plan.”

Weeds tend to be robust, native plants that are well-suited to their environments.  Can the same be said for the mind of the atheist and her adaptation to our modern world?

Technorati Links: nature, photography, semantics

Some people argue that religion has done bad things, and then fail to acknowledge any good. Other people claim that religion does good things, and then either ignore the bad or attribute it to political, economic, or other factors. Neither group is acting fairly. And both are at least partly mistaken.

Consider this country’s civil rights movement. It is claimed that religion helped push progress along. And although it is true that church groups marched, and from numerous pulpits the message for change was broadcast, Christianity — our nation’s dominant religion — had nothing to do with it. Why? Because groups such as the Ku Klux Klan used their own version of Christianity and Bible passages to resist the very same progress.

Apologists might insist that the KKK distorted the real message of Jesus, while those in favor of civil rights had the correct understanding. The real message? Certainly the historical figure of Jesus made a number of pro-social statements about loving thy neighbor and honoring the meek. But equally essential components of his teaching included the exhortation that judgment, justice and reward awaited in the afterlife, that people must acknowledge his divinity and follow him or hellfire awaited, and that individuals were either for him or against him. Furthermore, there are at least half a dozen verses in the New Testament that unambiguously support inequality (i.e., 1 Peter 2:18 — Slaves, submit yourselves to your masters with all respect, not only to those who are good and considerate, but also to those who are harsh.)

Would you say that the person who inspired those ideas was suited to lead an important social movement today? I wouldn’t.

What is true Christianity? This is a nearly absurd question. Both Jesus and Christianity are largely what have been made of them. An honest reading of the Bible, extra-canonical gospels, and scholarly works about the origin and evolution of the early Christian churches makes that eminently clear.

It wasn’t Christianity itself — the religion — that played a pivotal role in the civil rights movement. Rather, it was the set of values that individuals and groups held and acted upon. Jewish and Buddhist individuals and groups also protested and marched, as did countless other uncategorized people. To understand what was really at work, we must look beyond labels.

Technorati Links: humanism, liberalism

“Upchuck.” How poetic. The green life-forms in the above photo are both floating and rooted vegetation from the banks of the St. John’s River. It’s a bit ironic how we identify nature with that color. The green earth. But, in a way, nature doesn’t like green all that much (to engage in a brief bout of personification). Why? You might say that green is the frequency of light least absorbed. Plants reflect it away. Which isn’t quite the same as “upchucking,” but not nearly as fun to write.

Technorati Links: nature, photography

In the Genesis story of the Bible, Noah saves two individuals from each species from a flood that covers the entire Earth for 40 days and 40 nights.  Animal species.  As for the plants . . . after 40 days underwater, my guess is that most of them drowned.  Yes, plants can drown.  What did the animals eat, I wonder, once they sashayed off the ark?

As I mentioned in a previous post, the nearby St. Johns River has hit flood levels.  This has caused the clear waters of Blue Springs State Park to get pushed back up into normally terrestrial territory.  I went snorkeling at the spring a few days ago, before the St. Johns had hit its highest level, and saw many plants in the process of drowning.  The above photo is of a Sabal palmetto or Cabbage Palm.  How long can it successfully “hold its breath”?

Technorati Links: bible, nature, photography, snorkeling

[O]ne can prove the “naturalness” of almost any social pattern by selecting the appropriate species. The variety is immense. A strong mother-offspring bond is found in all primates; beyond this, virtually everything exists, from monogamy to promiscuity, from despotism to egalitarianism.
- Frans de Waal (1)

Thanks in a large part to a copious quantity of synapses – gaps between nerve cells – behavioral plasticity is a feature that blossoms from monkeys to Homo sapiens. Rather than a mono-function corkscrew, human nature is a Swiss Army knife. Any blade currently manifest, endowed in us by “nature,” is one nurture has extended. Plasticity in the brain translates into a great range of potential behaviors and thus flexibility in how an individual or group can adapt to its environment. And environments change.

Are we by nature aggressive apes or peaceful paisanos? It depends. We must look to the when and where to best answer that question. And we should remember that just because our kind presently seems one way, or in the past was another, that doesn’t mean either is more natural and thus correct.

Without gaps in the “wiring” of our brains, culture would be impossible. There would be but a single flavor of human being. Yet, fortunately or our adaptability, but frustratingly for our understanding, that isn’t the case. And it hasn’t been for millions of years. Primates are especially adept at behavioral flexibility. Gorillas and chimpanzees choose from a menu of behaviors, some of which – as we now well know with chimps – have been passed from one mind, one generation, to another. Digging for termites, using stones to open nuts, these are not hardwired tricks but acquired behavioral traits. (2)

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Technorati Links: culture, evolution, psychology

For those of you interested in the philosophical side of science, I recommend checking out a new “blogversion” a buddy of mine and I have recently begun.  Over at Cold Beer and Fresh Ideas, Mike Earl and I have started to engage in a written dialogue about mathematical models and reality.  Future topics will no doubt include such things as: What is truth?  Is time an element of the universe or a description of it?  Does a robustly scientific outlook result in atheism?  Etc.

Technorati Links: science

Dear Darwin,

Today I nearly got hit in the face by a flying half of lizard.  Actually, the second half came pretty close as well.  I was sitting at an outdoor patio table I sometimes use as my morning desk, weather permitting.  I turned on the fan I keep out there, and I heard a fwap!  That’s when the two halves of a lizard went sailing past my nose. 

Darwin, my question is this: Was it wrong of me to be relieved that the creature in question was Cuban brown anole, and not my more favorite six-lined racerunner (as depicted above)?  The brown anole is a non-native species.  And they are all over the place!  My dog separates one from its tail almost every day.  And the damn tails keep twitching for up to twenty seconds later.

Did the brown anole deserve to die?  And does my being biased in my lizard-appreciation make me less of scientist?

Signed,

Momentarily Grossed-Out in Florida

Technorati Links: evolution, nature, photography

Evolution and survival are not simply about competing with others for valued resources.  Cooperation plays an essential role as well.  For social species such as we primates, this is especially true.

Consider this finding from a recent study on the behavior of monkeys:

The capuchins then were given the choice of two tokens: the selfish option, which rewarded that capuchin alone with an apple slice; or the prosocial option, which rewarded both capuchins with an apple slice. The monkeys predominantly selected the prosocial token when paired with a relative or familiar individual but not when paired with a stranger.  (From Monkeys Enjoy Giving To Others, Study Finds.)

Hmm . . . I wonder, would an Ayn Rand-grade libertarian scold the monkeys for giving other monkeys food they hadn’t worked for?

That issue, right there, is why I think of myself as a libertarian in terms of civil rights, but not in terms of civic responsibilities (do libertarians even recognize civic responsibilities?).  In that regard, I guess I’m a good old-fashioned democrat.  Or at least a primate with some capuchin tendencies.

Technorati Links: primatology

For a number of years, fresh on the tail of attending college, I practiced Zen Buddhism.  More Zen, less Buddhism.  (For those of you unfamiliar with it, Zen is to Buddhism as prayer is to most other religions.  Zen’s motto might be: “It’s about the meditation, stupid.”)  And yes, there were those months I used mildly woo-way paraphernalia to set the mood: a lit candle and a stick of incense creating an upward line of fragrant smoke. 

It now seems that specific spiritual practices might be bad for you.  By “bad” I mean “increase your risk of cancer.”  In the ScienceDaily article, Burning Incense Increases Risk Of Respiratory Tract Cancers, we learn that burning incense . . .

. . . produces a mixture of possible carcinogens, including polyaromatic hydrocarbons, carbonyls and benzene.

Would you like a little benzene with your Ommmmm.?

The study made me wonder whether aromatherapy, a relative newcomer on the block of “alternative therapies” in this country,  might actually be more harmful in the long term than it is helpful in the short.

A quote by the study authors concludes the ScienceDaily piece:

“Given the widespread and sometimes involuntary exposure to smoke of burning incense, these findings carry significant public health implications,” they wrote. “Besides initiatives to reduce incense smoke exposure, future studies should be undertaken to identify the least harmful types of incense,” they added.

Things deemed “natural” or “spiritual” are not always good for you, no matter how warm and fuzzy you consider the words to be.

Technorati Links: religion, skepticism

We now interrupt this blog to provide a public service announcement. Not only is nature friggin’ beautiful (the technical term), but we couldn’t survive without it.

Technorati Links: nature, photography