the evolving mind

“It may be no accident that Christianity, which served as a vehicle for monogamy politically as well as intellectually, has often pitched its message to poor and powerless men.”
- Robin Wright (45)

Is sexual equality most attractive to those “under the thumbs” of others? Are monogamy laws most appealing to non-alphas? By decreeing that his omegas behave monogamously, did the invisible alpha of a people accomplish two things: 1) Assure people behave better in general, and 2) see to it that no single man starts to thinks of himself as above others and hence closer to their god, more powerful and more of a threat? More wives/lovers additionally means more offspring, and because blood is thicker than non-blood, more sons means more power.

As mentioned previously, in exploring the biological roots (evolutionary) of religion, Walter Burkert saw circumcision as a way of symbolicly making a man less. In a sense, as in the Exodus story of Zipporah, the foreskin is ransom paid. Burkert uses the story to illustrate:

“For ransom, a man has to renounce his masculinity – in this case, the mother steps in to make the decision. At the same time, a double substitution takes place, child for man, and foreskin for penis. Sanguinary mutilation, both real and symbolic, is necessary to ward of the pursuer.” (46)

The pursuer Burkert refers to is “God” in the heat of a primate threat display. Quick, before you are hurt, show submission!

Sanguinary, by the way, means bloody. And it is no coincidence that many Bible verses refer to blood sacrifice. In fact, the origin of the term bless is to consecrate with blood. To make sacred with blood.

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Technorati Links: evolution, primates, religion, sexuality

A news release about a new study on Kava as a treatment for anxiety caught my attention. In it I found some bad and some stupid. Fortunately–and contrary to what usually happens–there was a link to the published article itself, and there I found a bunch of good. Usually I tend to encounter hidden bad when I dig deeper.

First, the bad. Then the good. Finally, the stupid.

The bad. The news release reported that “the placebo-controlled study found Kava to be an effective and safe treatment option for people with chronic anxiety and varying levels of depression.” Beyond that general statement, the report gave zero numbers. No precision with that element of scientific language. “It worked,” is not very helpful in evaluating a treatment.

Also, while the study was deemed “safe,” raising “no major health concerns,” the trial lasted a pathetically brief three weeks. Three weeks!

Upon clicking a link to an abstract from the Springer journal Psychopharmacology, I found the option to view the full text in .pdf. And so I did. And, surprise, surprise! I discovered that the researchers did some very good science.

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Technorati Links: alternative medicine, mental health

One plant we have growing in our yard my wife has called “chicken and eggs.” I think. I don’t know the formal name. What I do know is that it has very odd leaves. If they are called leaves. Half like an aloe vera stem (that plant is referred to as an all-stem, stemless plant, go figure), half like an obese pre-leaf.

Wild. Are those things leaves? Are they, evolutionarily-speaking, pre-leaves? (Not to themselves are they pre-anything!). Photo-receptive lobes? I don’t know what to think about them. Which is a good thing sometimes.

Technorati Links: evolution, nature

It seems that teen Swedes can still think logically, despite growing up in the YouTube generation.

Finding #1:

[T]oday’s teenagers are achieving demonstrably better results in the logic test than was the case fifty years ago.

That is good news. It seems the world isn’t going to hell in a dumb basket. At least not the Sweden part.

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Guess what . . . daydreaming is good. Well, not when you are driving a trailer truck 70 mph down the highway. But it may have its benefits. Intriguingly, researchers have discovered this:

Finding #2:

[T]his study shows our brains are very active when we daydream – much more active than when we focus on routine tasks.

Of course, this doesn’t mean that daydreaming is better because more grey matter is involved than when engaged in purposeful problem-solving. Maybe it is less efficient. Like an automobile engine the revs higher when you take it out of gear. Still, an interesting discovery.

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Remember the book, All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten, by Robert Fulghum? Well, it seems the following could be a title of a book based on a new finding: Everything I Believe I Learned in K-12.

Finding #3:

Students whose high school biology class included creationism (with or without evolution) were more likely to accept creationist views as entering college students. Similarly, students exposed to evolutionism but not creationism were more likely to accept evolution in college.

Yes, education is important. Thus all the fuss about standards and textbooks and teaching the non-controversy.

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And finally, a study on the cognitive priming. With music.

Finding #4:

[R]esearch found that the prior listening to happy music significantly enhanced the perceived happiness of a face and likewise listening to sad music significantly enhanced the perceived sadness of a face, and this music-induced effect was maximal when the face was emotionally neutral.

Want people to perceive you as happy? Maybe you should change the sound track of your life.

This much I do know: If you want to understand the universe better, study science. Any kind. Better yet, many kinds.

Technorati Links: cognition, neurology, research

Who made this? Clue: it is at x200. Answer below the fold.

As you might guess from my “Looking Closer” and “Looking Farther” category of posts, I like exposing my mind to new views. I find it stimulating and educational.

Speaking of education and exposing your mind to new stuff, one of my posts was recently added to this collection: 100 Incredibly Inspiring Blog Posts for Educators. Although the site has an ultimate aim of advertising online educational degrees, I read some of the posts and they are good. You might want to check them out, too.

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Technorati Links: microscope, puzzle

An incredible number of species vocalize. Dogs growl, cows bellow, birds squawk. You get the picture. What makes human vocalizations unique is the symbolic element. Sure, we can growl and bellow, too. Be we can also add to the emotional component a layer of “cerebral” information. So while Lassie may bark “urgent, urgent!” only a human can provide words that elaborate, “Timmy has fallen down a well!”

A news release about a recent lecture on our primate cousins the baboons highlights just how social these animals are. And how nuanced their emotional vocalizations can be. Yes, there is a robust link between the social and the emotional.

In a lecture given by primate communications expert, Robert Seyfarth of the University of Pennsylvania, Seyfarth recounted the story of a baboon “adopted” by a goat herder in Africa.

The baboon knew all of the relationships between the goats so well that at night she would carry a bleating kid from one barn directly to its mother in another barn.

Baboons live in groups of nearly 100 individuals. To get along and even work together, they are equipped with rich emotional lives coupled with an advanced ability to recognize individuals and remember relationships. Seyfarth and his associate Dorothy Cheney performed some clever experiments on wild baboon “societies” in Africa that clearly illustrated this.

They found that baboons use certain calls only in certain contexts. Screams and fear barks are only given from a lower-ranking to a higher-ranking baboon, while threat grunts are given only from a higher-ranking to a lower-ranking baboon.

By recording the various calls and then playing them in situations that “break the rules,” the scientists determined from the animals’ behavior that baboons are able to put together the discrete elements of identity, kinship, and rank.

That the threat-grunts are given only in certain contexts does not make them symbolic, however. Any specific information we believe the sounds carry may simply be our own projection: putting words in their sounds, so to speak. An emotional “get away” is one thing. A human boss growling at his manager, “get back to work, or I’ll have you in the warehouse loading trucks” is another. Still the ability to do the later no doubt originated in the former. Fascinating.

[Thanks to ScienceDaily for pointing me to the source of this information. And they didn't grunt while doing it.]

Technorati Links: evolution, primates

You are to undergo circumcision, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and you. (Genesis 17:10-12)

“Chimps, but not macaques, appear to be able to understand the different perspectives of their conspecifics, as when a subordinate male chimp aroused by the presence of a female covers his erection when a dominant male approaches.”
- Scott Atran (43)

When is a penis bad? When is it good?

In his provocative book, Creation of the Sacred: Tracks of Biology in Early Religions, Walter Burkert explored the origins of sexual practices and commandments in religious belief. Although this quote is about castration, Burkert later extends his exploration to the Biblical ritual of circumcision.

“What is especially interesting is the psychological explanation it offers for the ritual of castration. It is the fear of the more potent sexual rival, the king with his power to kill, that drives the inferior partner to renounce his sex.” (44)

While a king would naturally like to rest easier by knowing inferiors have no way of impregnating his women behind his back, what could be the possible benefit of circumcision be to a deity?

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Technorati Links: primates, religion, sexuality

Here in Central Florida we’ve lately had more smoke in the air due to forest fires than we’ve had precipitation.

Yesterday evening was a bit different. We had a passing thunderstorm. It dropped a whopping 1/16 inch of rain. And ignited a few more fires.

We need rain. Many plants are close to tinder-dry. Others seem to be remaining dormant — like the canna lily above — waiting for a deep soaker before they start the growing season.

Technorati Links: florida, nature

Oh my gosh. Thanks to new research I have learned babies are natural born scientists. The lead author of a study from Northwestern University went on record with these words -

[O]ur research shows that babies are amazing little experimenters with innate knowledge,” Susan Hespos said. “They’re collecting data all the time.”

I’ll try to refrain from making a joke about them cooking up their own little Manhattan Projects in their diapers. Oops, too late.

Later in the news report we learn of the more specific finding. From duration of gaze at liquids and solids in differing forms, the researchers came to this conclusion:“Together these experiments provide the earliest evidence that infants have expectations about the physical properties of liquids.”

Does that warrant the “toddlers with test-tubes” metaphor? Or the title of the piece, “Babies Brainier Than Many Imagine”?

If you ask me, the scientists doing the work and the reporters reporting it were biased. Consider this tell-tale sentence -

Though only five months old, the study’s cuties indicated through their curious stares that they could differentiate water in a glass from solid blue material that looked very much like water in a similar glass.

Referring to your subjects as cuties? I’m sorry, but what kind of scientific objectivity is that? When you put on your scientist smock, babies aren’t cute. So wipe that adoring gaze off your face and try to prevent hormones (prolactin, oxytocin . . .) from compromising your objectivity.

And remember. Those “cuties” produce quite a bit of toxic waste.

Technorati Links: critical thinking, culture, semantics

Photos are very frequently “touched up” (Photoshopped, if you will), to make them more aesthetically pleasing as well as more comprehensible. Like the above pic of Saturn and its moons. Yet when the photo editing is obvious — as above — it tends to erode my trust. Of course, I trust NASA photos more than I do other sources. And it isn’t because I blindly trust anything my government does. Rather, it is due to my understanding that NASA is peopled with brainy know-it-alls, and their products are often evaluated by lay know-it-alls. A know-it-all is very likely to broadcast, “Hey, I know you have cheated” when he/she detects it.

In a sense, if you want to trust a product or performance, you would do well to know there are know-it-all experts in the audience.

Augmentation and authenticity aside, the pic is pretty cool. Photo thanks to NASA.

Technorati Links: cosmos, morality, NASA