the evolving mind

In a bit of a phenomenological turn-around, new biological research tells of the discover of 7 new mushroom species. But not just ordinary mushrooms. Luminescent mushrooms. No, you don’t ingest them and then perceive ordinary objects to glow. The mushrooms themselves “glow.”

Dude! That’s awesome!

I’ve heard of bioluminescent plankton; I’ve watched video footage of bioluminescent squid. And who hasn’t seen bioluminescent insects — fireflies? But glowing shrooms? Why would fungi evolve to emit photons?

Lead author of the study, Dennis Desjardin, explains it this way:

[S]ome fungi glow in order to attract nocturnal animals that aid in the dispersal of the mushroom’s spores which are similar to seeds and are capable of growing into new organisms. [article paraphrase]

Blossoms that reflect ultraviolet light, out of our sight range, to attract pollinators; mushrooms that turn on an internal night-light to attract spore-dispersing animals . . . how groovy is that?

[source]

Technorati Links: biology

I don’t fully understand gravity. Is it an attractive force . . . or curved space/time . . . or what?

I wonder — why isn’t this mysterious phenomenon taken as evidence of a god’s power and reach? After all, gravity is everywhere.

Folks, you should go to mass, because mass is the source of all attraction. It is a sign of our god’s love for his own creation.

My guess is that the reason why gravity hasn’t been imbued with other-worldly connotations is because the phenomenon is so darn mundane. Humans have taken it for granted over the millennia. Drop an apple to the ground and, yawn, it falls to the ground. Big deal.

It’s a big deal to me.

[photo of Neptune and its stop-motion moon thanks to NASA]

Technorati Links: cosmos, gravity

“Body and mind.” I’m not a fan of that phrase. I’m even less of a fan when a third element is added: spirit. The body includes the brain, and mind is what the brain does. Spirit? What the brain does as well. As far as I can tell it is a class of thoughts/perceptions/feelings.

Body and mind is equivalent to “physiology and what that physiology does.” Would body and cognition be a more accurate way to put it? Somewhat.

Consider this test case. According to a recent psychological study,

Researchers found that people who were told to sit up straight were more likely to believe thoughts they wrote down while in that posture concerning whether they were qualified for a job.

Study co-author Richard Petty concluded -

The results show how our body posture can affect not only what others think about us, but also how we think about ourselves.

As other research has indicated, the “body-mind” influence is bi-directional. Thoughts can likewise influence body posture. Mind influences body; body influences mind. Put another way, thoughts influence body; body influences thoughts. Or perhaps even more accurately: central nervous activity influences peripheral nervous activity; peripheral nervous activity influences central nervous activity.

Is that what body/mind is all about? Instead of body and mind, should we instead use peripheral and central? As for spirit, that deserves a complete demotion to a subset of mind or central nervous system activity. Hmm.

Technorati Links: psychology, semantics

Look at a flower face-on and it probably strikes you as “pretty.” But is that what a flower is “all about”? No. This side view of a yellow mandevilla reveals that a blossom extends deeper than the petals. Hmm. What does that chamber lead to? Fertilization and reproduction.

Okay. Hold onto your hats (or pants, as the case may be), but here goes one heck of a double-D of a segue: Breasts. Female breasts. Viewed superficially, they are attractive/sexy. Sure, the human male seems captivated by them. Sometimes obsessed. But is it “all about” the male animal’s superficial horny-mones? What does sexual attraction lead to (or at least what can it)? Who benefits from this?

Technorati Links: flowers, photography, sexuality

A crucial element of my Almighty Alpha thesis is grooming behavior. Namely, is it manifest in religion? Does a “grooming instinct” play a role in the formation and persistence of religious ideation and ritual? Furthermore, how might we account for the transition from the primates’ physical grooming behavior to the uniquely human variant of vocal grooming?

Dogs and cats, and other species lacking opposable thumbs, will use their tongues to literally groom conspecifics. We humans use our tongues, though not applied directly to the body of others. Instead, we use our larynx and tongue to generate and shape the atmospheric vibrations we breathe toward others, aiming to stroke not their fur favorably, but their brains by way of what their auditory nerves perceive.

Many species vocalize. Non-verbal vocalizations are likely the bridge to verbal grooming. How is this possible? Grooming vocalizations initially accompanied primate grooming behavior. Of the physical kind. They then become the primary behavior itself. Somewhat like Pavlov’s bell:the audible ringing was first an accompaniment to the salivation-inducing presentation of meat. And then the sound of the bell alone did the trick.

Among primates, grooming is “generally accompanied by lip-smacking” (46). As William McGrew has written in his book on the chimpanzee culture, “Chimpanzees are well known to accompany social grooming with specific noises, e.g. lip-smack, tongue-click, teeth-clack, the Bronx cheer’, or raspberry, etc.” (47)

Nearly half a century ago, in an essay about primate allogrooming, John Sparks explored the evolutionary origins of the lip-smack, concluding it was derived “from a licking or lip-moistening movement, and is functionally related to grooming behaviour, but it has undergone some evolutionary change and appears even in the grooming context to have evolved a typical intensity.” (48) From there, how many steps led from non-verbal vocal “grooming” to verbal grooming?

Frans de Wall — a heavyweight in the primatology field, if there ever was one — has already documented the first step in the evolutionary pathway to grooming at a distance (beyond arm’s reach):

“Lipsmacking is a series of rapid lip and tongue movements carried out by an individual with brief glances at the partner. Rhythmic smacking is most commonly heard after grooming, but it may also be performed at a distance, accompanied by raised eyebrows, as a visual signal of friendly intentions.” (49)

Maybe it isn’t so crazy to postulate that via soundwaves primates can groom one another at a distance. Yet perhaps “groom” isn’t the perfect term. At least for what humans do. But what shall we call it? Small talk? Gossip? Those don’t work either. Consider this hypothetical example of a telephone conversion between a husband and wife post-conflict:

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Technorati Links: religion, sociology

Good news for you voodoo lovers. A professional push has been made to incorporate voodoo into medicine. The bad news: If you are a hardcore voodoo fan, the form of voodoo being incorporated is a sort of homeopathic religiosity. It has been watered down so far people don’t detect it as voodoo voodoo. So no, there won’t be any drum-beat dancing or casting of spells or the sacrificing of small animals at a patient’s bedside. Instead, this is the “progress in medicine” touted by a science news release, New guidelines for incorporating spirituality in end-of-life care -

Guidelines derived from a recent Consensus Conference, including recommendations on the role of healthcare providers in the assurance of quality spiritual care to patients in a palliative care setting, are published in a comprehensive report in Journal of Palliative Medicine.

Quality spiritual care. How benign. How mildly ridiculous. How culturally correct yet thoroughly unscientific.

What? Spirituality is not voodoo, some may argue. True enough. But they are distant cousins. Kissing cousins even. In the least, voodoo is a form of spirituality. I wonder how the Consensus Conference specifically proposes incorporating spirituality into palliative care, which is part of good medicine. It if is truly medicine, it should be science-based. Is spirituality in any way science-based?

Because none of the supernatural elements of spirituality can be included in science-based medicine — they are “not of this world” — just what aspects of spirituality could be included without putting feathers in the hair of doctors and nurses (so to speak)? Yet what is spirituality without supernatural forces and or destinations for one’s supernatural soul?

Sure, talk about belief systems, for those are thoughts and thoughts are the results of brain processes, real world events. Talk about community, about ritual even, for these things can be studied and reasonably included in science-based medicine.

The editor-in-chief of Journal of Palliative Medicine, Charles F. von Gunten, says -

“Of the physical, emotional, practical, and spiritual dimensions of hospice and palliative medicine, spirituality has been least well addressed. This report aims to improve that situation.”

Less well addressed. Why not address it by studying it first? Why address it by making guidelines for inserting it into medicine?

My recommendation is that all things spiritual be kept out of the hands and hair of medical professionals. Instead, allow the para-professionals of the healing arts, the modern-day voodoo experts (priests, rabbis), to enter medical facilities and care for the other-worldly needs of those patients who believe in another world and request assistance getting there. Seriously.

The report concludes that “spiritual care is a fundamental component of quality palliative care.” And so they seek to ensure it’s place in this arena of medicine. But is spiritual care fundamental? That strikes me as an assumption akin to the claim that religion is fundamental to morality and good citizenry (it isn’t); and thus we should include religion in public schools.

Be ware of assumptions. Even those that come across as warm and fuzzy, humanistic initiatives.

Technorati Links: medicine, religion

Yesterday evening while cooking I listened to a television program, “NFL Live.” During the broadcast one of the talking heads made this comment about Brett Favre admitting to praying before his big game:

It’s interesting how pressure will make you pray.

Precisely.

You have no doubt heard the expression, “there are no atheists in foxholes.” While there may be an iota of truth to this — an iota — I think people attribute the wrong meaning to it.

Believers may tell you that by turning to a god and praying “when the chips are down” people are revealing their true nature. Whether in a foxhole or on a deathbed. However, it seems to me that all these type of phenomena may reveal is that when truly desperate people will resort to any means for aid, no matter how far-flung and irrational.

In my opinion, far-flung hopes and irrational wishes do not provide a good basis for belief in a god.

Technorati Links: atheism, belief

What is the above? Hints: I “breathe” through it; magnification x60. Answer below the fold.

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Technorati Links: microscope, photography, puzzle

Public (Dis)Service Announcement:

Put down that apple! It is loaded with chemicals. You don’t want to eat chemicals, do you?!

First, apples are virtually loaded with dihydrogen monoxide. Consume too much of that stuff, and it will kill you. Oh, yes, there have been documented cases. (Go ahead and shower in it, but consume with care!!!!)

Second, apples contain over ten types of acids, from palmitic acid to salicylic acid and beyond. [source] Should you really bite into a buffet of acids?

Third, recent research has found that apples — organic even! — and other natural foods are higher in disease-causing phthalates than highly-processed “junk” foods.

As a matter of fact, consumers who eat naturally and healthily and try to keep the chemical additives in their food to a minimum might even be ingesting more phthalates on a daily basis than those who do not worry about their diet at all.

Can we trust our health to these dangerous, natural foods?!

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My tongue-in-cheek point? Don’t get caught up in the “natural” vs. non hysteria. Look deeper. Besides, hysteria causes worry. And worry is stressful. It could kill you!

Technorati Links: diet, skepticism

If I were a flower, what type would I be? A half-unfurled hibiscus, as above?

Although I love flowers, I’m also a rabid NFL football fan. (A good example that our brains consist of somewhat independent “modules,” perhaps). For this past weekend of games, some football players wore either pink gloves or shoes, in support of breast cancer awareness month. A good thing. And yet on football fan bulletin boards I read the words of guys complaining about how gay it is. Wearing pink.

Oh man. What dopes. I felt like responding with this: “Yah! What’s next — football players with earrings!!!”

Those fans deserve a punch in the nose. But wait, I like flowers, so maybe a more stereotypical response would be for me to slap them in the face while screaming like a girly-man.

Naw, a punch in the nose would make a better statement. And would feel more natural on my part.

Some people can’t see beyond our present culture. Poor dolts. They clearly need to go back to school. Or to attend a better one.

Technorati Links: culture, photography, psychology