March 17th, 2008 ecoli
Parabasis talks about a theories that evolutionary biologists have come up with to explain determined altruism.
Parabasis on the ‘Potlatch Effect’:
… you’re trying to destroy your enemies by engaging in a competition to outspend each other, using charity as the means to the end of their bankruptcy.
I share his skepticism of this theory. It does a messy job of explaining human behavior within the context of culture, because it seems to ignore ultimate causation of human culture.
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Posted in evolution, link out | 6 Comments »
March 15th, 2008 ecoli
David Wong, on cracked.com writes
“Global warming is going to get really bad in 30 or 40 years, mass starvation, the whole bit.”
“So? I won’t be alive for that. I’m already 72 years old.”
“but… you should care about your fellow man even if it doesn’t benefit you!”
“That’s a false emotional impression, left over from our ancient herd instinct. Surely you’re not saying that it’s ‘better’ to care about your fellow man than not to.”
“Of course I am! People will die if you don’t!”
“So you say it’s better that people live than die? Why?”
“It just is!”
I was shocked and disappointed. He believed in this invisible, unmeasurable force called “better” as much as he believed in man’s equally-unmeasurable ability to discern and act on the “better” thing and that “it just is” right do that “better” thing when given the chance. He believed in things science can’t quantify.
Wong comes up with some interesting ideas about determinism and the subjectivity of what we think of as fact. He points out that even ideas in which humans can find common ground are still not necessarily universal Truths. Commentary about what is ‘right’, ‘wrong’, ‘good’ or ‘bad’ about genocide or climate change are just as arbitrary as saying that ‘pizza is the best food.’
He says that these ideas are vestigial relics of our evolutionary history, from a time when people lived in herds and relied on each other for their direct survival.
However, these types of behaviors are not ‘vestigial’ and are just as applicable as our hunter/gathering days.
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Posted in evolution, link out, musings | No Comments »
March 15th, 2008 ecoli
According to the NY Times, this years winner of the Templeton Prize is a catholic priest/cosmologist. Michael Keller, who is 72, works for the Pontifical Academy of Theology, in Krakow, Poland. He is devoted to studying questions such as “does the universe need to have a cause?”
I was almost surprised when I read this, thinking it unlikely that Catholic priest should have the objectiveness to study cosmology, especially in relation to cosmology. However, Heller is strongly against the God of the Gaps theory and is quite for teaching evolution in the classrooms, describing the feud as a ‘misunderstanding’.
As it turns out, this is exactly the kind of guy I want to see playing a role in religious institutions. Now, if only members of the US protestant religions would come to the same realization…
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March 14th, 2008 ecoli
This is going back a few years now, but I just found it now. Objective: Missionaries has (or had, I can find a more recent link) a science fair devoted to children’s science projects that attempt prove creation science.
There are so many contradictions in that last statement, I don’t know where to start, but I prefer to let the “science fair” speak for itself:
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Posted in creationism, evolution | 3 Comments »
March 13th, 2008 ecoli
Here’s something that happens on a daily basis that shows the complete ineptitude and lack of planning by the university police force.
Every day, I park in the same lot, though I usually don’t park in the same row. For some unexplainable reason, at 6 o’clock (I think every day) the police take there yellow barriers and completely block off the front row of the parking lot.
Now, obviously not everyone has left the parking lot at 6 o’clock, so someone invariably removes one of the barrier in order to drive home. The barrier is never replaced, so one end of the row is left opened anyway.
So regardless of the [il]logic of putting the barriers up in the first place, they serve no purpose except to block people from leaving the parking lot. Once the barrier is moved, people can come and go as the please anyway.
No doubt this is one of the new ’safety measures’ the university has taken from protecting us from the recent string of burglars, assaulters, credit stealers and alleged gunmen that have been plaguing the campus. I feel safer already.
Posted in musings | 1 Comment »
March 10th, 2008 ecoli
According to this report from the AP, pharmaceuticals are building up in the water reservoirs of virtually every major American city as well as Canada and Europe. Unmetabolized drugs find there way from sewage treatment plants into our nations water supply. Of course, we don’t know what the effects will be on the general population, the concentration of drugs are really low… but you just know it can’t be good.
Posted in news | 2 Comments »
March 8th, 2008 ecoli
These thoughts come from an extension of a class I’m taking called “human social and sexual behavior.”
When human females orgasm, the back of the vagina lowers, allowing semen to pool. The cervical tent then contracts, dipping down into the pool of semen, drawing semen into the uterus, almost like a drinking straw, which increases the probability of conception.
When there is no semen present,the cervical tent draws up vaginal secretions into the uterus, acidifying it. This acidic environment is harmful to sperm, and the effect can last for several days. We can therefore assume that the female organism, when sperm is not present decreases the probability of conception at some later point.
You might expect that this would be disadvantageous to all, because if you decrease the probability of conception and of having offspring, you risk not spreading your design information, which is the ultimate goal of an organism’s proximate behaviors.
However, consider, that any child born of sexual reproduction is only 50% related to yourself. Therefore, in order to maximize the spread of genetic information, any organism would want to make sure their children are as fit (in the Darwinian sense) and successful as possible.
There are times when a mothering a child would be disadvantageous. For example, in a harsh environment, a mother will have to share resources with her child. When resources are scarce, this threatens the survival of both mother and child. Clearly, it would be bad to invest resources into a child, only to have both the mother and child die. In this case, the mothers design information would die with her. If a mother can delay childbirth to times when resources are plentiful, she can increase the chance of survival.
Now, especially in matrilineal human societies, there could be a conflict of interest between male and female partners. Males, who don’t necessarily expend as much resource looking after children, at least in comparison to the mother, could want to try reproduce, independent of resource availability.
Here’s where female homosexuality comes in. Females in a human ‘village’ have mutual interest, in that in a non-kin dependent social cooperating society, they would want all women in the village to be successful in childrearing.
If they can, by engaging in homosexual activities, give each other orgasms and increase the chances of delaying pregnancy during extended harsh conditions, then they would all benefit.
Of course, this speculation of mine wouldn’t make much sense for regular cyclic seasonal things, but more likely for longer periods of environmental stress, or perhaps during long migrations.
Posted in musings | 12 Comments »
March 4th, 2008 ecoli
So there’s nothing quite like getting to the lab after a long week away (because of exams) only to find out all your frozen and refridgerated stuff had to be moved around to make room for the new grad students.
I only just got used to all my things being where they are, and it only took me 4 years!
I mean, I know I’m only a lowly undergrad, but I’ve been in this lab since before those newbs realized that you could major in biology.
I kid, though, the new grad students are good and I know them from their rotations in our lab. And my stuff is just on the very bottom shelf (does being an undergrad make me shorter?) so not a huge deal.
And since it seems that I got rejected from the research program I wanted to do at NYU, I’ll most likely be staying around for yet another summer on Long Island. It’s dissapointing but not all bad. I’ll get a lot of work done on my current project, which will come in handy for my senior thesis next year. Also, my PI said he’d pay me by the hour over the summer. Which, at $10 bucks an hour means I’ll be doing pretty well, in a lab I’m very familiar with, doing research I love, with people I like.
Also, not being in the city will mean much less distractions allowing me to study for the MCATs in July.
Posted in musings, my research | 2 Comments »
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