- The writings below are a mixture of pieces culled from the Bristol Wildlife e-group, letters to publications like New Scientist, and thoughts mulled in private. I think some are quite strange - will they strike a chord in any other readers?
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Letter to New Scientist re: ‘The Orchid Children’ 2012 . ‘Every Path a Pilgrimage’ .
Silly season question . ‘Unrealistic optimism’ – letter to New Scientist 2010 .
Reporting unusual finds . Population Geology musings . Darwin and Engels .
‘E O Wilson’s ‘Sociobiology’ . Lifespans .
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Question to New Scientist’s ‘The Last Word’, 8.3.13
I have long been amazed at how our vision (and presumably other
creatures’) manages to create a stable, consistent and enduring picture of the
outside world, within which the we/the individual move freely as a separate
entity without experiencing the lurching, nauseating ‘hand-held video’ effect
we might expect as the actual 'filmmaker'. One recent answer to ‘See the light’
(New Scientist Last Word 2.2.13) touched on this ability which we seem to take
completely for granted, but otherwise I have not seen it discussed. How
is it achieved?
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Letter to Colin Tudge (Secret Life of Birds)
- Some
comments in ‘The Secret Life of Birds’ have given me hope that you will
understand a question that has troubled me for years now – but that doesn’t
generally seem to trouble the scientific community: What is the genetic mechanism/explanation
for non-mechanical complex animal behaviour – not a mind/body problem, but an
emotions/actions problem?
As
far as I can see, the explanations of very complex biological development only
cover the mechanics, and do not cover
animal behaviour.
- I am
just a layperson but I read fairly extensively in the
evolution/biology/neurobiology field, and whenever I find a quote that sheds
even a faint light on this issue, I write it down – I will share some of those
slim pickings with you! Also if a lecture touches on this issue I may ask the
lecturer for their views – but so far have only been offered more bafflement. It
does seem that because ‘establishment’ science does not currently have an
answer, it tries to minimise or ignore the issue; but this also seems like
ignoring a big feisty elephant in the living room!
- Anyway,
your comment that raised my hopes was: ‘Of course, such descriptions are not entirely
satisfying. One vital step that is obviously missing is: how does the code in the DNA translate into
a feeling that some action must be undertaken , and an innate understanding of
what that action actually is? DNA when you boil it down is just a chemical – a
string of ‘nucleotides’, cobbled together from the everyday elements of carbon,
nitrogen, oxygen, hydrogen, and phosphorus. How does chemistry translate into
psychology?’ (‘The world as an
oyster’) It was a huge relief to me to read for the
first time my own problem expressed by someone else in the scientific field.
- However
then you go on to say, ‘Here, whether scientists like it or not, we
are into metaphysics; and science, on the whole, does not do metaphysics. So
there we must leave it.’ But in
my readings it seems that modern neurobiologists definitely take emotions as well
as intelligence -which surely combine as psychology? - as a valid subject for
research. The bugbear seems to be, not
that it’s metaphysics, but that absolutely no mechanism is currently available
to explain it. I just wish that such an important problem was aired and
discussed, if only for scientists to admit that they are at a loss; rather than
utterly ignored as though this would make it go away.
- I
would be very pleased if you would give me any further thoughts on
the subject.
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Letter to New
Scientist re: ‘The Orchid Children’ (28.1.12)
Your article on the possible survival value of ‘responsiveness’
genes described in ‘The Orchid Children’ (28 Jan 2012, p.42) prompts a new
approach to the question: why have white northerners apparently felt driven to
take over the world in the last few hundred years – whether in person,
culturally or economically? Books such as Stephen Oppenheimer’s ‘The Origins of
the British’(2006) describe how particular human genetic strains recolonised
the north again and again over millennia, as Ice Age conditions advanced and
retreated. These people would surely have been selected not only for daring and
toughness but for hard-headedness and willpower in the long term, and perhaps
for mechanical ingenuity leading to a more scientific/mechanistic mindset; in a
way that humans in other areas of the world may not have been.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------‘Every Path a Pilgrimage’
Having spent another 10 days in Brittany and Normandy (after a week in the Dordogne last year), and experienced again the French lack of ordinary footpaths, I have been ruminating about the power of the footpath. Their lack gives me a sense of unpleasant claustrophobia, partly because everything appears privatised and subject to the whims of (quite probably) materialistic owners; but also because one is separated from the countryside’s ‘deep’ history, the ancient and sacred, the old and humble, consecrated by anonymous people’s footfalls over thousands of years, by their close attention, interest and affection. Every footpath is actually a pilgrims’ way.
I think the English and Welsh footpath network constitutes a heritage of world status. The little short ones that still cut through towns, the ones to the church and round villages, the deeply-cut drovers paths along natural raised ridges that can carry on for scores of miles, the secretive ones going to incredible places – waterfalls, wells, ancient stone rings, staggering views, huge old trees... And in this densely-populated country, if you walk during the week, or out of holidays or in indifferent weather, you can be out all day and still meet virtually no one.
I don’t have a huge experience of the small-scale footpath situation in other countries. Mediterranean lands seem to favour those who like to wander, because of a herding heritage on rocky terrains where rugged goat paths are open to all. Germany has a comprehensive network. But does any other country have quite the magic, mystery and history of ours?
Further to this, I think our Ordinance Survey maps are also world treasures. They are physically exquisite, so delicate and precise, so evocative of the actual terrain. But they are also a treasure house of information, and one can browse them for hours, looking at the old names, the prehistoric remains – and of course, the footpaths! Long live our countryside and the maps that help make them such a pleasure to wander!
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Silly season question
A silly-season question: Darwin's wonderful and thought provoking book, 'The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animal', covers a list of expressions that have been found ubiquitous in humankind, and tries to trace their origin in animal behaviour. You'll find all the ones you'd expect there, but sometimes I can think of others and wonder if any work has been done on them. For instance, expressing extreme irritation at someone else by clicking ones tongue and rolling ones eyes? In the Caribbean the former is called 'suckteef', and I think it's probably international in some form or other. At a slight tangent, when toddlers are extremely annoyed they forcibly protrude their lower lip in a ferocious pout; however we seem to outgrow that one and substitute a more adult scowl - the female sexy pout is really a reprise of the child. So, any other contributions?
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‘Unrealistic optimism’ – letter to New Scientist
There appears to be a current scientific assumption that human feelings of optimism and personal control are useful but unrealistic (New Scientist editorial, 'Applied Rationality', 13.11.10). However all free wild animals from amoebas to elephants display a perfectly justified 'zest for life' and are indeed completely in control of them. That their lives may be short and a struggle does not negate this - they are masters at what they do as long as they are alive, and the survival of their species proves their zest is not misplaced. Humans are no different, though we have the ability to make ourselves unhappy in a way that animals do not. However, our unhappiness is probably more often unrealistic than our optimism!
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Reporting unusual finds
A member commented that the Bristol Wildlife group's messages seemed to be more about reporting 'unusual' finds than everyday observations. This got me thinking: what IS the ‘unusual’? I thought: I’ve only been birdwatching and a member of this group for just over 4 years. In that time I have reported loads of things that I found beautiful, or amusing, or interesting, but I didn’t necessarily think they would be unusual for more experienced birdwatchers - mostly rather the opposite, as they were often just little things. However I have since realised that these little events actually very rarely repeat themselves and may even be unique for me. And that makes me think how very rich nature is, how varied are the responses of living (and inorganic!) things, and that the oddest little thing may actually be genuinely unusual!
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Population
Inspired by previous posting about a proposed Severn Barrage and the damage we do to our environment, I recently had this strange thought: if all humans just stopped propogating and didn't have any more children as from today (not such an outrageous idea if you think of people doing that one by one, rather than all x billion of us!)- then we'd all be gone in 100 years! So simple! (Not that I am advocating the complete elimination of the human race - it's just a thought experiment) But of course nature is no fool, and made the sex drive strong enough to overcome almost everything... especially rational thought...
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Geology musings
Because it's so dark and wet and blowy, and probably because I've started a geology course on understanding sedimentary rocks, I've been doing a little musing....
....Imagine that human history finished right now (you can give or take a few hundred years) - what would the geological record look like in say 5 or 10 million years? That's about the shortest geological period in which to get a meaningful view, amounting to a sedimentary section a few inches thick. What would happen to cities? Skyscapers? Allow for about 1mm of compacted sediment being laid down every 100 years.
Here are some images to conjure with:
- In 5 million years there would be some movement of continents, but not a huge amount.
- If another ice age occurred, glaciation could fell a city, and chunks of building would be carried along, to drop out as erratic boulders hundreds of miles away. Then they’d be subject to further erosion and deposition...
- I can imagine a single skinny conglomerate layer worldwide, representing all our civilisation, and containing little shards of plastic detritus, and weird chemical compounds.
- I wonder what would happen to those new artificial islands the Arabs are developing, full of skyscapers etc.? There’s not a lot of extreme weather there, like hurricanes. Seas rising would perhaps start their downfall - it wouldn’t take too much erosion to wash away the foundations. When they fell in the sea they would form lovely new coral colonies...
Anyone got any other images?
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Darwin and Engels
Having finished and much enjoyed Darwin's 'The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals ' I was intrigued in the introduction to learn that Engels read it and while appreciating the contents, despised the way it was written - 'typically English', he said. I assume he meant that it is written in a very informal, non-academic way, fully admitting where there are gaps in evidence, giving many examples from observing his own children, and even having notes saying things like, 'Prof Soandso has pointed out the weakness in my argument here, and I must agree with him.'
Now it's a long time since I read Marx and Engels who very much changed my way of thinking, and whom I admire for putting 'who profits?' into historical analysis and thus actually making sense of history instead of a meaningless list of monarchs and battles. And I can't remember how 'pseudo-scientifically' it was written, but I feel if their works had been written more in the Darwin style it would have been harder for the Soviets to turn it into ironclad dogma with an apparently scientific basis. Because of course there wasn't such a basis - it was the authors' own ideas and observations, pertinent though they may have been.
It was also an eye-opener to learn how the anthropologist Margaret Mead and her followers villified Darwin's work (unscientifically) because of certain concerns they had about its use politically (how Soviet!). Yet now I understand Mead herself is discredited in many ways - for instance, she was a mere 23 when she went to Samoa, and the Samoans admitted to later workers (with a better grasp of the language and culture) that they had fed her a lot of stories of the sort they could see she wanted to hear - that'll be the juicy sexy ones I expect.
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‘E O Wilson’s ‘Sociobiology’
I have just finished reading a great science classic, E O Wilson’s ‘Sociobiology’, 1980 abridged edition (‘Sociobiology: the systematic study of the biological basis of all social behaviour.’). This is one of those extraordinary books whose main tenets and observations have pervaded our/society’s minds so completely that one does not recognise the source until one reads the original - like Freud and the concept of the unconscious. One of the book’s most significant observations to me, is how throughout the animal kingdom there are intrinsic conflicts between the needs and desires of the individual, the family, and the groups containing the family and individual. The torments mankind suffers because of these conflicts are not ours alone, nor are they in any way necessarily reconcilable (except at a spiritual level) - much though we and our politicians would often like to hope otherwise.
Another striking thing is how one can be reading an analysis of a creature as humble as a flatworm or other invertebrate and thinking, ‘Oh my God, that’s just like humans.’ Lower creatures have some sophisticated behaviour, and we are so often not alone in our reactions... Anyway, I recommend it to those who like this sort of thing.
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Lifespans
Does anyone have any thoughts on this?: Animals have a lifespan that goes from very brief, hours or days, to between 50 to 100 years for the very long lived - humans, elephants, turtles, parrots....
Plants and shrubs also have lifespans that go from a brief season to perhaps 20 years of so. But as shrubs become trees suddenly it's a different ball game, and by huge factors. A typical tree could last from 100 to 200 years, and the long living ones from 200 to 2000 years upwards. What in nature and evolution has developed so that a tree could live such an enormous span when no other living thing comes close?
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