Review of Pandora Seed: The Unforseen Cost of Civilization

I am going to use an acronym CRITIC to review the new book by Spencer Wells entitled Pandora Seed: The Unforeseen Cost of Civilization. This is based on the article in Skeptical Inquirer by Wayne R. Bartz: Teaching Skepticism via the CRITIC Acronym and the Skeptical Inquirer from the September/October 2002 Skeptical Inquirer.
C-Claim; what is the claim made? The overall claim of the book is Humanity needs a new mythos of learning to live with less if we are going to continue as a species, our greed "for more" fuels fundamentalism, mental illness, obesity, climate change, and the current issue of modernity. Dr. Wells is not advocating going back to a hunter-gatherer lifestyle but through development of civilization from Agriculture, we have develop languages, science, cultures, etc. that can not only influence our genome through Eugenics but also, as the last 10,000 years have shown, has given humanity resources and more importantly the responsibility for the sustainability of our species and planet.
R- Role of Claimant; who is making the claim? Dr. Spencer Wells is a Geneticist and residing director of the National Geography Genographic Project.
I- Information Backing Claim, what is it?
1. Modern anatomical Homo sapiens (i.e. modern humans) evolved in Africa 195,000 years ago and left Africa 50,000 to 60,000 years ago to populate the rest of the world. Other Hominid species like Homo erectus, Homo Ergaster which evolved into Homo neanderthalensis left Africa as well much earlier. Homo sapiens are the only Hominid species left, with Neanderthals dying out approximately 25,000 years ago in Europe.
2. Starting approximately 10,000 years ago Humans invented agriculture (probably a woman, since women did most of the gathering in hunter-gatherer societies) and replaced a hunter-gatherer diet with a sedentary agricultural diet high in Carbohydrates which is a contributing factor in our present problem of obesity. Obesity plays a significant role in diabetes, heart disease and hypertension, and other non-communicable diseases.
3. It was through agriculture that communities formed once there was enough food to sustain the community. Over the past 10,000 years these agricultural communities evolved into villages, villages into towns, towns into cities, cities into strong -centralized states that developed non-agricultural specializations like art, languages, religion which required priesthood,craftmen,merchant class, that is, all the hallmarks of what is now called civilization.
Test - Can the claim be tested? Dr. Wells shows how our DNA has for 6 million years, when human split from other primates, lived as hunter-gatherers and how when comparing actual data early hunter-gatherers to early agriculturalist lived longer, where taller, etc and for the last 10,000 years we moved from to a more sedentary life-style that is not necessarily conducive to a DNA and body that evolved from a hunter-gatherer life style. Obesity, other cost of civilization is what we are experiencing and living with today. The reason agriculturalist gained an advantage over hunter-gatherers is because they were able to have more offspring, and evolution is about passing on genes and whoever does this more successfully will have more offspring in future generations.
I- Independent Testing: Have the claim been tested by others? Yes, Jared Diamond have made similar claims in his books, Gun, Germs, and Steel: The Fate of Human Societies and Collapse: How societies Choose to Fail or Succeed.
C-Cause: What explanation, if any, is being proposed? The cause is agriculture. Agriculture taught humanity that we can control our resources to a certain extent. Through agriculture we developed food storage, which lead to surpluses, this lead to gains in status by bartering and selling the surplus. With the sedentary lifestyle people were less likely to give up their resources therefore there was more widespread warfare over limited resources. Agriculture in controlling our resources created civilization and the idea that we are the masters of our own fates, but we have over-extended ourselves by the greed "for more", moving ever increasingly to a world of haves and haves not and the cost of civilization (fundamentalism, global warming, war etc.).

John D. Socrates

Faith , Suicide Bombers, and Doubt

Most believers I know don't believe what they profess to believe, they are the first to go to the doctor, they take advantage of the medicine and technology of a modern secular society while they bash secularism and science. They do all this while claiming to believe in Divine protection and healing. It would seem that of all people on earth who should not be afraid of harm or death it would be some one who believes in an afterlife. You have to admit that suicide bombers seem to believe in what they profess. The suicide bomber wants certainty or to be in control and so they take a leap of blind faith into the most uncertain or uncontrolled event there is, death, and what happens after death. In their leap of faith in trying to prove they are certain they do the most intolerable act there is, they kill and maim others; all in the name of their god. It is ironic that suicide is as Schopenhauer wrote "Suicide may also be looked upon as an experiment, as a question which man puts to Nature and compels her to answer. It asks, what change a man's existence and knowledge of things experience through death? It is an awkward experiment to make; for it destroys the very consciousness that awaits the answer." I think a suicide bomber shows us what a leap of faith is(it is the desire for certainty in an uncertain world), it is a conclusion that the individual has made about the value of their life and its worth to them, and based on the results it is not much. Like I wrote in my certainty in uncertainty blog. Our greatest fear is death because 1. we cannot control it and 2. of what may or may not happen after death, these two things are uncertain variables in our existence. I like all people want certainty but I will settle for reasonableness. I think reasonableness is the balance between certainty and uncertainty, it is the give or take or tolerance that is innate in the universe itself, at least according to the Principle of Uncertainty, which essentially means we cannot know everything just some things, you can know either the momentum of something or its location but not both. As I stated earlier, I like other people want certainty or to be in control, but I am skeptical that I am. Did I determine the day I was born, my gender, sex, name, or ethnicity? I think I can be aware that I am not in control or that there is a place for doubt, especially in a time where everyone are so damn certain. Think about it...

The Certainty of Uncertainty... I know that I don't know and it's Okay to say so

Ever since our brain and there by mind evolved to the point of thinking about the universe and our place in it, the age old question has been why is there something rather than nothing? Built into this key question is the innate desire for an answer or what I call certainty in an uncertain world. From this wonder, three institutions have emerged and have tried to answer this question and satisfy our need for certainty; these institutions are religion, philosophy, and science. Therefore, I must ask what is certainty and why is it important? Certainty comes from the Latin certus, which means "sure, fixed, settled, and determined...” In other words, we want consistency, knowledge, i.e., a way to control and manipulate our environment in order to survive but the universe seem to be indifferent to our desires or as Albert Camus called this feeling, the Absurd, our need for the universe to give us an answer and its refusal to do so. Nevertheless, we want to live, we want to survive and we don't know why? Perhaps this desire is what Arthur Schopenhauer called the will to live and Immanuel Kant called the thing in itself, we want to avoid suffering and reduce our chances of ending our life because of the uncertainty of what happens after death. I agree with Epicurus about a fear of death, when he stated "Why should I fear death? If I am, death, is not. If death is, I am not. Why should I fear that which can only exist when I do not."
As I stated earlier, I think uncertainty is the creator of religion, philosophy and the sciences. I think humanity want certainty because it gives us a sense of security and safety and this gives us an illusion of control. The desire for control over our environment and its resources creates an idea at least that we are increasing our chances of survival. The reason or the evolutionary drive for survival is our will to live, or the emergence of life and its continuance. I think uncertainty was an important precursor to religious ideology because it gives the practitioner the false impression of control or influence over the outcome. As a result, if you throw divination bones, read the intestines of a goat, the oracles of the cracks of a heated tortoise or turtle shell you get the delusion of control. Even in the so-called dominant religions of today, where people believe in a god who created the universe and who will make life for his believers better, they read his so-called word, pray, there is still a delusion of control and certainty. I think prayer has replaced the manipulative functions of divination, because in prayer the person is trying to influence the outcome by control or influencing the source of power (the god) behind their situation. As Voltaire once wrote if god did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him. For Plato wrote in The Republic, his idea of the ideal society, that a belief in the gods and an afterlife is necessary to keep the societal order, in other words, it’s all about our delusional need for power and control. This is why people avoid agnosticism like it is the plague because it is an uncertain position. Even though it is the most intellectually honest position, just to say "I don't know" to most people is unacceptable and people who default to belief or non-belief according to psychologist are happier than people who are uncertain, even when people know something bad they are happier than not knowing, this seems to go against the old saying or idea by William Blake “where ignorance is bliss tis folly to be wise…” Although uncertainty is essential to the pursuit of science, for it gives scientist a problem to investigate, I still feel that the motivation is still the desire to control the unknown and uncertain, because not knowing can be detrimental to survival, in other words, our evolutionary will to live drive us to do whatever is necessary to pass on our genes to the next generation.
Finally, while thinking on the certainty of uncertainty, I watched a documentary online by Jacob Bronowski titled "Knowledge and Certainty", which is part of a 13 segmented series called the "Ascent of Man". I think the film goes along with what I have been discussing and I feel the film's message was we can be certain within limits of a principle which Professor Bronowski called "The Principle of Tolerance" which he borrowed from Heisenberg called the "The principle of Uncertainty". Tolerance is an engineering term in that when parts are manufactured with a certain degree of tolerance or "a give or take" that is, an approximation is incorporated in the product for it is not possible to make anything to perfect dimension, not because of human fallibility, however, because of the uncertainties in matter and energy itself. In other words, our scientific facts or laws are approximations because of the give or take i.e. the uncertainty that is innate in matter and energy. However, when our approximated truths become a dogma it is no longer science it is another religion, which means it is something that binds us and our thinking. I think we can be reasonably certain of some things but understand that in this certainty there are areas of uncertainty and limitations. I am advocating a philosophical position called Fallibilism, a doctrine that nothing can be known for certain, that is, there is no infallible knowledge, but there can still be knowledge, or as the Philosopher Rick Roderick stated it "That means something like this, a fallibilist is someone who passionately believes certain things.. Some of them quite bizarre ... But about those beliefs, they believe that those beliefs could be wrong." On the one hand, I understand that we have evolved by the will to live and the more certain we are the happier, confident, and more inclined to survive and pass on our genes. On the other hand, arrogance or thinking that we are infallible is dangerous because if matter and energy, the very foundation of all we know is uncertain, then the only certainty is the certainty of uncertainty, that is, the give and take innate in the universe. Any ideology that does not allow for give or take is static and dead because it leaves little room for tolerance or the “give or take” for the universe is about change. Because of our innate desire to survive, or as Schopenhauer called it our will to live, I think the scientific method that is, wonder, hypothesis and testing is the best method that we have in finding an approximated truth because built in it is a self-correcting system that understands that it could be wrong. In summary, I think the evolutionary drive to pass on our genes or "the will to live" necessitates the creation of certainty in order for life to continue but in our delusion of certainty we need to be open to the hypothesis that we could be wrong and the best way to do this are through critical thinking, the Socratic and Scientific Methods, but I am open to the possibility or at least remind myself that this too could be wrong. In other words, what it all boils down to is I don't know and I know that I don't know and it's okay to say this for life will continue whether I am certain or not. Think about it... John D. Socrates

References:
1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engineering_tolerance
2. http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/hum_303/bronowski.html
3. http://www.philosophyprofessor.com/philosophies/fallibilism.php
4. http://rickroderick.org/101-socrates-and-the-life-of-inquiry-1990/

Strength in Weakness Theory and the Mid-term elections of 2010

What they call mid-term election officially has ended. The prediction of big GOP gains in the House came true. The Senate may have a slight Democratic majority possibly a 53 to 47 and this may benefit President Obama, because it will make the GOP put up or shut up.
The reason I think this may benefit the President is this is a classic example of an idea by Frans de Waal in his book Our Inner Ape: A Leading Primatologist Explains Why We Are Who We Are. The idea, in Chapter 2 entitled Power, is a coalition theory called "strength is weakness". In "strength is weakness" the most powerful player is often the least attractive ally. Dr de Waals use the example of three chimps, Yereon, Nikki, and Luit in the Arnhem Zoo in Holland to illustrate his point. He tells the story of Luit who was the alpha male and how he was killed. Yereon, who was the alpha, was dethroned by Luit and after Yereon got over his loss, he skillfully aligned himself with Nikki because aligning himself with Luit had little or no benefits because Luit did not need his support. Luit eventually was double-teamed by Nikki (who became the new alpha male) and Yereon when they are all caged together one evening.

In one scenario the GOP House could be considered the powerful player. The president joining them adds little to their strength which in turns results in fewer benefits for him. However, if a coalition is formed by throwing weight behind a weaker player like the Democratic-lead Senate it gives one far more leverage and also translates into more prestige and benefits for him. Using the Paradoxical idea of weakness is strength; minor players can position themselves at an intersection that offers great advantage. The president could use the veto strategically to thwart any plan GOP lead house may have. The president as the weaker player could strengthen his position by playing the competing interest against each other and a strategic use of the veto would force the GOP to water down their plans because they don't have the votes to over-turn a veto, this may work if the Democrats would unite and not override a veto because it takes a two-third majority to override a veto.

I see another scenario of this "weakness is strength" coalition theory also being played by so-called Centrist Senators both Democratic ones like Manchin or Independents like Leiberman, uniting with moderate Republicans like Mark Kirk,Olympia Snow, etc.. They could be calling the shots because of the division in Congress (i.e. the conservative Republicans versus progressive Democrats). The GOP who have a majority is in a weaker position than these so-called moderate Senators because they need them to pass any sustainable legislation.
This also show evolutionary theory is such a powerful explanatory tool, we need to get the chip off our shoulder and wake up to the fact that we are Hairless Apes or Primates (i.e. we are not the central purpose of the universe). We evolved in communal societies like other primates, this is why we seek out coalitions and why we are gregarious. We diverged from a common ancestor with our Chimpanzee and Bonobos cousins six million years ago. We are not the only intelligent social primates on this planet as so eloquently illustrated by Frans de Waal in Our Inner Ape.

Think about it...

Black Socrates

The Grand Design and the World as Will and Idea

I have read several reviews of the Audio Book I have listen to this week, it is by Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow it is titled "The Grand Design". A lot of people are critical of it because they're advocating the M-Theory, which are a "whole family of different theories, each of which is a good description of observations only in some range of physical situations". From the reviews and from listening to the book, I understand that he's saying we live in a universe that is one of many universes called a multiple-universe or multiverse, in which there could be 10 to the 500 power of universes, that is a 1 with 500 zeros, and thus it is inevitable that we happen to live in a solar system that is one of hundreds of billions of solar systems just in the Milky Way galaxy alone; and our galaxy is one among hundreds of billions of galaxies and we live in a solar system in which the laws of physics and the anthropic principle (weak and strong) are so that life is possible at least on our planet. Another interesting concept that was brought out was what they called Model-Dependent Realism. "These examples bring us to a conclusion: There is no picture- or theory-independent concept of reality. Instead we adopt a view that we call model-dependent realism: the idea that a physical theory or world picture is a model (generally of a mathematical nature) and a set of rules that connect the elements of the model to observations. This provides a framework with which to interpret modern science. Read more: http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,2017262,00.html#ixzz11PWjFEFU. As I read the reviews and listened to the Audio book, I thought about Schopenhauer's classic, The World as Will and Idea or Representation and Alan Watts' the Way of Zen, that you cannot separate the subject (observer) from the object (the observed), For example, the World as Will and Idea, in which we are non-dual objectification of Will as Helen Zimmern states it "Schopenhauer endeavours to define this Substance itself, and declares it to be a Will. From the idea of Will, action is inseparable; and the existence of the phenomenal world is, according to him, sufficiently explained by regarding it as the result of the craving of the eternal Will, the substratum of all existence, to manifest itself in an external form. This Will, in a word, is a will to live." Alan Watts calls the Will Mind (citta) is the "what" that cannot be defined but gives objectification to every thing it classifies. In other words, every thing in the universe is a non-dual substance that objectifies itself in what we call matter in the three dimensions of space and time. Think about it...
Black Socrates

Value

There's a book I plan to read called the 36 Arguments for God's existence by Rebecca Newberger Goldstein, it is a novel and at the end of the novel she has the 36 most common arguments for god's existence. The arguments and flaws were made available online. As I read the 36 arguments and the flaws, most if not all, where semantically ways of saying life would be meaningless or pointless if god did not exist, and therefore in order for life to not be meaningless or pointless there must be a transcendental force behind it all. It all boils down to, I want my life to mean something or have value to someone else besides me, there's someone who cares, therefore a god must exist because if god did not exist then my life would not have a point or a meaning. However, how does a god give our existence a point, how can I not ask, what is the point or meaning of God? What is his reason for being? Why do we want or need one pointless idea to explain another? What I mean by pointless is it is an idea that does not point to something else beyond itself. I think most of humanity are afraid of life being its own point and so we crave or desire something that's transcendental or outside of ourselves to give us or our life this meaning or value. I think it is passing the buck and avoiding taking responsibility for ourselves. Think about it.

The Collapse of the Kalam

I had an epiphany the other day. The epiphany I had was about the Kalam Cosmological Argument which goes.
1. Everything that begins to exist has a cause
2. According the big bang cosmology the universe begin to exist
3. Therefore the universe has a cause
4. Therefore God exist.
If you ever heard or read arguments from Christian Apologist like William Lane Craig they go on to define their god. They normally define their god as a timeless, immaterial, spaceless, personal being of great power and intelligence that created the universe and sustains its existence. I thought about this definition of god with the exception of immaterial, personal being of great power and intelligence, that timeless, spaceless were the conditions that existed before the big bang. My newest epiphany is that the big bang theory with inflation simply means that the universe begin to expand therefore creating space because prior to expansion there was no space, which is define as an interval between objects, and there was no time which is a continuous, measurable quantity in which events occur in a sequence proceeding from the past through the present to the future. 2. An interval separating two points of this quantity; a duration. 2.a system or reference frame in which such intervals are measured or such quantities are calculated. (The American Heritage Science Dictionary) The epiphany is that space-time begin to exist because prior to expansion there was no interval or interaction between two objects because everything was one there wasn’t anything for matter and energy to interact with. I think the energy within the universe has always existed, because according to the First Law of Thermodynamics as as it it commonly called the Law of Conservation of Energy (which includes Matter because from Albert Einstein’s famous formula: E = mc2 mass and energy are equivalent, in other words, all Mass has Energy and all Energy has Mass: in relativity, mass and energy are two forms of the same thing and neither one appear without the other.); from the first law of thermodynamics energy (matter) is neither created nor destroyed it changes from one form to another, and what happen is an infinitesimal amount of matter-energy expanded thereby creating space and time. In other words, the universe did not begin to exist only space and time begin to exist when the existing matter-energy expanded to create space and time. If there was a cause to space and time it was the matter and energy that was already there. Think about it...