Devolution

Serving in Vietnam, I shrank my world to about eight feet in diameter. Other than doctoring, I was concerned mostly about what might happen within or near that circle. Rockets landing, for example. One did. Getting shot at. That, too.

My wife sent me a book that brought my thoughts beyond myself again, Carl Sagan’s “Intelligent Life in the Universe.” Given the overtaking of our country by people wrapped in the Flag (don’t burn it) and carrying a Cross (wear it prominently), it’s relevant today.

Boiled down, Sagan’s message was that no matter how improbable the existence of life is, how unlikely for it to have arisen spontaneously, it was a statistical certainty. One in a million? A billion? How about one in a trillion? Or a trillion-trillion? That’s approximately how many stars and planets there are in the Universe, all made of the same atoms and molecules, bumping into each other. Forming compounds. Random, Brownian. It’s chemistry. In this universe, anyway.

How many bumps to form self-replicating molecules? Who knows? But there’s worlds enough and time. Of the trillions of places where it didn’t, the one (or more) where it did would seem, to sentient life-forms that appeared, miraculous. Special. The chosen ones. Impossible to have happened without intent, the odds too long. Like one in a trillion-trillion. Viewing from beyond the Milky Way, happening on a tiny grain of sand in an unbounded desert containing uncountable grains whose chemistry, though similar, happened not to generate life, as opposed to the view from the grain itself, it’s no miracle at all. Just one of the monkeys with a typewriter.

Though we can’t grok it, something very complicated exists without creation. Either it’s the universe or a creator. The late Pope Francis, a scientist, was able to accept the obviousness of evolution without finding it antithetical to his religious beliefs. It is, after all, undeniable. We see it and have confirmed it on a macro level; microscopic, too; in DNA, and more. To deny evolution would be as mind-blind as, oh, denying anthropogenic climate change or the results of fair elections.

We humans can barely analogize that much time, such large numbers, much less internalize them. It’s hard to imagine Earth 500,000 years ago, let alone several billion. But we see evolution happening in real time, before our eyes, the evolution of which has been explained quite nicely too. Still, it’s all but impossible to conceive of what could happen over hundreds of millions of years.

In the process of replication, DNA is prone to copying errors: mutations. Some amount to nothing. Some are dilatory, some fatal. Some, though, cause useful, incremental changes in its product. That’s what “natural selection” is all about. Organisms that have mutated a change, however tiny, that enhances survival, even only a bit, have an advantage, however small, over those that didn’t. And so it goes, time over time: existence favors the better versions. Sahelanthropus tchadensis over Ardipithecus ramibus. Australopithecus giving way to Homo sapiens, to leap over a million intervening years.

For a while, in medical school, I came to question all of this. How could something as complicated as the nephron, for example, the microscopic essence of the kidney, simply have evolved? What cascade of steps would it have taken? It’s so elegant, so intricately complex, so perfectly structured to do its many jobs. And then I thought, well, yes, but it’s also hard to imagine the cumulative effects of little mutations occurring over billions of years. Earth, it’s calculated, formed around 4.5 billion years ago, and life, as defined by organisms having the ability to replicate themselves, began about a billion years later, 3.5 billion years past. Fathom that! For reference, I’ve gone from a single, fertilized cell to 6’ 4” and, now, back to 6’2” in only eighty years.

I don’t know if there’s a capital-C Creator or not, but I have doubts. And because, in addition to those perfect little nephrons, we also have renal cell carcinoma and glomerulonephritis, childhood bone cancer and Alzheimer’s disease, if there is, he/she/it must either be more careless or less pleasant than is commonly believed.

I can, however, imagine our universe being a terrarium in some cosmic space-kid’s science experiment. The terrarium I made got overgrown with mold within days.

So, what’s my point? Only that there’s logic and science behind religious skepticism. And that, among the thousand or so Earthly religions, there’s no reason to consider one more veracious than another; nor, among those that have them, their Good Books, each claiming singular, divine origin. Which means no religion, especially the unchristian perversion flaunted so publicly by Holy Mike Johnson and White House denizens, belongs anywhere near our government. And that, among believers, humility is warranted.

Many of my friends and family are religious: Christian, Jewish, and Buddhist (I think). None approves the Trump-loving, power-craving, cruel strain infecting today’s Republican Party.

Of course not: They’re my friends and family.

Devolution

It seems clear we're reaching, or have already reached, the breaking point of the human mind. The world has outpaced our ability to keep up. Designed or evolved, humans aren't built for this.

People are cracking up right and right, and I'm trying to figure it out. It'd be pretty interesting if we were, in fact, creations of some sort of intelligence, in which case, you'd have to wonder WTF he/she/it/they had in mind. By the time the rapture rolls around we'll have killed each other off. If the sky-guy put us together with this in mind, what does it say? Well, among other things, it'd say there's no point in considering it: the plan is in place, it's playing out piteously, we're pre-programmed pitiful pawns.

But I'm trying to understand what's happening based on reality. Observing the steady decline, at least in the US, I've taken some solace in believing that a society needs only a small number of brilliant people in order to keep itself moving forward; and I've noted that -- at least until teabaggers get their way -- we have a steady stream of smart and motivated immigrants who still believe in the American dream, winning contests, scholarships, pushing boundaries of knowledge. But it's not enough: we need a quantity of intelligent voters, too; forward-thinking ones, unselfish ones, ones who see change and embrace it, enough of them to elect sane politicians. In that, we seem increasingly bereft.

In study after study we've learned there are innate differences between liberals and conservatives; in how they think, in how they react to certain stimuli, in the very wiring of their brains. We seem to have evolved in two separate strains, two subspecies as it were, brains and guts, and there must be a reason. The gut-thinkers must have come first; primal, the trait remains more deeply embedded than reasoning. The question is whether it's become a liability in these metastable times. Having developed ways to band together, tribal instincts in the face of dangers great and small must be a big part of what got us here. Tigers. Crocodiles. Neighboring tribes. Volcanos. (Okay, sure, you wanna throw in T. Rex, Sarah? Why not?) But did this evolution prepare us for modernity, or has it left us unable to cope? I'm thinking the latter. The instincts we've developed -- half of us, anyway -- are causing us to implode. We're just not made for it.

Tribalism must have had great survival benefits as humanity emerged: developing a sense of community based on likeness, shared rituals, banding together for protection. Finding "otherness" threatening; not venturing too far from what's known and safe: these things must have kept the species intact. And these traits, I'd guess, were more select-worthy early on than those of dreamers and seekers. But -- speculating -- at some point, as societies became safer and more stable, more able to defend themselves, needing to spend less than full-time on survival, other human needs became important, too, allowing striving to appear; wonder, curiosity, invention.

Gut-thinkers, tribalists, suspicion and paranoia got us past the dangers of a few hundred thousand years ago, and continued to do so as long as scattered tribalism was the dominant form of society. In an increasingly borderless world, though, one in which assimilation is becoming the norm, one in which science is taking us places we never could have imagined at speeds impossible to comprehend, change is far outpacing the rate of evolution. We need more mental horsepower, more facility of thought, and we just don't have them; we're stuck in the savannas as the world whizzes by. Tribalism runs deep, and we should be thankful for where it once took us. Maybe we still need it: maybe if the speed of cultural and scientific evolution had been slower, gut-thinkers would have been able to keep up and remain useful.

Keeping guard, maybe, outside the gates.

In fight or flight situations, you only need to assess a couple of facts: that moving object looks different from me, smells different, makes un-me-like sounds. The slow gathering of information, careful making sense of things, planning ahead, considering pros and cons -- none of that applies. But as the world has become complex, threats less immediate and far less clear, that fight-or-flight thinking becomes the danger. It's a new world: science is calling your magic into question; people are increasingly moving past your tightly-held prejudices; your stone-age need to maintain a sense of superiority is threatened all around. Tribalist genes are screaming for action, convincing you you're right, calling you to react with force, and you neither can nor feel the need to resist. Your notions of order are falling apart: you see conspiracies, threats, you make up imaginary enemies (wait past the first moments of the video); you can't help it, you can't withstand the force of your nature.

There's a name for prehistoric tribalists, genetically driven, searching for touchstones in the modern world: teabaggers. We see it's not their fault that they are who they are. Let's say thanks for all they've done through all those eons, but we can't re-cork the bottle for them. The question is whether we can find a way forward together before their kind of thinking blocks all the roads. When they think it's life or death, gut-thinkers have the advantage over cerebrators. It's that evolution thing they don't believe in.

And suddenly it all make sense. Teabaggers are doing what they were programmed to do, calling up fears through millennia long past. Blacks, gays, yellows, browns, immigrants, people who don't believe in the things that they do. Science. Free-thinking. Equality: all of them ringing primordial alarm bells, so much a part of them that they can't see it for what it is.

Which, to me, is not a hopeful realization. It's too deep, it can't be changed. Humankind's creations have outpaced its abilities to keep up with them, and are at cross-purposes with deeply ingrained (in half of us, anyway) ancient instincts for self preservation. In the end, rocks thrown by cave men still break heads.

A Hymn For Sunday

Find It, Watch It

There's a series beginning tonight on Discovery Channel about the origins of animals, called "First Life." I can't embed video but there's some here. It's very well done and highly recommended. David Attenborough, pink-faced and wild-haired as ever, is the host, and his usual enthusiasm is infectious.

How sad that young-earth creationists won't watch it. What could be more fascinating, exciting, thrilling? How much more inspiring is the piecing together of the clues to such mystery than is the idea of some celestial magic wand? How much more ennobling to know that we are the result of hundreds of millions of years of evolution. Sponges and tube worms, cells and collagen.

I love it.

Balanced

Saw this on Pharyngula. I like it.

Winds

When I'm wrong, I'm wrong. Until now I'd thought the US had a corner on the self-destructive make-ourselves-stupid market. But darned if our neighbors to the north, whom I've always considered pretty civilized and practical, don't also have their share. In Alberta, anyway, where the weather's said to be good in the fall. Don't like science contradicting your religious beliefs in your public schools? Opt out. No sense having to think, or having your prejudices challenged. Extrapolate that!

Meanwhile, in an interesting temporal juxtaposition, a poll is released correlating attitudes toward torture with religious belief. Among the categories, evangelicals of the regular church-going variety were the most in favor of its use. Posted without comment.
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Black And White

What do global warming and our economic crisis have in common? Probably much more than the word "meltdown." But for my purposes, it's this: Republican denialism. Confronted with compelling data and a great preponderance of expert opinion, they have a predictable and nearly unanimous response: say "no," do nothing, dig in. One can only wonder what it is about data, reality, and rejection by the conservative mind.* And, it's pretty obvious, fundamentalist religion and conservatism. It can't be coincidence that the bonds are so strong.

It's hard to be a meta-thinker: sensing from a distance one's own thought processes, it seems to me, requires a kind of effort of which many may be incapable, and others simply unwilling. Inside our heads, we are held captive by our personal neural pathways, unable to think beyond how we're wired. Nor able to see the diagram. To the extent that who we are is determined by our unique electrophysiology -- more than any of us would like to believe, I'd say -- we can see only so much of ourselves. If I'm pre-programmed to think in certain ways, it follows that I may not only be unable to change it, but even fully to witness it. I see you; I don't see me.

I read an article the other day that touches on it all, and rings true. A few key points: in troubled economic times, religiosity increases; the "religious impusle" appears in-born, and there are reasons why it may be so, evolutionarily; lots of four-year-olds have invisible friends; meta-thinking might be disadvantageous, if quick action is needed. Stuff like that.

The article isn't fully persuasive: it leaves open the question as to, for example, if kids get imaginary friends independent of religious indoctrination from parents. Still, I've found evolutionary explanations compelling. Unlike those who say you can't have a moral center without God, I say there are moral "truths" that are evident from the need to bind together to survive.

I sort of understand why it is that we deny -- or fail to recognize -- our own narrowness. We're led around by our brains, obedient and blinkered. But why is it, I wonder, that there are (at least) two such different ways of human data processing? I've referred elsewhere to studies that show repeatable and predictable differences in the makeup of "liberal" and "conservative" brains, and of how the two differ when presented with facts. Reading comments on this, or pretty much any political blog, one is convinced in a millisecond: produce data, discuss. Some will see black, some will see white, and there will be no common ground, nor any admission of the slightest possibility of misapprehension.

(Actually, that's not entirely true: liberals are much more inclined to allow for opposing views. Which goes a long way toward explaining how the "bailout bill" includes so much in the way of tax-cuts, and not enough in the way of spending. And why the Republicans are still complaining.)

It's not hard to understand how humankind benefits from an ability to assemble data and draw logical conclusions. It's less easy to comprehend the value of the opposite. Presenting alternative ideas and explanations: I get that. Spirituality: I get that, too. Have it, even. But seeing a herd of mastadons coming at full gallop and saying they're mice, or arguing that those aren't hoof-beats, they're the sound of gods chuckling: I haven't figured out how that wiring made it past the primordial ooze.

And, since this is Darwin Day, I should add the obvious: why is it that evolution denialism is the exclusive province of the right-wing brain? If you need religion, fine. Have it. But why select one that requires you to deny what is known and demonstrable? Why can't belief supplement and augment our ability to live in the world as it is? Why the need to remake it as it's not? Where's the additive value of that? It's almost enough to make a guy question evolution.

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* Yes, yes, I know: there are economists who think there's no crisis, and there are scientists (although a great many of them really aren't) who deny anthropogenic climate change. And (liberal mind, here) I admit I'm neither an economist nor a climate scientist. But I can count, and I can evaluate many, if not all, arguments. There are people out there happily saying things which are indisputably false. For that matter, there are still people who think the moon landing was faked, and that Saddam Hussein planned 9/11.

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