DUFF & NONSENSE!

Richard Dawkins confirms he is a 'dork'!

I have been convinced that Richard Dawkins is a 'dork' since he first published his ludicrous book claiming that genes are "selfish".  Genes, of course, are simply a collection of nucleotides which float about in a living body and assist in some bio-chemical processes.  To describe them as "selfish" is idiocy of the first order.  

As confirmation of my opinion, The Telegraph has republished a recent Tweet by the less than distinguished professor:

Under-age people can’t vote. Whatever our criterion for thinking them unqualified (eg insufficiently developed reasoning powers or knowledge) there must be some adults less qualified than some under-age people. Is age the only practical threshold or could others be devised?

Notice his repeated mention of "unqualified" and "qualified" plus, of course, "reasoning powers" and "knowledge".  Now who, I wonder, does 'The Dork' have in mind to set the examination of voters in order to decide on their levels of knowledge and understanding and there-by their right to vote?  My guess is that he would wish to be 'Examiner-in-Chief' but, alas, someone should tell him that anyone who believes that a lump of chemical 'goo' is "selfish" instantly disqualifies himself!

 

 

 

Mary Midgely, 1919-2018, R.I.P.

I picked up this obit as I cruised The Telegraph and the name, sort of, rang some dim bells in that yawning chasm that is my memory.  As I have mentioned before, in my 40s I drifted into philosophy.  Alas, I did no more than paddle in the (very) shallow end because I lacked both the time and the brain to cope with the deep end!  At about the same time, I also became fascinated with Darwinian theory which, of course, has enormous philosophical ramifications.  It took that rather silly man, Richard Dawkins, to pick up the Darwinian 'ball' and attempt to kick his 'Selfish Gene' nonsense over the bar to score a goal.  Alas for him, amongst his very many intelligent critics was Mary Midgely who applied some much needed corrections to his theory - good for her!

I am severely tempted to buy one of her books but I dare not, my Kindle, already full to bursting, might explode!  Anyway, farewell to an exceedingly intelligent lady.

 

 

Yadda-yadda-yadda and how it all began

I am grateful to The Spectator for this illustration of, thank goodness, a not fully homo erectus, or, as I like to think of him, everyone's great^100m granddad!

 

According to a book by Mr. Daniel L. Everett entitled How Language Began, reviewed by Harry Ritchie in 'the Speccie', this chatterbox was the one who first developed language.  That ability, of course, was absolutely crucial in the advancement of Man beyond the animals.

I am happy to report that Mr. Everett's book knocks that daft, old Leftie, Noam Chomsky, into the long grass.  He, of course, had developed some particularly arcane theories on linguistics which very few people ever understood any better than his Marxist theories!  According to Chomsky, it all happened in an instant but Mr. Everett's thesis is that it developed very, very gradually in true Darwinian style.  On the shelf next to my chair I have a copy of Stephen Pinker's book The Language Instinct which I did read absolutely 'yonks' ago but for the life of me I can't remember what it said - typical!  Anyway, I think Mr. Everett's book will have to go on my Xmas Wish List which I just know 'SoD' is eager to receive on the 1st of December!

How Language Began: The Story of Humanity's Greatest Invention

 

 

First Freud, then Darwin

A couple of posts down below I brought to your attention the murder of Sigmund Freud's reputation in a book.  Today, it is the turn of Charles Darwin who is dissected by A. N. Wilson in his book "Charles Darwin - Victorian Mythmaker".  The reviewer in The Spectator is Harry Mount.  However, he remains impeccably polite, as does A. N. Wilson in his book.  Wilson admits that like most of us he simply accepted the Darwinian theory until, that is, he began to read what later experts had to say.  It has been apparent for some time that Darwin's theory has more holes than a string vest but they have been covered up and Wilson suggests that part of the problem emanated from the religious backlash to his theory which, in turn, produced an even bigger backlash from fanatical atheists like 'Archbishop' Richard Dawkins.  Thus, the science was hidden by the religious war that was raging.

You do not have to be a science swot to see the many problems with Darwin's theory although I am second to none in my admiration of his Victorian efforts to investigate the myriad mysteries of life.  For a start, in his lifetime there was virtually no science of genetics.  He simply did the best with what he had available.  Scientific theories are just that - theories!

 

Finally, Mr. Darwin, are you any good at sums?

You will all be immensely relieved, I'm sure, when I tell you this is my final post on the subject of Darwinism, well, until the next time, of course!  Anyway, at this point I would like to introduce you all to my e-pal, Richard J. Bird, well, he's not really 'a pal' because all I did was exchange a couple of e-mails with him a few years back.  What I did do, however, is to read his fascinating book Chaos and Life.  Now Prof. Bird is Supernumerary Fellow of Computation at Lincoln College, Oxford, or, an A1 maths swot of the first order!

I have already expressed my doubts concerning traditional Darwinian evolution as a process of tiny mutations which eventually lead to new species.  Prof. Bird puts it this way:

If we assume that mutations are the agents of evolutionary change, the question becomes how to account for mutations of an adequate number and variety to bring about the observed rate of evolution.  The difficulty is that, if mutations are unsystematic, how can they have resulted in such a well-patterned outcome?  The legendary monkeys at their word processors could not write the works of Shakespeare just by chance.  In the history of the world they would not complete even a single line.

If you consider even for a minute the prolific range of proficient and operative life forms that exist, a truly huge number, then, if mutation is indeed random, you have to consider the equally great or even greater number of mutations that were not successful.

Mutation rates would have to be directed in some way in order to produce creatures like those presently observed.  On the face of it there are far too many possibilities that might arise in unpatterned mutation.  [S.W.] Ulam  [another maths swot] has calculated that, if achieving a significant advantage, such as the human visual system, requires 10⁶ changes, then it will take 10¹³ generations in a population of 10¹¹ individuals for the change to become established.  If there is one generation per day, this means several billion years.

All that is merely the tip of the iceberg on which the good ship Darwin might well founder.  So what is the solution?  Well, at this point it is necessary to remind you that my knowledge of mathematics reaches no further than the twelve times table - and I'm not too sure about all of them!  So, when I raise the subject of 'iterated algorithms' you will understand the thinness of the ice upon which I am skating.  Happily, rescue is at hand in the form of Prof. Gove Effinger, a maths swot at an American college.  He (like me!) was entranced by Tom Stoppard's wonderful play, Arcadia, in which a very young teenage girl, Thomasina Coverly, living in the early 19th century has an incredible insight which, due to her untimely death, would not be rediscovered until the 20th century.  Here is an extract which shows her working with her young tutor, Septimus Hodge:

• Thomasina: . . . Each week I plot your equations dot for dot, xs against ys in all manner of algebraical relation, and every week they draw themselves as commonplace geometry, as if the world of forms were nothing but arcs and angles. God's truth, Septimus, if there is an equation for a curve like a bell, there must be an equation for one like a bluebell, and if a bluebell, why not a rose? Do we believe nature is written in numbers?
• Septimus: We do.
• Thomasina: Then why do your equations only describe the shapes of manufacture?
• Septimus: I do not know.
• Thomasina: Armed thus, God could only make a cabinet.
• Septimus: He has mastery of equations which lead into infinities where we cannot follow.
• Thomasina: What a faint-heart! We must work outward from the middle of the maze. We will start with something simple. (She picks up the apple leaf.) I will plot this leaf and deduce its equation. You will be famous for being my tutor when Lord Byron is dead and forgotten.

Happily, Prof. Effinger explains:

The idea which Thomasina discovers, as we find out later from the present day discussions of Hannah and Valentine [in the play], is that of iterated algorithms, that is: the idea of starting with a number (or point), processing it somehow to obtain a new number or point (which you record), and then feeding that new number or point back into the process. You do this "feedback mechanism" again and again, and after a long time you see the pattern which emerges.

It is in these iterated algorithms that the mystery of evolution may be found because when you carry them out - well, actually an individual armed with paper and pencil couldn't do so at a sufficiently high rate if you lived for a hundred years!  So, a computer is required and when that is used a zillion times over with the result of each algorithm being fed back into the next algorithm - nothing much happens!  Which is what you might expect but then, if you keep going, suddenly, out of the blue, you get an extraordinarily different result.  Don't ask me how, and certainly don't ask me why, it just happens.

And here - at last - are you still with me? - we come to the point.  Procreation is, in effect, an iterated algorithm.  In animal procreation, long strings of DNA from two separate donors are joined together, in time the resulting new creature will pass its DNA to join with another to form a new being.  You might call the process a 'sexy iterated algorithm'!  This can happen a zillion times over but every so often that dreaded exception will occur when something totally unexpected suddenly appears.  Here is an example of an iterated algorithm that went wrong (or perhaps right, who knows?) in the pig world where a piglet was born with a very strange face:

So there you have it, well, for the time being because all theories are subject to correction over time as poor old Darwin found out the hard way!  In the meantime, what can one say?  Well, I suppose you can always trot out a bit of Shakespeare, the bloody man has a phrase for every occasion:

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

 

 

G'day, Mr. Darwin, I'd like you to meet an Aussie mate of mine

Yes indeed, this is Part II of my revisit to the late, great Charles Darwin.  He really was a great man of enormous insight, all the more so when you consider the lack of 20th century scientific knowledge with which he suffered.  His theory that all living things were simply variations on a theme was a huge intellectual leap but, and this is very much to his credit, for years he was wracked with doubts concerning his theory because he lacked an explanation for the means by which these incredible changes were wrought.  But then his 'saviour' appeared in the unlikely form of a country parson called Robert Malthus.  Technically he might have been 'a country parson' but in fact he was a Cambridge-educated swot fascinated by the somewhat arcane subject of population statistics.  As all you clever readers of this blog well know, it was Malthus who dreamed up the theory that the populations of all living things grow exponentially until they reach the limit of food supplies - then they go that bit further so that food supplies fail to match the needs and the population is trimmed back.

I don't suppose Darwin shouted "BINGO!" and offered high fives all round but I'm sure he did the 19th century equivalent because instantly he recognised that Malthus's theory gave him the mechanism by which his theory of 'survival of the fittest' would work.  Unfortunately, of course, it was all 'blx' but it sounded good and it was just what Darwin needed.  At this point let me introduce my Aussie mate, David Stove by name, who was - alas, he is no longer amongst us - the author of a - what shall I call it? - scintillating book called Darwinian Fairytales.

His approach to Darwin is somewhat unusual and is well illustrated in his opening paragraph with an interjection by me added in brackets:

This is an anti-Darwinism book.  It is written both against the Darwinism of Darwin and his 19th century disciples, and the Darwinism of such influential 20th century Darwinians as G. C. Williams and W. D. Hamilton and their disciples. [eg. and especially R. Dawkins!!!]  My object is to show that Darwinism is not true: not true, at any rate, of our species.  If it is true of sponges, snakes, flies, or whatever, I do not mind that.  What I do mind is, its being supposed to be true of man.

I think you can sense his essential 'Aussieness' in that opening which makes the book a terrific read.  However, he goes on in the next paragraph to assure us that he is definitely not a creationist or even a Christian.  Indeed, he is happy to admit that it is probably true that man evolved from other animal forms and that natural selection may well be the cause.  However, he does go on to say:

I do deny that natural selection is going on within our species now, and that it ever went on in our species, at any time of which anything is known.

I will not attempt to summarise his entire book, please read it for yourselves, it really is enjoyable.  What I will do is give you a clue by asking a question that irritates and baffles Darwinists - if Darwin's theory is based on constant and utterly ruthless competition for increasingly rare food supplies, then where does human altruism come from?

Bloody Aussies, why do they have to ask such awkward questions?

 

Ah, Mr. Darwin, how nice to see you again - # 1

I think, and truth is I can't be arsed to check, that it was my e-pal, Bob, who a couple of weeks ago raised the dread subject of Darwinism - yeeeees, quite!  Anyway, it brought back fond memories of old, hard-fought battles of yesteryear that raged across 'Blogdom'.  Actually, now I think about it, it might have been me who raised the subject by mentioning a man I much admire (without totally agreeing with his theory), Prof. Michael J. Behe, the author of Darwin's Black Box.  I described his book as a hand-grenade tossed into the 'All Saints Church of Darwinism' whose leader and prophet is 'Archbishop' Richard Dawkins.

At this point I will pause and confess.  I really do not like Dawkins for a variety of reasons but perhaps the main one is the fact that he fooled me, not just a bit, but totally.  The truth is that I read his books and swallowed them whole.  No-one likes to be fooled, least of all a bad-tempered, old grump like me with an over-exaggerated sense of my own intelligence!  Mind you, since those earlier days I have seen and heard a great deal more of Dawkins on the media and really it was his waspish arrogance that began to grate to the extent that I rather enjoyed one or two later books that took him and his 'religion' apart.

The first was Behe's book on evolution which also comes with a 'religious health warning' in that the author postulates the hand of God, albeit, camouflaged as an 'intelligent designer'.  However, when it comes to the nuts and bolts of cellular biochemistry, Prof. Behe leaves Dawkins, a mere biologist, standing alone in his ignorance.  And it is at the incredibly complex level of biochemistry that evolution takes place.  Poor old Darwin (like Dawkins) had next to no knowledge of the subject and based his theory on the living things that surrounded him.  But change/mutation, when it occurs, begins at the sub-cellular level of chemistry in which, of course, mathematics (dread word - for me, at any rate) rules supreme.

To assist the general reader, Behe poses what he calls 'irreducible complexity', by which he means that for any system to function properly it requires all its sub-systems to be equally productive.  Rather than losing us all in the infinite complexity of, say, the eye, he uses the mundane example of a mouse-trap.

As you can see, this little device is made up of various components, the base, a holding bar, a catch, a spring and a hammer which when released catches the mouse.  The first important thing to realise about this device is that all the components must be there and in working order for it to operate.  Their equivalents in the human body, according to strict Darwinism, must have developed independently before, so to speak, they came together.  But then the question arises as to what use, or what benefit, are any of these components on their own, let alone when they are evolving slowly and incrementally on their own?  The main point of Darwinism is that forms arise because they are made up of characteristics that provide an advantage to the owner.  But in the mousetrap analogy, none of the constituent parts are of the slightest use, let alone advantage, to the 'owner'.

Perhaps the most widely discussed example of Darwinian evolution provides a huge advantage to its owners is the eye.  Typically, Dawkins in his book The Blind Watchmaker skims over this like a skater but seems to be unaware of the thin ice supporting him.  He writes, glibly, of some animals having "a light sensitive spot with a little pigment behind it" and suggests that this is situated "in a little cup ... and if you make a cup very deep and turn the sides over, you eventually make a lensless pinhole camera."  Not a word on how this "light sensitive spot" or its attendant "pigment" arose, nor how or why it happened to be rather usefully in "a cup" which was all ready and waiting.  What a happy coincidence!

 

[I'm running out of time so, alas, you will have to wait for the next part - or parts!]

 

 

Let's hear it for Diego Chelonoidis hoodensis!

What a man - oooops, sorry, I mean, what a Tortoise!  Diego 'Studboy' Chelonoidus was practically the last giant tortoise on the Galapagos but, at the miraculous age of over a hundred, he has fathered some 800 off-spring and thereby saved his species.  According to the report on France24:

Diego weighs about 80 kilograms (175 pounds), is nearly 90 centimeters (35 inches) long and 1.5 meters (five feet) tall if he really stretches his legs and neck.

Alas, certain other, er, critical dimensions are not vouchsafed but I think his productivity speaks for itself.

Little did scientists realize just how effective he was, until six years ago.

"We did a genetic study and we discovered that he was the father of nearly 40 percent of the offspring released into the wild on Espanola," Tapia told AFP.

I may have to fly over to the Galapagos and have a quiet word with Diego and try to learn the secret of his success.  The 'Memsahib' once gave me some little blue pills and assured me they would do the trick but they never worked.  It was only later that I learned from my pharmacist that they were indigestion tablets!

 

In which I throw myself on the intellects of my readers

As my regulars will know, I am not a man short of opinions.  Of course, I acknowledge that the quality of those opinions is, er, mixed - and that's putting it politely!  However, it is rare for a subject to arise about which, frankly, I am stumped for an opinion but, of course, 'The Speccie' - who else? - has done just that.  The editor, Mr. Fraser Nelson, has written an article warning us all that the monster we thought had been finally slain in a Berlin bunker in 1945 has risen from the dead.  He also reminds us, to our intense embarrassment, that the genesis for this monster was not Nazi Germany but liberal Britain!  This particular monster comes under the heading of a single word - eugenics.

He reminds us that one of the prime movers for the eugenics movement was Francis Galton, the cousin, no less, of Charles Darwin.  Mr. Nelson goes even further by quoting from a 1912 edition of the very Spectator magazine which he now edits:

The only way of cutting off the constant stream of idiots and imbeciles and feeble-minded persons who help to fill our prisons and workhouses, reformatories, and asylums is to prevent those who are known to be mentally defective from producing offspring. Undoubtedly the best way of doing this is to place these defectives under control. Even if this were a hardship to the individual it would be necessary for the sake of protecting the race.

And he reminds us that at the time many of 'the Great and the Good' were in support of this notion including Winston Churchill.  In 1908:

[A] Royal Commission conveyed the grave news that there were 150,000 ‘feeble-minded’ people in Britain. So what was to be done with them? As one reformer put it: “They must be acknowledged dependents of the State…but with complete and permanent loss of all civil rights – including not only the franchise but civil freedom and fatherhood”. This was William Beveridge, founder of the welfare state. [My emphasis]

So what, you might grumble, that's all history!  Not according to Mr. Nelson who reports that via the wonders(!) of modern genetic science, eugenics is very much back in favour.

In academia, the word ‘eugenics’ may be controversial but the idea is not. To Professor Julian Savulescu, editor-in-chief of the Journal of Medical Ethics, the ability to apply ‘rational design’ to humanity, through gene editing, offers a chance to improve the human stock — one baby at a time. ‘When it comes to screening out personality flaws such as potential alcoholism, psychopathy and disposition to violence,’ he said a while ago, ‘you could argue that people have a moral obligation to select ethically better children’.

It is difficult to oppose a science that will, by the use of genetic modifications, eradicate inheritable diseases and flaws. No-one dies, no-one is sterilised, no-one is aborted so what's not to like?  I'm not sure - but I don't like it!  But as a Brit, I need to make up my mind because one of the prime-movers in this new science(!) is the Francis Crick Institute in London, currently being built with government money, or my money as I fondly think of it!

The Francis Crick Institute says its gene-editing research has nothing to do with eugenics; even British law prohibits pregnancies from gene-edited embryos, and its researchers plan to destroy them after seven days. Instead, it aims to learn about the role of genes in miscarriage. But if its research improves gene-editing technology, less scrupulous scientists can make use of that. This is why scholars like Robert Pollack, a professor at Columbia University, want a moratorium on the whole process of modifying human genes. ‘Imagine that, many years hence, there are two sorts of people: those who carry the messy inheritance of their ancestors, and those whose ancestors had the resources to clean up their germ cells before IVF.’ So you end up with two types of humans: the genetically tidy rich and everyone else.

Now as I intimated at the beginning of this post, my instant re-action is to recoil in horror but I am all too aware that I have never thought through the implications, for good or ill, of this new science and where it might lead us all.  So, over to you  . . .

Er, well, you see, somehow, it's all to do with, um, iterated algorithms

Now look here, all of you, I want to make it quite clear that I will not take any questions on this subject, because, er, well, in a very deep and fundamental way, I haven't a clue what I'm on about - and I heard that - who said "no change there then"?  I have confessed before that at school I failed all exams on 'sums', as I called it, because mathematics was quite beyond me.  I'm not proud of the idleness that has led to my ignorance, in fact, I'm totally pissed off by it because these days I really wish that I understood it.

There is no doubt that maths is the absolute key to fundamental knowledge.  The other day I watched a programme on the Scottish scientist, James Clerk Maxwell, who deserves a place on the plinth occupied by Newton and Einstein.  Amongst many other lines of investigation, he took the Faraday's developing ideas on electricity and magnetism and combined them into one overriding theory of electro-magnetism and force fields - and he did it all by mathematics!  It was yet another example that at the very base of all scientific knowledge lies pure mathematics.

Another example of this can be found in the nature of evolution.  If you look at the seemingly wild, chaotic state of nature it is hard to accept that beneath it all hard, rigorous mathematics is at work.  This comes in the form of 'iterated algorithms' which, put simply and probably not absolutely accurately (because it's me!), is a method in which a certain mathematical instruction is endlessly repeated and as each step is completed the result is fed into the next step.  The results can be jaw-dropping

Before iterating


Iteration #1


Iteration #2


Iteration #3


Iteration #4


Iteration #5


Iteration #6


Iteration #7


Iteration #8


Iteration #9


Iteration #10

The results of these constant feed-back iterations are known as fractals.  If you go to this site: 

http://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~ergreen/honors_thesis/IFS.html

you can see animated diagrams of these constant iterations which lead to such amazing and unimagined results. 

In essence, natural evolution is simply an iterated algorithm in which genetic codes  are constantly iterated as each living thing either seeds itself or mates with another and thus sustains the breed.  However, in nature, just as in repetitive machine codes produced by computers, mistakes happen and when they are iterated a few zillion times, lo, a completely new life form is produced.

The 'uber'- Darwinists, like 'Archbishop' Richard Dawkins, insist that new species are formed by tiny incremental changes which are subject to pressures from the outside world and very, very gradually transform into new species if, and only if, they prove to be successful.  The development of the eye is one favourite example but there have been some maths swots who have proved that such a sophisticated development would have taken longer than the existence of the world to reach its sophisticated state by means of tiny incremental improvements.

The theory put forward by the likes of Richard J. Bird in his two books is that the chains of DNA which come together in the act of reproduction is, in fact, an iterated chemical algorithm and whilst zillions of such repetitions will occur with little variation, from time there will be a massive jump-change which, if successful in the real world, will lead to the formation of different species. 

Richard Bird's first book:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Chaos-Life-Complexity-Evolution-Thought/dp/023112662X

And his second, just published: 

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B01B6OO4N2?ref_=pe_2427780_160035660

 

Government Health Warning: Do not take my summary of his erudite books as an accurate explanation because I'm as thick as a plank!

 

 

The Sunday Rumble: 31.1.16

Oh no, Galloping Brain Ache this morning:  And I blame that Richard J. Bird!  He's that computational maths swot who wrote Chaos and Life, a book that didn't so much blow my mind away as blow it up!  Now he's come out with another one, What is Evolution? A Computational Complexity Approach.  Well, judged by the first few chapters it's certainly 'computational' and definitely 'c0mplex' - and yet - and yet - beneath all that is an elegant simplicity that explains the abundance of life forms.  It also blows a hole in 'Archbishop' Dawkins' theory of tiny incremental changes that lead, eventually, to speciation.  Anyway, I will no doubt be boring you all to death as I read further into this marvellous book - so stand by!

 

When 'Jezza' flashed his, er, black credentials:  According to The Telegraph, back in the '70s 'Jezza', having recently split from his wife, so arranged matters that he and a group of 'Leftie' leaflet distributors suddenly returned to his flat where a naked Dianne Abbot lay on a mattress on the floor underneath a duvet.  The man's an absolute rotter and a cad, as well as requiring a visit to Specsavers!

 

Pub lunch today:  Yeeees, quite, so there's no knowing when I'll be back nor what state I will be in!

 

She won't last long:  I refer to Ms. Angela Eagle of the Labour party who is reported to have said, in direct contradiction to her less than glorious leader, 'Jezza', that the Falkland Islands was an issue that had been settled a generation ago, and that stopping companies from paying a dividend to their shareholders because they failed to pay the minimum wage was a non-starter.  Well said, Miss Eagle and I hope you enjoy your return to the back benches!

 

More rumbles later . . .

So, you see, one day this grasshopper was walking along ...

... on his way to meet another grasshopper, his new best friend, but when he got there he found a locust waiting for him.  "Who are you?" he asked.  "I'm your new best friend," said the locust, "but I've changed!"

 

 

Oh dear, you're probably thinking to yourself, 9.30 in the morning and he's on the dry martinis already!  Not at all, sober as a judge, I am, although my mind is reeling somewhat having just read an article by David Dobbs for the Aeon.co site.  In it he describes the phenomenon when a grasshopper (or certain grasshoppers) suddenly turns into a locust. Like watching a conjurer's trick we tend to mutter in amazement, "How do they do that?!"

According to the microbiology swots it is all down to 'genetic expression'. Now, it is around this point in the explanation that my brain starts to ache as I grapple with these abstruse concepts.  I can understand that cells form themselves in one way rather than another depending on what they 'read' in the genetic code contained in every gene but, I ask myself, do I really understand, or is the anthropomorphic language which is inseparable from this subject actually fooling me?  I mean, surely, a cell doesn't 'read' in the sense in which you are reading these words.  I assume that what happens is that a series of biochemical reactions take place, that is, something like, A hits B and causes C.  There is no 'reading', let alone comprehension, just biochemical action and re-action.

However, according to Mr. Dobbs' explanation, these cells don't behave like I do with my old 'pulp fiction' books which I toss away when I've finished reading, apparently they keep reading and re-reading the code and for some reason they suddenly decide to 'translate' it differently and thus 'express' it differently which causes changes in the body carrying them.  As far as I can make out they do this as a result of some outside stimulation such that, suddenly (or even gradually), they stop reading in, say, English and start to read in French - quelle horreure!  The result is a change, sometimes quite dramatic, in the behaviour and appearance of the poor old carcass (or, me, as I like to think of it) that is carrying them around - there's gratitude for you!  Anyway, all this has put the genetic swots in a tizz but the one good thing to come out of it is that Dawkins' nonsense seems to have taken a hit.  My e-pal, Richard, who is a tremendous evolutionary swot, suspects that this sort of extreme metamorphosis has much to do with the arrangement of the genome (rather than any one gene, selfish or otherwise!) which is carried by what he calls, mysteriously, "95% of 'dark' matter"

At that point my brain snapped shut.  I put it down to my genes!

 

The Sunday Rumble: 22.9.13

Whisper who dares:  This morning there was only one spam and that, 'heavens to Betsy', had actually been picked up by TypePad's anti-spam system.  I have been acidulous in putting their IP numbers on my block list but I have now backed that up by picking key words or phrases that they tend to repeat and putting those on the block list as well.  That requires some judgment because obviously some of the words might be used perfectly innocently in other contexts and I have no wish to block any innocent commenter.  Anyway, we shall see what the week ahead brings from the spammer brigade!

So will you suckers swallow it?  I refer, in this instance, to my fellow Brits who, like me, are currently wading through the ordure of the annual conference season of our main political parties.  So far they all share one characteristic, that is, they are all offering us bribes and, as usual, the bribes are paid for with our money!  This is the oldest political trick since democracy was invented and yet you cannot blame the pols for trying it on because every five years we fall for it!  Not that I have paid attention to the minutiae of what has dribbled from their golden tongues but my impression is that the only political leader to speak commonsense was Nigel Farage of UKIP.  Alas, surrounded as he is by some very fourth-rate third-raters there is no possibility of his party ever forming a government.  Still, he is a very useful bludgeon with which to beat 'Dim Dave' about the head and so I look to all of you to vote UKIP in next year's European elections.

 

The "Nagel brigade" receives re-enforcements:  I wrote about "The Charge of The Nagel Brigade" back in January.  Thomas Nagel is, in 'Pythonese', "a very naughty boy!" because he wrote a book pointing out that 'Archbishop' Dawkins (and his congregation) were wearing no clothes!  For this he was rewarded with a barrage of withering fire from his opponents but I am delighted to tell you that he is now in receipt of re-enforcements in the form of a new book by Stephen Meyer (no, me neither!) called Darwin's Doubt.  You may judge how effective this book is by the shrieks of outrage - “Mendacious intellectual pornography” according to one 'Dawkinista'!  Best to buy the book and then judge for yourselves but Tom Bethell in The American Spectator provides a detailed review which has convinced me that my problem in choosing reading material for my two week holiday in Rhodes next year is now settled! 

 

Deutschland über alles:  I was tempted to place a question mark at the end of that sub-heading in the light of Ambrose E-P's latest analysis in The Telegraph.  Like everyone else, A E-P believes Madame Merkel will win the election but, given the complexities of their electoral system, an exact outcome cannot be predicted.  A great deal depends on how well the AfD, their equivalent (roughly speaking) of our UKIP, do at the final count.  If, and it's a big 'if', they can break the 5% barrier and thus gain parliamentary recognition by having their own MPs then, according to A E-P, that will be a game-changer.  He also points to several severe and even dangerous cracks in the German economic edifice which, true to style the whole world over, the ruling classes are intent on ignoring.

 

Nail-spitting fury:  Writers and compilers of instruction manuals should be taken out and one in three of them shot on the spot whilst the other two in three should be forced to try and make sense of each others gobbledogook!  I have just sat in my 'new' car for 40 minutes trying to set the clock to the correct time.  I nearly succumbed to a John Cleese moment in which I wanted desperately to beat the car with a tree branch.  Actually, I am thinking of hiring myself out as a sort ot 'test to destruction' of instruction manuals.  What I mean is, that if I can actually understand it then even the likes of 'Dim Dave' might, and they don't come any thicker than him, er, except for me!

 

Obama's banana:  Apart from the hard sciences - and I do mean hard! - I have a rather low opinion of university 'education', particularly as I never partook of one.  Here is an example from a former professor of law at Harvard University: “Raising the debt ceiling, which has been done over a hundred times, does not increase our debt.”  That piece of stonking 'stoopidity' was uttered in all seriousness by the President of the United States of America, the Leader of the Free World, the man upon whose judgment we in the democracies will depend should the you-know-what hit the fan.  Why don't you try it on your local bank manager the next time he calls you in to discuss your, er, non-overdraft which has, amzingly, gone over its, er, non-limit.  Even the humorous Mark Steyn fails to get a laugh out of the dire situation into which America is sinking.  Go read it, it's like a cold shower but it's good for you - honestly!

 

 No more rumbles today, see you tomorrow - spammers permitting!

 

 

 

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The Sunday Rumble: 15.9.13

Your bores today:  David Thomas in The Telegraph has provided us with a list of those he considers to be today's outstanding snore-inducers, you know, the sort of people who were you to spot them in a pub not only would you consider moving from the Saloon Bar to the Public, you would think seriously of walking two miles through the rain to another pub altogether!  Not being totally 'up' on today's slebs I didn't know all of them but certainly there were  none amongst his choices with which I would disagree.  I intend to start my own list today which I will add to as names occur to me, er, provided I don't fall asleep doing it!  Also, of course, given that we suffer most of these bores via the TV you must remember that I suffer with the problem of knowing the face but never the name!  Hence my first choice for Bore of the Day is:

a:  That bland, fat, smoothy-chops, 'Oirish' bloke who hosts the Sky News morning show - oh, come on, you know who I mean  . . .

b:  President Obama - no wonder he likes playing with drones so much, the sound of them must remind him of his own speaking voice

c:  Charles Dickens - although, to be fair, I haven't read him since I was fourteen and he then, thankfully, dropped off my school reading list.  Soppy and sentimental with his cardboard cut-out villains - what an A1 crasher!

d: Richard Seymour - sole prop. of Lenin's Tomb and a man who can out-Stakhanovite Stakhanov, himself, in the production of streams - nay, rivers - nay entire oceans - of words in which stupidity and tediousness grapple together for prominence.  He is about to publish a book entitled "Against Austerity".  Does anyone anywhere know anyone who is actually in favour of austerity?

 e:  All male golfers - I exclude the ladies (and not only because the 'Memsahib' used to play) who, on the whole, do not go into excruciating details of exactly what went wrong with their chip up to the pin at the third hole.  But blokes do!  And then they go on from there to take you through the remaining fifteen holes, stroke by excruciating stroke.

f:  Er, me, actually! - I have just reminded myself that I have been 'Boring for Britain' on this site since February 2005!  It hardly bears thinking about - so moving on  . . .

g:  The entire Lib-Dem party conference - what a totally tedious, insipid, leaden bunch of bores they all are.  I keep catching glimpses of them on the telly and instantly I feel my eyes drooping, my mind closing down and such vitality as I possess slowly draining away.  At least there's a slight chance that we might see some spilled blood at the other two bore-a-thons.

h:  The England football team - they are so boring even our hooligans can't raise the energy to brawl anymore.

 i:  Prince Charles - of course, how could I have forgotten him?  Probably because, in a very Freudian way, I was desperately trying to!  Fortunately, Ms. 'LibertyBelle' remembered and managed to remind me in the comments below before she fell asleep.  He once admitted that he talked to his flowers but I didn't realise that it was because they paid greater attention to him than people do!

  

Further bores will be added later - watch this space - and suggestions are welcome

  

Why never to trust a government #1,289,372:  "Let me name the ways" but on second thoughts it would take too long.  However, this recent example will suffice.  The government, in a burst of post-Thatcherist Thatcherism (sort of), is privatising the Royal Mail.  However, desperate to maintain the nonsense of 'next day delivery of letters everywhere in the UK', an impossible task without doubling or tripling the cost of stamps, but equally desperate to be shot of the whole rotten edifice and all those pesky and expensive postmen, they are selling it off.  However, to sweeten the pill they have agreed to maintain the VAT exemption enjoyed by the old Royal Mail which gives the new, so-called private entity a 20% advantage over its truly private competitors.  Should any potential suckers be reading this as they contemplate buying shares, read again the title of this particular 'rumble'!  The existing competitors have already launched legal action against this unfair distortion of trade.

 

Verily I say unto you:  'There will be more joy in heaven over one blogger who returns' and in this particular case, given that it is my old e-pal, A. K. Haart who has once again taken to the keyboard after idling the summer away thinking deeply on the issues of the day, that is double reason for celebration!  Pay him a visit, apart from anything else he is always succinct and to the point unlike the sort of windbaggery you get here.

 A Richard J. Bird is about to fly in:  By which I mean, of course, that Mr. Bird, the author of Chaos and Life, is about to publish another book developing further his ideas on evolution.  As you regulars already know, I am something of a scientific dummy but Richard Bird's explanation of this intensely tricky subject was not only comprehensible but also convincing.  In essence, he says that if mutations, which are essential in development so that 'cruel nature' can act upon them, are truly random then there simply has not been sufficient time for them to develop to the sophisticated level they have achieved.  He doesn't deny evolution but he does not accept the theory of zillions of microscopic and incremental changes that the likes of Dawkins propose.  Anyway, he has promised to tip me off when publication is due so I will let you know.

 

Governor Scott Walker:  Remember that name!  He's the Republican governor of Wisconsin.  He took on the massed battalions of his local Democrat party, their foot-soldiers in the public employee unions - especially the school teachers - and their place men, or 'place-wimmin', to be exact, in the judiciary.  Against all these odds, and including having to refight his election under a recall procedure, he has won hands down.  Last week, one of the teacher unions lost the right to pay-bargain on behalf of their members because, when asked under the provisions of Governor Walker's law, only 37% of them supported their own union!  One will never go broke under-estimating the 'stoopidity' of the Republican party but this man should be ear-marked for greater things in the future.  Remember - you read it here first!

 

Liberty Bell:  No, no, not my new e-pal from http://libertybellediaries.com/, but her 'nom-de-keyboard' reminded me of a real pleasure I experience every Friday morning at 7.55am as I get in my car outside the swimming pool (where, of course, I go swimming every . . . oh, I've told you about that before have I? Right, moving on . . .) I switch on Classicfm and they play the Liberty Bell March by Souza - or the Monty Python theme tune, if you like.  God knows why but it is the very best way to start your day - well, not every day perhaps, but once a week it's terrific!  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7FD9PNpfpo

 

No more rumbles today

 

 

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From the archives: #2

Look, it's not just that it's hot and sunny and I feel dead idle, in fact, by midday I feel dead, but the truth is that I am actually doing some physical work.  The flagstones that surround the central lawn in our little development require new cement to bind them in and, against all that I learned the hard way in the army, I volunteered.  I am thinking of starting a new company - Grotty Grouting Inc.  So I am a little busy as I try to complete the job before all this global warming stops and the usual rain and gales take over.  So, I am sure you will foregive me if I give you a post from my archives, this one from November 2005:

 

Size doesn't matter - honestly!

 

I have a confession to make.  It's embarrassing, even shame-making, but it
must be admitted.  I do not have a very big one!  I know that because from time
to time I have caught glimpses of other blokes and theirs are much bigger than
mine.  Even worse, and this is very hard to admit, there are some girls
who have bigger ones than me!!!   So what can I do about my brain?  (Er,
sorry, what did you think I was on about?) 

I have just had a glimpse at the brain of Richard J. Bird through the medium
of his book Chaos and Life: Complexity and Order in Evolution and
Thought.  It has taken me several weeks to get through it and my brain is
hurting.  It is a laughable impertinence for me to attempt a summary.  It is
also fairly risky for me to attempt it because there is a decent chance that I
might have misunderstood it.  Nevertheless, I will try and give you the central
theme of the book for two reasons.  First, if he is right, his thesis
is of huge importance.  Second, and more trivial, if he is right, he
has blown Darwinism out of the water by offering a wider and deeper explanation
of life that incorporates its place in the existence of the universe.  (You can
see why my brain hurts!) 

In essence, he is proposing that life forms emanate from iteration, that is,
the constant repetition of informational equations at the genetic level which
are dynamic in that they incorporate the result of the preceding equation into
the subsequent equation producing fractals.  This phenomena is familiar to
students of chaos theory who are aware that given a sufficiently long series of
iterations, suddenly and without warning, new and strange forms
appear.  If this is correct, it goes a long way to explain the absence
of intermediary species and the (relatively) short time that complex life forms
have taken to evolve.  Or to put it another way, [Steven Jay] Gould spotted the difficulties of stasis followed by evolutionary explosion but could not come up with
a satisfying explanation.  [Richard] Dawkins, just denied the whole thing and insisted on slow, steady, inch-by-inch evolution.  I should add, that it leaves Darwin safe in the minor proposition that within species, like his beloved finches
on the Galapagos Islands, micro changes to physicality will take place in
differing locations. 

Anyway, my critics keep asking me to produce an alternative to Darwin's
theory which of course I cannot do with my little brain, but Mr. Bird certainly
has.  Whether or not he is right, we must wait and see.  Irrespective of all
that, I urge anyone with an interest in these esoteric matters to read this
book.  It is formidable, particularly for those 'O'-level maths failures like
me, but it can be understood, just, if taken in small doses.  I need hardly add
that I would be very interested in any critiques that people come up with. 
Perhaps by the time you have read it, this post might have sunk out of sight, so
please just e-mail me and I will resurrect the subject.

In which this blog ventures below the waistline!

I'm thinking of starting a series of posts on utterly useless research projects undertaken by universities but I fear it could take over this entire blog.  It never ceases to amaze me the way university departments come up with truly arcane subjects to investigate, nor the skill they must possess to relieve budgeting agencies of their, or usually my, dosh!

Yesterday, I read somewhere about a team of researchers who had established that back in the days before one had a tailor, in other words before clothes were invented (dread thought!), women used to judge men as potential mates by the size of their willies.  This, according to the 'brain-boxes' concerned, led to Darwinian selection pressure for men to, er, hang lower, if you catch my meaning.  Apparently, these under-employed  busy 'brain-boxes' came up with a mathematical equation to do with the ratio between length and diameter which measured how attrected the ladies would be - and, no, I don't know if they conducted any practical experiments!

Happily these days one may rely on one's tailor to hide the truth and as I assured the 'Memsahib' one night back in the mists of time, "He might not be very big but he's a very good little worker!"  Also, a great friend of mine who is still today a master 'swordsman' of enormous reputation and, er, proportion whilst sympathising with my, er, modest appendage, told me, "Don't worry, Duffy, it isn't the size that matters, it's the knowledgeable arse behind it!"  Later in life I realised that since humans have discovered clothes and all is hidden, the ladies are not attracted by the size of your todger but the size of your Porsche!  See, that's Darwinian selection theory at work, innit?!

 

ADDITIONAL:  As this blog has now left all semblance of taste and polite discourse behind it, allow me to give you, via the good offices of Drudge, the headline of the year:

Witnesses: Man drove 90 mph with genitals hanging out the window

And, according to the report from News Channel 11, I think this incident could be described as the perfect example of someone risking getting their own back:
 

"At over 90 miles per hour, he had his penis out [the window]... he was
masturbating... and that's when it got really, really bad.

He was probably reduced to this technique because his car was not a Porsche!

 

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Nagel or Nagle, who cares, they both sound interesting

I wrote about naughty Thomas Nagel back in January.  He has had the temerity to write a book pointing out 'the bleedin' obvious' that Darwinism cannot explain consciousness.  Now he has popped up again in Arts & Letters Daily which pointed me to an essay in The New Republic by Leon Wieseltier.  He describes the 'shock 'n' awe outrage' in Darwinian circles at Mr. Nagel's slim little book Mind and Cosmos:

[I]n which he has the impudence to suggest that “the materialist neo-Darwinian conception of nature is almost certainly false,” and to offer thoughtful reasons to believe that the non-material dimensions of life—consciousness, reason, moral value, subjective experience—cannot be reduced to, or explained as having evolved tidily from, its material dimensions [...]

The one almost certain reaction from 'Darwinistas' (just like the 'Warmers') facing a critique of their beliefs is a screech of rage:

Steven Pinker took to Twitter and haughtily ruled that it was “the shoddy reasoning of a once-great thinker.” Fuck him, he explained.

Thus, in my eyes, Mr. Pinker sinks to the level of 'Bishop' Dawkins!  Nagel had warned earlier that any criticism of the 'Church of Darwinism' was likely to cause the formation of a mob and indeed that is what has occurred on publication of his recent book - if, that is, you can call a bunch of 'tweeters' a mob:

A mob is indeed forming, a mob of materialists, of free-thinking inquisitors. “In the present climate of a dominant scientific naturalism, heavily dependent on speculative Darwinian explanations of practically everything, and armed to the teeth against religion,” Nagel calmly writes, “... I would like to extend the boundaries of what is not regarded as unthinkable, in light of how little we really understand about the world.” This cannot be allowed! And so the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Secular Faith sprang into action. “If there were a philosophical Vatican,” Simon Blackburn declared in the New Statesman, “the book would be a good candidate for going on to the Index.” I hope that one day he regrets that sentence. It is not what Bruno, Galileo, Bacon, Descartes, Voltaire, Hume, Locke, Kant, and the other victims of the anti-philosophical Vatican had in mind.

No doubt Mr. Simon Blackburn would call himself a 'liberal' - yeeeees, quite!  But let us turn from one load of old rubbish, the 'Darwinistas', to another, and here I mean real rubbish as studied for some ten years by my other 'Nagel/Nagle', Prof. Robin Nagle.  She is a professor at New York University and has spent her time studying the 'Noo Yawk' garbage industry.  I don't wish to be ungallant but whilst she might be the clinical associate professor of anthropology and urban studies, and from her photo looks to be a very attractive and elegant lady, my advice would be remain up wind of her as far as you can!  Lawrence Biemiller at 'The Chron of High Ed' refers to her as 'Dr. Garbage':

So several dozen sanitation workers waiting for roll call take notice when, a
little before 6 a.m., she strides cheerfully into the sodium-­vapor glare of the
Manhattan 2 garage, a hulking yellow-brick relic of mid-20th-century New York
that juts into the Hudson from the West Village. A sidelined collection
truck—what most people would just call a garbage truck—sits outside the door,
while salt spreaders are parked cheek by jowl inside (sanitation workers are
responsible for clearing snow as well as collecting trash). Over by the office,
guys are standing around in boisterous groups, sipping coffee, telling stories,
ribbing one another, and waiting to get their assignments for the day.

Several recognize Ms. Nagle. In some cases, that's because she has worked
alongside them—about 10 years ago, she decided that the best way to do field
research on the department was to get hired as an ordinary sanitation worker and
see DSNY from inside its lunchrooms and transfer facilities, to say nothing of
seeing it from behind the gaping maws of its trucks. Other guys know her because
she rode with them while collecting information for Picking Up, her new
book about the department and its people, or for one of her related projects,
like a series of oral histories she assigned as a class project at NYU two years
ago.

Admittedly, garbage collection and disposal is a somewhat esoteric subject but on the other hand, were I paying taxes in 'Noo Yawk' I would be very interested to learn that their dustmen (as we call them 'over here') can retire on half pay and full benefits after a mere 22 years service!  I am sure there were all sorts of other highly interesting facts in Mr. Bielmiller's essay but that one stuck in my mind, rather as it will, I suspect, stick in the craws of many 'Noo Yawkers'!

  

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The gallant charge of the Nagel Brigade

No, not another military anecdote, although it is concerned with the 'war' between philosophers and scientists.  Not, I hasten to add, that I qualify under either title, my part, as always, is to act as an unreliable cheerleader who supports one side and then the other!

But let me begin with young Brian Cox, 151/2, a super-science swot from the Upper Fifth who somehow has managed to get himself an entire programme on BBC2 teaching us all how life began and why.  Except, of course, that he didn't quite explain how life began and nor did he convince me of his reason why.  Partly, this was due to the retards in the BBC production team who seem to think that we, the plebs, will never understand science unless there are never-ending and totally incomprehensible computer graphics showing abstract shapes expanding and surging to the sort of ghastly 'musak' you hear inside hotel lifts.  Of course, Prof. Cox is not really a schoolboy, he just looks like one, as this photos shows:

 

Now, I was one of his earliest fans because he and a colleague wrote a book promising the irreducibly stupid, er, that's me, in case you're wondering, to explain Einstein's theories of relativity.  Big Fail!  But as I wrote at the time, 'the fault, dear, dim Duff, lies with you, not in your stars'!  Even so, I remain a big fan of Prof. Cox and, as regular readers will know to the cost of their diminishing patience, I remain captivated by some of the many mysteries of existence. Like, how did it all begin?

As far as the beginning of biological life is concerned, I'm afraid to say that young Cox was no more illuminating than his peers.  I concentrated as hard as I could, despite all the BBC visual effects crapulata and the vomit-inducing 'musak', but all he offered was what I more or less knew from others.  That is definitely not a criticism of Prof. Cox who was not on my 'telly' to offer a new theory, he was just there to explain the old one, because the fact is that none of these science swots actually know quite what the spark was that turned inanimate material into living, reproducing organisms.  They seem to have a fair idea on the ingredients and the conditions required, and the likely place in which it probably occurred - way down deep in the ocean amongst the nooks and crannies on the seabed - so it's farewell to the old 'primordial mud' which used to be the favourite as the start point of life years ago - pity, really, I quite like the idea of us all crawling out of mud!  Anyway, that missing 'x' factor continues to plague science and it is interesting that every effort to reproduce the conditions inside a lab have all failed.

So, needless to say, I tottered off to bed with a headache and awoke this morning pondering on the problem as I drove to the swimming pool - have I told you before about . . . right, moving on - and it was still festering in what passes for my brain when I sat down at the computer and virtually one of the first items I came across, courtesy of Arts & Letters, was a review in the New York Review of Books by Prof. H. Allen Orr, a biologist, of a book by the philosopher Thomas Nagel.  The title of his book appears to sum up the content:  Mind and Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature Is Almost Certainly False.  'Luvin' it already,' I thought because I will always offer to hold the coat of anyone taking a swing at 'Archbishop' Dawkins!

In Mind and Cosmos, Nagel continues his attacks on reductionism. Though the book is brief its claims are big. Nagel insists that the mind-body problem “is not just a local problem” but “invades our understanding of the entire cosmos and its history.” If what he calls “materialist naturalism” or just “materialism” can’t explain consciousness, then it can’t fully account for life since consciousness is a feature of life. And if it can’t explain life, then it can’t fully account for the chemical and physical universe since life is a feature of that universe. Subjective experience is not, to Nagel, some detail that materialist science can hand-wave away. It’s a deal breaker. Nagel believes that any future science that grapples seriously with the mind-body problem will be one that is radically reconceived.

I could feel my headache returning!  However, it soon became obvious that Prof. Orr's mum and dad had brought him up properly because, unlike the insufferable Dawkins, he admitted some of the doubtful areas in modern biological explanations whilst applying a cool but critical attutude to some of Mr. Nagel's other theories, especially his main one which was to propose a teleological imperative behind the universe whilst simultaneously excluding any sort of God.  And, no, I'm not sure how Nagel pulled that one off but with great courtesy Prof Orr expressed his doubts.

Anyway, it's five to eleven and time for my life-saving caffein injection which I hope will cure my headache.  I recommend Prof. Orr's review, an example of the very best sort of scientific writing for the non-scientist and if it gives you a headache too, well, I like to share my troubles, I'm generous like that!

 

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Give me a kiss, sweetie, and I'll tell you!

That is my non-serious answer to a serious question raised by Prof. David P. Barash in The Chronicle of Higher Education, to wit, "The Evolutionary Mystery of Homosexuality".  Regular readers will know that whilst I accept (for the moment) evolutionary theory, that is, the concept that all living things evolved from preceding living things (except the first living thing which evolved from  . . . ?) I have and still have doubts concerning the notion of zillions of tiny incremental changes leading to the huge range of living forms we see about us today.  Nor do I totally subscribe to the idea that all changes to a life form which aid it in its efforts to reproduce is the sine qua non of biological success.  You can reproduce all you like but if our poor old globe suffers a solar minimum leading to an extended freeze, as it has done in the past, then you and yours die - end of!  In addition to several other objections to Darwin's theory that all living things win or lose (so to speak) depending on their success in 'the mating game' there is the hardy perennial of how it is that stern 'Mother Nature' continues to allow homosexuality to exist.  According to strict Darwinian and even stricter 'Dawkinsian' theory it should have died out eons ago.  But no, it flourishes still in every human society adding, dare I say, to the gaiety of nations!

In my numerous internet dog-fights with 'Darwinistas' and their first cousins, the 'Dawkinistas', I have never received a convincing response when I raise this awkward question.  Happily, Prof. Barash, whilst offering a wide survey of all the latest theories to explain this devilish tricky problem, comes up with - zilch! - nada! - bugger all!  Oddly enough, I was slightly disappointed because it is an irritant in what is otherwise a very smooth (too smooth?) theory but at least it demonstrates his scientific honesty.  He remains confident that sooner or later his fellow biological swots will come up with an answer.  My advice?  Don't hold your breath!

 

As if

Odd how this coincidence business keeps recurring!  I have been pondering, and if that summons up a vision of me retiring to a darkened room in which to engage in deep thinking let me assure you that most of what passes for thinking in my head takes place in those few precious moments between my head hitting the pillow and the sound of snores ascending.  The problem with that mode of intellectual effort(?) is that the next morning I can't remember what the hell it was I was thinking about!  Where was I ... oh yes, pondering.

I have been pondering on what it is that keeps a moral sense alive when all the main religions are either crumbling away inch by inch or in some cases landsliding to oblivion.  In this modern age, God has been well and truly crucified like his Son, and the likes of Nietzsche and Dawkins have played the part of Roman soldiers thrusting spears in His side to make sure He's well and truly dead.  Fair enough, I suppose, because there is no intellectually satisfying argument to support the existence of God and even the most passionate and eloquent of Christian theists are reduced to admitting, albeit proudly, that their belief is founded on emotion.  So in the absence, or non-existence, of the Almighty, where-in lies the authority thought to be necessary for the maintainance of morality?  And almost instantaneously a further question arises, how is that morality continues at all?

That brings me to the coincidence that began this tedious tale.  In his superb book, Full Circle, Ferdinand Mount touches upon all those puzzling questions which have delayed my nightly slumbers by at least half a minute!  He points out that despite the catastrophic fall in religious attendence, there are waiting lists for C of E schools and, in an irony that has me whinnying with pleasure, some parents lie and cheat in order to gain entry for their kiddie-winkies to schools which will teach Christian values.  He goes on to remind us of the sad demise of Jade Goody, a British 'sleb' famous for nothing much except for loud-mouthed, incontinent, sluttish behaviour who died of cancer at the age of 28.  Given her background and upbringing it is no surprise that her behaviour was the way it was, and yet ... and yet ... one sensed that buried in her somewhere, somehow, there was a moral streak.  She apologised for her frequent bouts of bad behaviour - and surely an apology is but another version of confession.  Even more extraordinary, as Ferdinand Mount recalls, was her behaviour shortly before her death:

As she was dying, Jade Goody said, "I know I'm ignorant but I'm going to make sure my boys get the best education.  I'm going to pay for their education for the rest of their lives because that'll give them the best chance in life.'"  By "chance in life", she di not simply mean 'chance to make money'.  After all, she herself had managed to do that, despite suffering the worst start in life you can imagine.  What she meant was something lareger, such as a vision of the right way to lead one's life.  A fortnight before she died, she had herself and her two sons baptized at the chapel of the Royal Marsden Hospital where she was being treated for cancer.

Of course, the more cynical will instantly riposte that no-one repents faster than when they are on their death-bed, and by doing so they will miss the point - this fundamentally non-religious woman was not just pre-occupied with her own state of grace, she wanted her sons to be baptized into Christianity.  She saw, she sensed, she felt, that somehow in the ethos of Christian morality there was a sensible, one might almost say an intelligent, way to lead your life.  I would hesitate to speak for her but somehow, I guess that she did not necessarily believe entirely in the existence of a God even if she could have comprehended and encapsulated (as most of us cannot) the enormous concept of a God.  Even so, she knew there was a moral life that could be lived as an alternative to an immoral life and so she acted as if there was a God.

The notion of conducting one's life as if there was a God is a point Mount emphasises in the final chapter of his book.  He points out that the 'Darwinistas' in their intemperate attacks on theistic religion and their non-stop hallelujahs in favour of their religion of choice, Darwinism, have failed to apply evolutionary studies to the development of beliefs in God.  However, Mount draws attention to:

Robin Wright's new book called "The Evolution of God" made such a stir when it came out in 2008.  Kant would undoubtedly have applauded the enterprise.  He would have seen the evolutionary approach as the best possible way of showing the different ways in which men and women have chosen to live as if God existed. [My emphasis]

I must express my genuine gratitude to Mount for expressing this as if notion of God.  It has cleared out an irritating pebble in my mental shoe.  And perhaps now I shall nod off even faster than usual at nights!

 

It's all in yer serotonin transporter gene, innit!

I don't quite know what to make of Joan Chiao, from the department of psychology at Northwestern University.  As far as I am concerned anyone from a psychology department anywhere must have a beard and constantly play with a yo-yo as they babble mostly nonsense.  Ms. Chiao being a female of the species might find the beard bit tricky!  On the other hand, I am full of admiration for the lady in publishing in an American university a piece of research that is blatantly racist.  How she has escaped tarring and feathering by the ever-vigilant 'thought police' and 'language commissars' , I do not know.  Anyway, according to The Mail, she and her colleagues have been investigating cultural sterotypes (SHLOCK-HORROR - don't tell the 'Graun'!) and they have paid particular attention to the differences between "British individualism and Chinese conformity".  Actually, I suspect the "British" slant is emphasised by The Mail because, well, because it's The Mail, innit!  I think Ms. Chiao and her learn-ed colleagues were comparing western culture with the Chinese and other Asians.

Racial, or even national, traits are a very complex and slippery subject.  For a start, much belongs in the eye of the beholder.  Even so, it is Marxist nonsense to suggest that such traits do not exist at all.  In a way investigating such things is similar to the study of gases which are measured not by the individual actions of each and every molecule but by mathematical averaging.  The difference, of course, is that in gases the molecules never alter but people are forever changing to the intense irritation of politicians. 

Even so, Ms. Chiao maintains that the individuality she observes in western people should be compared with the conformity of the Chinese.  Oddly enough this chimes with some thoughts attributed to the late Mr. Jobs of Apple fame who maintained that the whole computer revolution of recent times could not have occurred anywhere else but the free-living, free-wheeling and free-dealing society of California in the last three decades.  By implication he was saying that the Chinese were only good for copying not inventing.  Ms. Chiao, in effect, confirms that opinion by telling us of their investigations into the genetic differences:

Chiao and her colleagues combined data from global genetic surveys, looking at variations in the prevalence of various genes. The findings were matched with other research which ranked nations by levels of individualism and collectivism.

 So which little genetic 'critter' was to blame, if indeed, blame is involved:

The team focused their attentions on the gene that controls levels of serotonin, a chemical in the brain which regulates mood and emotions.

Their studies found that one version of the gene was far more common in western populations which, they said, was associated with individualistic and free-thinking behaviour.

Another version of the same gene, which was prevalent in Asian populations, they said was associated with collectivism and a greater willingness to put the common good first.

Why is it, I wonder, when I read articles like that the one word which keeps drumming away at the back of mind is - bollocks!  I don't know but perhaps it's something to do with my serotonin level!

 

"Joy shall be in heaven . . .

. . . over one sinner that repenteth" and all that sort of thing.  Well, I know the quote is not a precise fit for the event but it was the one that leapt to mind when I heard the news.  According to The Telegraph a few days ago, 'Archbishop' Richard Dawkins engaged in a long debate with the Archbishop of Canterbury in the course of which he admitted that he was not entirely, absolutely, completely, convinced that there was no God:

There was surprise when Prof Dawkins acknowledged that he was less than 100 per cent certain of his conviction that there is no creator.

Prof Dawkins said that he was “6.9 out of seven” sure of his beliefs, referencing the seven point scale of belief that he sets out in his book The God Delusion.

The philosopher Sir Anthony Kenny, who chaired the discussion, interjected: “Why don’t you call yourself an agnostic?” Prof Dawkins answered that he did.

It was not reported at the time but I have it on good authority that Canterbury's beard shot out horizontal to the floor, and that several members of the Humanist Society required first aid!  When challenged as to why, therefore, he did not call himself an agnostic, he replied that he did.  At this point, I am led to believe, the scene resembled a Bateman cartoon with devout atheists rocking back on their heels with eyeballs threatening to burst from their sockets!

You see, that's one the very few advantages of living long - you get to see sundry chumps change their minds.  Even if, in this case, it is only 0.1 of his mind!

 

I try to cheer them up but do I get a thank you . . . ?

I have been exasperating the excitable kiddies over at Deltoid.  This is an 'Ultra-Warming' site and needs to be approached with care!  They are in a fair old strop over 'Climategate II' and despite my efforts to be, er, helpful they show no gratitude.  If you have nothing else to do you can start at Comment #90 in which I reply to an earlier comment.  You can then jump to Comment #102 in which Jeff, a true believer, takes me to task.  I reprint my reply to him below because it sums up, in rather blunt terms, much of my re-action to 'Greenery' in all its forms.  I should point out that in the original, somehow Jeff's name mutated to Jeremy, another contributer to Deltoid, but I have corrected it here.  Also to aid your understanding, my first paragraph refers to the not too surprising story that two years ago the 'scientific experts' all agreed that the Canadian caribou had disappeared and, natch!, it was all the fault of Man/global warming/oil exploration or whatever.  None of these experts bothered to ask the local natives who would have told them that the caribou always went off to some other place at certain times.  Anyway, lo and behold, they're back and hopefully Sarah Palin will have plenty of targets if any of them are foolish enough to wander into Alaska.

Well done, Jeff, exasperated, of course, but sticking to the point, by and large. I'm just a little hurt that you failed to thank me for the good news on the missing mooses, or caribous, or whatever you call those great hairy things that have the temerity to shit all over Canada. They're safe and sound!

As to your first main paragraph, are you telling me that my description of bird species as waxing and waning and then, perhaps, waxing again is not an accurate description of their history? And are you also denying that there is some controversy over the fact that those giant windmills are damaging birds?

Also, let me assure you that we have no disagreement that climate change has an effect on different species of both animal and plant life. That, in fact, is the entire history of this planet - it was ever thus. Also, I did not suggest that the "dustbowl" [of the '30s] was the same as the conditions current in Texas, my point was that if it isn't 'one damn thing' it's another! By and large, central areas of big land masses suffer big weather and geological effects. Again, it was ever thus.

Finally, and at this point I must urge you to sit down with a large scotch to hand, let me spell something else out to you. You are quite correct to maintain that human activity has had an effect on living things. Some of it has been deleterious and at this point you can reel off the names of several cuddly animals to weep over but let me tell you bluntly that I, personally, couldn't give a stuff! Even worse, I don't give a stuff about polar bears! What I do see is that through human efforts more and more humans are living longer and longer because they are healthier and healthier. And, this will come as a bit of shock to you, Jeff, I actually think people are far more important than, say Natterjack Toads, or, some flower that lives in a desert and comes up once every ten years. I cannot stress this too much, people are more important than anything else! (How are you feeling? Have a sip of scotch, it'll help.)

Don't misunderstand, I don't wish other living things to be destroyed; if there are sensible ways to preserve them (which increasingly there are) then by all means do it. But, if it comes down to a straight choice then polar bears don't even get a look in!

Now you may suggest that such wanton behaviour will lead to the destruction of people as well. I would suggest that you are wrong. Because as well as causing harm, people also do good. Just two silly/simple examples, dogs and cats thrive because of Man. New types of crops, some bio-engineered, are now feeding more and more people. I could go on but you take my point.

So, I hope that positive ending has cheered you up, Jeff, because I do think you are a tad too dismal - no, no, don't thank me!

'Archbishop' Dawkins trips over his own cassock!

I am obliged to my e-pal, 'Whyaxeye' (which is hereby immediately reduced to 'W' for the simple reason that it takes me three goes to spell his 'name' correctly!), who in a comment thread below drew my attention to 'the mysterious affair of the William Lane Craig debate', or, to be precise with reference to 'Archbishop' Dawkins, the William Lane Craig non-debate.  That exactitude is necessary because no debate between these men ever took place except, I suppose, via the infinite world of Blogdom where-in all hell was let loose!

You see, Mr. Lane Craig is a devout Christian philosopher and scholar - and one need go no further than that to recognise instantly that he stands for everything that Dawkins finds abominable.  But it gets worse, in Dawkins's eyes, because Lane Craig at some stage in his career sought to defend the word of God as recorded in Deuteronomy 20: 13-15 and in which apparently, He commanded that all the men, women and children of Canaan be put to the sword.  Those of you interested enough to read Mr. Lane Craig's defence of ethnic cleansing may do so via Google - me? I can't be bothered at the moment. 

What does interest me is that on the basis of his disgust at Mr. Lane Craig's words, 'Archbishop' Dawkins, standing on a stack of Bibles copies of his book The Selfish Gene, pronounced from on high that he would never, not ever, debate with such a self-evidently evil man.  But why?  Surely Mr. Lane Craig was only describing an act on the part of the Israelites of the time that was absolutely and entirely in compliance with the genetic code which Dawkins maintains over and over again drives men to be selfish, that is, to do anything and everything in their power to ensure the success of their own gene pool.  Massacring an entire tribe of hostile neighbours seems to me to be exactly what, in Dawkins's world, is to be expected, after all, such an act definitely increases the chances of success for your own genes, anything less puts them at risk .  Thus, like every street corner thug who sticks a knife into the guts of a member of an opposition gang, the Israelites can shrug and say, "Wasn't my fault, guv, it was me genes, wannit?"

It is worth quoting Dawkins in order to fully appreciate what a complete bugger's muddle this 'first class brain' gets into when he seeks to explain the all-powerful, er, well, sort of all-powerful-ish, selfish genes that makes us what we are, er, selfish:

The argument of this book [The Selfish Gene] is that we, and all other animals, are machines created by our genes. [...]  This entitles us to expect certain qualities in our genes.  I shall argue that a predominant quality to be expected in a successful gene is ruthless selfishness. (My emphasis)

OK?  Alright?  Got that, have you? I mean, it's clear enough, pelucid, one might almost call it.  Ah, but hang on, there's all those awkward events in which people risk, and often lose, their own lives trying to save others.  Not very selfish, is it, 'your Grace'?  "No, no", the 'Archbishop' would cry, "it only looks altruistic because the people they are saving are their relatives and thus the carriers of the same, or very similar, genes to the rescuer, so, in  a sense, he or she is still being driven by those rascally, selfish genes."  But what about the people who are saved by rescuers who are not relatives?  Well, mutters Dawkins, as he shuffles uneasily on the spot:

Let us try to teach generosity and altruism,because we are born selfish.  Let us understand what our own selfish genes are up to, because we may then at least have the chance to upset their designs, something that no other species has ever aspired to. (His emphasis)

Yeeeeeeeees, quite, as Mr. Paxman might sigh!  Given that Dawkins has told us in one paragraph that we are merely machines governed by our genes, where are the genes that order us to "teach generosity and altruism"?  They, obviously, are not "selfish" genes by definition, just the opposite, they are altruistic genes.  Yet in his book Dawkins barely gives them a passing nod, almost, one might think because, like poor relations, he is slightly ashamed of them!  What they are, from whence they came and how they arrived, is neither asked not answered.

I have no opinion on Mr. Lane Craig.  However, I do view with considerable suspicion anyone who takes the words of the Old Testament literally, especially any words alleged by a writer several hundred years after the event to be the words of God. Happily, if that is quite the word, we have 'Archbishop' Dawkins with us here and now and consequently we can apply Duff's Law which states that when faced by a prat on a soap box the only course of action is to shout, "SHOW US YOUR WILLY!"

You can read Dawkins's defence of his refusal to debate, here:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/oct/20/richard-dawkins-william-lane-craig

And in a comment thread below 'W' offers this link to a enjoyable example of the 'unspeakable in pursuit of the equally unspeakable', in which Dawkins is beaten up by a gang of feminastis - my dears, simply too, too, delicious but one just doesn't know which side to cheer for!

http://www.theatlanticwire.com/national/2011/07/richard-dawkins-draws-feminist-wrath-over-sexual-harassment-comments/39637/

NB: All quotes from The Selfish Gene, chapter one.

 

Watch out next April - academic warfare is likely to break out!

I have, and enjoy, the occasional equivalent of a Saturday night punch-up over at the 'Trot-lot' and 'Warmer' sites but they are nothing compared to the unrestricted warfare that breaks out when academics fall out.  And a fall out of almost nuclear proportions can definitely be expected next April when the eminent biologist, E. O. Wilson, publishes his next book. Wilson, as some of you may know, was the 'father of sociobiology' which sought to explain evolution in terms of group behavior - Wilson was an expert on ants and their highly specialised and successful social model - whilst agreeing that the unit of evolution was the gene.

However, as I explained in a post last June, Wilson is no respecter of persons and reputations, particularly if the person and reputation concerned is 'Archbishop' Richard Dawkins!  Thus, in his forthcoming book, which follows a highly technical paper written for Nature in concert with two big-brained maths swots, he intends to press home his view that altruism, such a thorn in the side of Dawkins, is not confined to kin selection but arises from group selection.  Well, I could have told him that but who the hell listens to me?

Anyway, watch out next April for a mammoth, academic hissy-fit and a  barrage of deliciously vicious book reviews in which old scores might be settled but new ones will spring up to take their place.  Such fun!

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2011/11/e-o-wilson-rsquo-s-theory-of-everything/8686/?single_page=true

 

'Krugmania': we all suffer with it to a greater or lesser extent

Two fascinating essays over at the Cafe Hayek by Russ Roberts, in order, here and here.  Economic buffs can skip the rest of this paragraph but for the benefit of those who happily avoid economics on the sensible basis that not only is it the "dismal science" but also the incomprehensible science, let me tell you that Paul Krugman is a distinguished economist and Nobel prize winner who writes for the NYT, and that Mr. Roberts is a terrific economics swot at various universities who also writes for the MSM.  I should also add the critical information that Mr. Krugman is a Keynesian who believes that governments hold the key to all macro-economic problems.  (Just to confuse matters, well this is economics, there are those who would maintain that Keynes's views were rather more nuanced than that.)  On the other hand, Mr. Roberts is an 'Austrian' - no, no, not by nationality, he is a follower of the 'Austrian school' of economic philosophy which is exemplified in the works of Friedrich Hayek and which can be (very) roughly summed up as 'almost everything a government does in the economic field is "A Bad Thing"', to use the old Sellars & Yeatman phrase. Thus, you can see that Messrs. Roberts and Krugman approach our current economic woes from directly opposite directions.  Well, it was ever thus in economics!

However, Mr. Roberts's two articles have a very much wider scope than just mere economics.  In them he suggests that the differences between himself and Mr. Krugman are ideological, that is, that they stem not so much from a strictly analytical and scientific basis but from their differing 'worldviews'.  He doesn't say this but I will, economics is like a number of other subjects which pretend to be scientific but are really only what I call 'semi-science'.  In other words, the conclusions you come to depend to a great extent on where you started from.  As Mr. Roberts puts it:

But the key point I was trying to make when invoking ideology, is that Krugman and I and most economists have a worldview. There’s nothing wrong with that. It’s not an indictment or a criticism. It’s simply true. That worldview may be based on casual observation, various principles that make sense to us about how the world works, facts of various kinds, and more statistically sophisticated forms of evidence.

That, I believe, is absolutely spot on and can be applied to any number of other 'semi-sciences' such as global warming, Darwinism and so forth.  Mr. Roberts goes on:

We come to these views in various ways. They are part of our experience, our upbringing, our education, our thinking, and our observations of the world around us. They are inevitably philosophical and ideological at least in part and often in whole. We use these worldviews to filter and understand new information and process that information accordingly. That is not the way most economists or social scientists or even plain scientists think of themselves. They think of themselves as truth-seekers. (Journalists, by the way, have a very similar disconnect between how they view themselves and how I suspect they actually behave.) Truth-seekers look at the facts, allegedly uninfluenced by prior biases, philosophies, theories, and ideologies.

My emphasis above, and examples of what Roberts says can be seen on any of the global warming sites.  He continues:

My claim is that this image of ourselves as pure truth-seekers is a fantasy. Facts don’t speak for themselves. We have to have some kind of worldview to interpret the facts, to filter them, to process them, to organize them. We all suffer from confirmation bias. Facts that challenge our worldview tend to be ignored, minimized, or dismissed as irrelevant.

Ouch!  That certainly applies to me.  It also, I think, applies outside of 'semi-science' even, or especially, into the world of politics.  I have remarked before, in considering the various candidates for the Republican nomination, that so-called intellectual knowledge, or experience in high government office, is not the criteria by which they should be judged.  It is their underlying 'worldview' which is critical, all else flows from that.  We have, according to the (dim) lights of MSM commentary a university-educated intellectual in the White House today and bar a small minority he is generally reckoned to be an outstanding failure as a president.  The reason, in my opinion, is obvious, his entire 'worldview' is skewed in the wrong direction, and therefore, as sure as night follows day, his actions will prove to be disasterous.  It is also why I instinctively draw towards the likes of Sarah Palin and Herman Cain, because their 'worldview' is, in my opinion, clear-eyed and, on the whole, accurate and on that fairly firm base of relative reality they can be trusted to operate and re-act to 'unknown unknowns' in a sensible manner.  Mitt Romney (and also I suspect Rick Perry), of course, has no 'worldview' beyond getting his arse into the Oval Office armchair.  That is not to disqualify him from the job but one cannot do other than harbour considerable doubts.

I urge you all to read Mr. Roberts's two articles and then apply them to a wider 'worldview'!

 

Contrarian or crank?

Looking at his photo you would find it hard to choose, he could be either.  However, given that he takes to wearing a red fedora you might think he was a comedian!

Raymond Tallis by Felix Clay, Eyevine

Actually, I think 'contrarian' is his best description given that he is a former clinical neuroscientist by the name of Raymond Tallis and that he spends most of his time at war with his fellow neuroscientists.  I am obliged to The Chronicle of Higher Education - and, no, don't ask what an ignoramus like me is doing in such high-falutin' company - for an interesting article on the man by Mr. Marc Parry in which he suggests that perhaps a better job description for Dr. Tallis is 'dustman' on the grounds that he describes most of the theories put forward by his fellow specialists as "neuro trash" which he is all too eager to deposit on the nearest dump!

Happily, on this occasion, given that I know nothing of the subject I do not have to offer an opinion (wadd'ya mean that never stopped me before?!) I can simply carry their coats whilst they set to.  On the one side we have, according to Mr. Parry, those who support:

[...] a rash of pseudo brain science that purports to explain behavior as varied as believing in God and falling in love.

In the other corner we have the redoubtable, and probably very irritating, Dr. Tallis, who:

In 2006, Tallis gave up hospital-ward rounds for a full-time writing life that unfolds in morning and afternoon rounds of two local pubs. In these "offices," the atheist-humanist nurses his animosity toward thinkers who reduce human beings to animals "acting out a biological script inscribed in our brains by evolutionary forces." He takes aim at their exaggerated claims in a new book, Aping Mankind: Neuromania, Darwinitis, and the Misrepresentation of Humanity (McGill-Queen's University Press).

I like his working routine, it reminds me of the old three-martini lunches so beloved and missed of yesteryear.  I think I would pay good money to attend one of his lectures:

In a cheerful voice, turned out in a magenta tie and a blue boating blazer with broad white stripes, Tallis informs 60 people gathered in a Kent lecture hall that his talk will demolish two "pillars of unwisdom." The first, "neuromania," is the notion that to understand people you must peer into the "intracranial darkness" of their skulls with brain-scanning technology. The second, "Darwinitis," is the idea that Charles Darwin's evolutionary theory can explain not just the origin of the human species—a claim Tallis enthusiastically accepts—but also the nature of human behavior and institutions.

As I confessed above, I have no knowledge of the arcane details of neuroscience but I instinctively side with Dr. Tallis, not, I hasten to add, for religious reasons but simply because I am by nature a 'Bolshie bugger' and I do not care for the notion that anyone tells me what to do - whether it's God or Darwin!

It's a good article well worth reading not least because it makes you wish you knew more.

 

Luke 15:x

No, no, don't go dashing off trying to find your bible which you probably haven't looked at in years and will have forgotten where in hell you put it; here is the King James version:

[...] there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth.

I am provoked to this bible-punching by a recent story in the Boston Globe by Leon Neyfakh, one of their staff writers.  He describes what must have been a Bateman-like(*) scene in Darwinian circles when, in March this year, Nature magazine published a paper by E. O. Wilson (or God, as he is known in biological circles!) and a couple of maths swots by the name of Martin Nowak and Corina Tarnita.  In it they crucified (sorry, but this biblical stuff is catching) the long and dearly cherished notion of neo-Darwinists that altruism stems from kin relationships, that is, the closer you are related to someone the more likely you are to risk your life for them because they share your microscopically tiny bits of protein 'goo' called genes and which, according to 'Archbishop' Richard Dawkins, entirely rule our lives and behaviours - well, if you believe that, you'll believe anything!  But neo-Darwinists do believe it, indeed, they cling to it like ship-wreck survivors on a raft because, of course, according to them we are all entirely slaves to rule by 'gene-goo' which is, as Dawkins insists with eye-ball swivelling intensity, entirely selfish and thus, there is, there can be, no such thing as altruism.  What we assume is altruism, is in fact, selfishness because by helping our kin who, depending on how closely bred they are to us, also carry our 'selfish' genes, we are really helping ourselves, er, even as we drown, get run over, shot, perish in a fire, or whatever we do to save our brothers, cousins, second-cousins and so on.

The fact that a skim through the papers, made so much easier today via the internet, produces a steady stream of stories of incredible acts of bravery, sometimes terminal, by complete strangers on behalf of others is a fact not allowed to disturb the priestly serenity of 'Archbishop' Dawkins and his acolytes.  But now, E. O. Wilson, hitherto one of the most highly emminent members of the priesthood, a sort of papal figure in the neo-Darwinist sect, has arisen and claimed that all this kin altruism is wrong, and he goes on to make use of his two maths wizards to prove it!  The fact that it was Wilson, himself, who years ago first discovered William Hamilton's obscure paper proposing kin selection and made it famous and accepted by biologists across the world, makes his recantation all the more explosive.

What Wilson now proposes, some 30 years later, is what he calls 'group altruism', in other words, members of the same group will sacrifice themselves for other members of the group irrespective of any kinship, and apparently his mathematical assistants have proved it.  Under heavy bombardment from his erstwhile friends, Wilson, with sardonic humour:

paraphrases Arthur Schopenhauer to explain his current standing in his field. “All new ideas go through three phases,” Wilson said, with some happy mischief in his voice. “They’re first ridiculed or ignored. Then they meet outrage. Then they are said to have been obvious all along.”

(*) For the benefit of my foreign readers, H. M. Bateman was an English cartoonist famous and well-loved in the early part of the 20th century, particularly for a stream of cartoons with the catchphrase beginning "The man who  . . ." and followed by some dreadful faux pas committed by some poor sucker who didn't know the rules.

 

 

The morality of killing!

I promised to return to the tricky subject raised by the late Leonard Read in his essay Conscience on the Battlefield which I posted on yesterday.  Not being a great thinker I might have to take two or three bites at it but I would like to begin by pondering on the general subject of morality and from whence it draws its authority.  Theists, in this respect at least, have it easy because they simply point to God.  Non-theists, like me, then enjoy pointing out that there appear to be a plethora of Gods each with a slightly different take on morality and one is therefore left wondering who is, so to speak, the God of Gods?  Theists, of course, then enjoy coming back with the undoubted fact that the concept of morality, albeit a tad fuzzy around the edges, does exist and so they, too, ask us upon what authority we base our sense of morality?

I would suggest that morality, and here I want to concentrate on the particular morality of killing, has arisen as part of the Darwinian principle of survival of the fittest.  The higher animals, or at least, those that have survived, do so on the basis of living in a 'society'.  I use that in the widest possible sense of the word including, in the case of animals, herding and flocking and so forth.  In other words, all the higher animals, even in a very loose way, still recognise their own kind and conduct themselves in a way which has proved successful over the generations particularly in regard to feeding and breeding, activities which are the most likely to cause dissension and trouble.  Indeed, even the most ferocious animals, ruthless in their pursuit of prey, rarely kill each other unless there is good reason.  A species which goes in for wanton killing would not survive for long.  But even when there are good grounds for fighting, again, even the most ferocious rarely take the fight to the point of death, flight always being an option.  Perhaps the greatest contribution made by Darwinists in recent years is the way oin which they have clarified the meaning of survival of the fittest which dummies like Adolph Hitler took to mean the strongest killing the weakest.  The great truth that 'he who fights and runs away lives to breed another day' has finally been spelled out for all to understand.

Man is, for most intents and purposes, just another higher animal.  Our societies frown on wanton killing because, of course, it is a personal danger but also because it is self-destructive to the whole notion of a society, and we are all aware, even if only dimly, that it is the 'invention' of society which has provided us with the benefits we enjoy.  If society breaks down then we return to a state of savagery which is likely to bring about a rapid end not only to our own lives but also to our species.  Thus, killing must be controlled and, at some time in our remote history, probably amongst the earliest tribes, custom (and common-sense) became codified and, lo, the first lawyer was created - Dread Thought!  Ayn Rand might be a somewhat derided figure in these semi-socialist days but she was surely right in her analysis of the mutuality between priests and kings in our early times.  It seems to be part of human nature to yearn for a higher authority and a king, who was instantly recognisable as just another human being, albeit an exalted one, was just not enough.  At which point, enter the priest who claims to speak to, and on behalf of, an all-powerful, all-knowing entity called God.  Between priest and king it was love at first sight, although, as we all know, love doesn't always last!

Anyway, to end this first rather amateurish effort, let me conclude by saying that I do believe morality, in the general sense, does exist and that it includes a particular morality over killing.  I believe the authority for this derives from Darwinian principles of survival of the fittest.  In my next try I will attempt to spell out my thoughts on how the morality of killing is applied to war and the individual. 

Don't mention . . . oh dear, too late!

In my blogging experience I have learned, the hard way, to avoid two thorny subjects - abortion and natural selection.  They frequently create spontaneous heat but rarely much light.  However, alas and alack, today I am prompted to return to Darwin's contentious theory but the blame lies entirely with Kevin Myers in The Irish Independent.  He drew my attention to an item in David Attenborough's recent TV series on animal life which was shot on location in a particularly ferocious desert in Madagascar:

This desert is a brutally unforgiving place, in which an ordinary spider would simply be desiccated, even in shelter. So one variety of spider has developed a technique by which it lassoes an empty snail-shell, and by a careful geometric arrangement of its web, is able to hoist the shell off the ground and suspend it from a branch in shade, safe from the heat and from ground predators, with the hole pointing vertically downwards, away from both the sun and intrusion by birds.

[...]

what magical circuitry did the spider possess that enabled it to create an entirely new home, involving complex suspensory trapezoids and a careful positioning of a crustacean shell, millions of years after it had emerged in entirely different ecological circumstances?

Now let me confess immediately - I was a believer!  Years ago I read some of Richard Dawkins's books and I swallowed them whole with barely a gulp.  Although, and I mention this in mitigation, reading him I did realise for the first time that the Darwinists were a divided camp, some believing that natural selection operates at the level of species, whilst others say it is at the level of individual organisms, whilst yet others, including Dawkins, insist that natural selection operates at the level of genes within organisms.  When faced with anyone doubtful of the whole Darwinian concept, of course, these 'little' differences are quickly swept away and a united front is presented.

So there I was, warm and comfy, chanting along with all the others, "I believe, I believe!" when suddenly I was confronted by a big, bullying Aussie who, so to speak, picked up a 10lb sledge hammer and hit Dawkins smack over the head with it!  I was shocked, shocked, I tell you!  This subversive Aussie was the late, and in my opinion very great, David Stove and his 'sledge hammer' was his book Darwinian Fairytales.  Whilst Stove had some sympathy with Darwin he had none whatsoever for Dawkins and his silly notion that we're all controlled and programmed by little itty-bits of protein called genes.  (I blush to remember how I believed all that crap!)  But once the worm of doubt enters your consciousness there is no escape from its insidious burrowing and so the next book I read was Darwin's Black Box by Michael J. Behe.  Unfortunately, Behe rather spoiled his case by proposing the existence of an 'Intelligent Designer' to replace the notion of God and this was free ammo for the devout atheists like Dawkins.  But both Behe and Dawkins, and Darwin for that matter, believed that life was purposeful, not with any particular end result in view but driven above and beyond all other imperatives by the need to reproduce - and the most succesful reproducers win the game!  It's an enticing theory but as Stove points out, it is a fallacy because it does not extend to all living things, and indeed, the biggest exception to this so-called 'Law' are human beings, themselves.  As we can see from our own experience, the richer and more bountiful our societies become the less we breed!  Falling birth rates in the west are becoming a real problem.  So much for those pesky little genes that the absurd 'Archbishop' Dawkins would have us believe control and drive us helpless humans along in the direction they insist upon.

But Behe had another argument to support his doubts concerning Darwinian natural selection, and Meyers's mention of that cunning little spider reminded me of it.  It is necessary to understand that most neo-Darwinists insist that natural selection works infinitesimally slowly through almost literally uncountable zillions of tiny 'improvements' passed on from generation to generation.  However, Behe, a micro biologist by 'trade' took a long hard look at the means by which these 'improvements' occurred.  Down at the micro-chemical level, a view not open to Darwin, a whole universe of complexity arises, and even the smallest of changes requires the simultaneous action by several components which must exist before the 'improvement' occurs.  His famous metaphor was the 'simple' mouse trap:

Having a mouse trap confers an advantage because you can rid your environment of a pest.  But in order to use it, it is necessary to have the component parts, a flat wooden base, a metal hammer, a spring (which is fairly complicated in its own right), a pressure-sensitive catch to hold the hammer in place, and finally, a metal bar that connects to the catch and holds the hammer back when it is charged.  Also, of course, you need several staples to hold all these components together.  Now, to have the advantage of this device it is absolutely necessary to have all the components and, moreover, they must be arranged in the 'correct' order.  A failure of any of these strict requirements means the trap will fail and, like Meyers's spider mentioned above, failure means death.  And there is one other critical factor to be taken into consideration.  If our mouse trap was produced by Darwinian evolution, then first, each of those components would have to be slowly evolved seperately over time despite the fact that none of them, on their own, provides the organism with the slightest advantage!  This tricky objection to natural selection Behe called "irreducible complexity".  Reading the occasional efforts by Darwinists to refute, or at least, to wriggle around, Behe's irreducible complexity argument has provided me with some sardonic sniggers over the years.

However, if Darwin's theory of evolution falls how are we to account for the changes over time that we see in living things? For that, somewhat hesitantly, we must turn to mathematics.  I, of course, failed my maths 'O'-level and my ignorance of the subject galls me to this day because, in some obscure way, I think the mysteries of life are probably to be found in mathematics.  I stress the word 'probably' because I suspect that probability plays a large part in the equation.  For a reasonably easy to understood explanation I would urge you to read Chaos and Life by Richard J. Bird.  He treats the multiple exchanges of genes which take place at every act of reproduction as a Turing machine operation working on the same basis as the iterated equations which form the basis of Chaos Theory.  If he is right then it will explain, in a sense, how a 'mouse trap', or at least, a major change of organism can come about almost instantaneously because the iteration of equations over 'zillions' of times does result in sudden and startling changes of outcome which cannot be forseen.  Also, of course, there is no purpose or aim, they just happen, and if they are 'successful' they will remain, and if not - not!  It is perhaps best summed by a phrase much used by 'the cousins' - shit happens, or to be more accurate, sometimes it's shit and sometimes it's peaches and cream, it all depends where and when it happens.  Or, to put yet another way, God, or the Intelligent Designer, does indeed play with dice.

Sorry to bore on at such length but as I wrote up above, it's all the fault of that Kevin Meyers!

 

What goes around comes around

Co-incidence is always odd, and sometimes very slightly disconcerting.  For example, yesterdy I read a book review on the twin subjects of altruism and selfishness, and then this morning, lo and behold, my e-pal Malcolm Pollack , pointing to another book, raises exactly the same subject.  I am pressed for time so I will not bore on for too long, instead I will urge you all to take a look at the two links and think your thoughts.

The first book, The Price of Altruism: George Price and the Search for the Origins of Kindness, is concerned with the philosophical problems of altruism but also tells the tragic story of George Price, an extraordinary man of whom, hitherto, I had never heard.  He was a brilliant scientist who worled on the Manhatton project during the war and followed that by research in some of the most famous labs in the world.  He became obsessed with the problem of altruism partly because he was a fervent atheist and believer in Darwinian theory, and partly also because he was fascinated by religious belief and the part that it appeared to play in establishing moral codes.  He struggled through most of his life to establish a mathematical equation in order, I suppose, to square the circle of the altruism problem.  In the end he converted to evangelical Christianity and, believing that God had spoken directly to him, he insisted on giving away all of his material possessions to those, like down-and-outs, who had nothing.  He ended up homeless, broke and sick and finally ended his life by cutting his own throat.

Malcolm Pollack points us to a book by Sam Harris (also unknown to me) called The Moral Landscape which covers much of the same landscape as Price inhabited.  Indeed, 'landscape' is the appropriate word because, apparently, Harris views evolution as taking place in an area of peaks and valleys in which the traits of a species might allow it to live comfortably on a peak, but if the water starts to rise it will depend on its ability to swim (or in effect, to just scrape through) and reach a new higher and safer peak.

Two fascinating books by the sound of it.  I am away overnight, back in the morning.

 

A useless, trivial (pursuits) fact

I am not very well educated (yes, yes, don't bother!) but I am possessed of some spectacularly useless facts, you know, the sort of thing which if you drop them into the middle of a dinner party conversation it brings the entire thing to a dead stop as people are stumped for anything to say.  I mention this because my golden store of useless facts is about to be enriched further - so best not to invite me to dinner.  The reason is that I have just started a new book and, to paraphrase that awfully brave chap, Oates, who took a walk into the Antarctic night, 'I may be reading for some time'!  You see, this book, even in paperback version, is as big as a house brick.  Including the index it runs to 1,118 pages and it is absolutely cram-jam-packed full of facts.  I have given up going to the gym because just lifting and carrying this tome around gives me all the exercise I need.

It is called IDEAS: A History from Fire to Freud by Peter Watson.  It begins way back when the apes descended from the trees and some of them began to walk upright-ish.  Now, stand by because here comes my piece of useless information: did you know that one of the advantages of standing upright was that it allowed the descent of the larynx to a lower level in the throat which in turn, and over time, made it easier for vowel and consonent sounds to be articulated?  In addition, and as a bonus (presumably from the 'Intelligent Designer'!) the upright stance changed the pattern of breathing and thus the range of possible sounds.  Finally (ahem! not dropping off, are you?) eating meat was easier than chewing on tough, stringy, old plants and thus allowed the formation of new, more delicate, facial muscles which aided a wider range of movements for the tongue and this in turn helped in the formation of sounds which eventually would become speech.

Anything you wish to say?  No, thought not, that sort of useless information does tend to leave one gob-smacked, does it not?  And yet . . . and yet, it excites me enormously!  To think that all those miniscule, accidental(?) occurrences led eventually, over millions of years, to Mankind.  The danger, of course, is to use the 20/20 vision of hindsight and to assume that somehow it was all meant to be.  That is a question for another time but for now I am happy to hold Mr. Watson's comforting hand as he takes me step by faltering step through the history of ideas.  His breadth of knowledge is enormous but he carries it, and dispenses it, with ease bordering on elegance.  He treads carefully but surely through the inumerable squabbles of Academe and where doubt or controversy exist he spells it out. 

It is a terrific book and if you were lucky enough to be given some book vouchers for Christmas you could not do better than spending it on a copy of this - and then, you, too, could become an 'A1 crasher' like me and no-one will invite you to their boring dinner parties ever again so you can stay at home and read more books - hurrah!

"Bounded in a nutshell, and count myself a king of infinite space"

A few posts back I became over-excited by the creation of the universe!  I can't help it, the subject fascinates and enthrals me.  I'm sure many of you have had similar re-actions on a cold, clear night when you gaze at the galaxy and realise that everything you see is but a speck in the great order of the cosmos.  If you go further and take advantage of the many excellent writers who translate the mysteries of cosmologists, physicists and mathematicians into (relatively) plain English, you, too, will be gripped by the mind-boggling story (or, to be acurate, the stories) that unfolds.  It is intensely exciting, and was, until a dozen years ago, the most exciting thing I had ever discovered, er, that is, the most exciting thing after I had stumbled across the other end of the scale, quantum physics, which blew my little mind quite away!  That was about fifteen years ago, but twelve years ago I discovered the living cell - well, I didn't exactly discover it, you understand, but I read a book that told me about it and I wished I had the remnants of my mind back again so that it could be blown away yet again.

Before all of that, had you asked me what a living cell was I would have answered in a sort of paraphrase of the great German biologist, Ernst Haeckel, who described it as a "homogenous globule of protoplasm", or, a blob, as I would have put it! Well, here is a description of just one 'simple' action that takes place in a cell.  Do not try to follow the process in detail, it will make your brain ache, just skim read it and you will get the drift:

An RNA copy (called messenger RNA, or just mRNA) is made of the DNA gene coding for a protein that works in the cell's garbage disposal - the lysome.  We'll call the protein "garbagease".  The mRNA is made in the nucleus, then floats over to a nuclear pore.  Proteins in the pore recognise a signal on the mRNA, the pore opens, and the mRNA floats into the cytoplasm.  In the cytoplasm the cell's "master machines" - ribosomes - begin making garbagease using the information in the mRNA.  The first part of the growing protein chain contains a signal sequence made of amino acids.  As soon as the signal sequence forms, a signal recognition particle (SRP) grabs onto the signal and causes the ribosome to pause.  The SRP and associated molecules then float over to an SRP receptor in the membrane of the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) and stick there.  This simultaneously causes the ribosome to resume synthesis and a protein channel to open in the membrane.  As the protein passes through the channel and into the ER, an enzyme clips off the signal sequence.  Once in the ER, garbagease has a large, complex carbohydrate placed on it.  Coatomer proteins cause a drop of the ER, containing some garbagease plus other proteins, to pinch off, cross over to the Golgi apparatus, and fuse with it.  Some of the proteins are returned to the ER if they contain the proper signal.  This happens two more times as the protein progresses through the several compartments of the Golgi.  Within the Golgi an enzyme recognises the signal patch on the garbagease and places another carbohydrate group on it.  A second enzyme trims the freshly attached carbohydrate, leaving behind mannose-6-phosphate (M6P).  In the final compartment of the Golgi, clathrin proteins gather in a patch and begin to bud.  Within the clathrin  vesicle is a receptor protein that binds to M6P.  The M6P receptor grabs on to the M6P of the Garbagease and pulls it on board before the vesicle buds off.  On the outside of the vesicle is a v-SNARE protein that specifically recognises a t-SNARE on the lysome.  Once  docked, NSF and SNAP proteins fuse the vesicle to the lysome.  Garbagease has now arrived at its destination and can begin the job for which it was made.

Go that?  No, of course, you haven't unless you are a biochemist.  Suffice to say:

Garbagease travels a distance of about one ten-thousandth of an inch on its journey from the cytoplasm to the lysome, yet it requires the services of dozens of different proteins to ensure its safe arrival.

Tricky, or what?  Well, you may mutter to yourself, good job that doesn't have to happen to0 often:

The authentic cellular system is already in place, and every second of every day, this process happens uncounted billions of times in your body.

All of the above quotes are from Michael Behe's controversial book Darwin's Black Box [1] which I cannot recommend highly enough, particularly if you are a total layman like me.  Michael Behe is the man who invented the term irreducible complexity and drove several 'Darwinistas' quite mad, well, 'Archbishop' Dawkins hasn't beeen the same since!  In essence he provides a reductionist argument that certain utterly crucial processes in living things could not have arisen by tiny incremental changes over time because in their early stages none of the required bits offered, in Darwinian terms, any advantage to the creature concerned.  He put forward the hypothesis of an 'Intelligent Designer' and Dr. Dawkins fainted!

I think Behe is on to something with his notion of irreducible complexity which I think points not to an 'Intelligent Designer' but to a process of evolution very different from that which Darwin proposed.  I hardly need point out - again - that all pronouncements here at Duff & Nonsense are made on vestigial particles of knowledge and expertise!  Even so, I tell you one thing, there is not a more exciting, mind-blowing subject than cellular chemistry, er, except quantum physics, of course - oh, and not forgetting cosmology.  What a wondeful world!

[1]  You do not need to accept any of Behe's theories to enjoy and learn from his book.  He is a distinguished biochemist, himself, and he explains the processes in very clear layman's terms but then, in specially marked paragraphs (like the one I quoted above), he does become slightly more technical.  However, having marked these paragraphs he makes it clear that the layman can quite easily skip over them.  I cannot stress how fascinating he is on the micro-processes of the human body - for example, the means by which your finger stops bleeding when you cut it will leave you open-mouthed!

The 'missing link' is, er, still missing!

Our very own nationalised broadcasting company continues to fall for every (not very) cheap huckster in or out of town provided they have a minimal scientific fig leaf to hide their nakedness.  However, just in case, they have also dug up their own fossilised 'people's favourite', David Attenborough, to give the whole farrago a sheen of respectability as they seek to convince us that a skeleton of some rat-like creature is the 'missing link'.  You probably read the headlines to the story in recent weeks as the drip feed of pre-publicity was turned on, and you probably thought this skeleton had only recently been discovered.  Sucker!

"The specimen itself was not, in fact, dug up a couple of years ago. It was instead purchased, for a reported $1 million, from an obscure private collector, who had held it for at least 20 years. From the beginning, the "research program" was an exercise in entrepreneurship, with an investment to be recouped. In the end, direct participants in this circus included the History Channel, the BBC, Little Brown, Hachette Livre, and other mainstream media "content providers."

So says David Warren as he does his best to nip this piece of Darwinist propaganda in the bud.

"Dr. Jorn Hurum, the Norwegian pop paleontologist who is the brains behind this media splash, has been flashing pictures of the Mona Lisa and the Rosetta Stone alongside his Ida  [The cutesy name given to this 47m-years old 'rat']. He calls her, "The Holy Grail of Paleontology!" and "The Lost Ark of Archaeology!""

I call 'her', in Python language, an 'ex-rat' but fit for suckers to swallow whole at their leisure.  OK, OK, it's not a rat but it is not anything special either - except that the skeletal condition is remarkable given its age.  In order to keep just this side of the respectability line, the 'entrepreneurs' (shall we call them?) arranged for a proper scientific paper to be published in an obscure internet site "PLoS One".  According to Warren:

"Actually read that paper, and the hype evaporates. The authors methodically distance themselves from every sensational claim in the fine print:

"Note that Darwinius masillae, and adapoids contemporary with early tarsioids, could represent a stem group from which later anthropoid primates evolved, but we are not advocating this here, nor do we consider either Darwinius or adapoids to be anthropoids."

This is one of several remarks disowning the very assertions they have associated themselves with by participating in the extravaganza. They want to have it both ways: to pocket the stardust, while protecting their academic reputations."

Well, I sort of admire their cheek, after all, they're only pulling the same sort of strokes I used to pull when I was flogging bits of 'shrapnel' and pretending they were cars!  However, I just wish that for once in a generation the BBC would get off its collective arse and actually do what they boast of doing all the time - investigative reporting.  Heh!  They couldn't investigate a dead rat!

Again (sighs!) I am indebted to the eagle-eyed Alan Sullivan.

That old devil Deogolwulf duffs up the Darwinistas!

Is there a pleasure more exquisite than watching the dim, the dumb and the daft wriggling on a barb of their own making?  Well, I suppose the sight of 'One-eyed Jock' waving to the crowd and then walking into a lampost would produce a much-needed belly laugh but it would lack the delicious cruelty and wit that Deogolwulf deploys to such effect against those buffoons who, whilst despising church-goers, never lose an opportunity to kneel and worship at the shrine of 'St. Charles of Evolution', particularly in this year of his 200th anniversary.  In his wicked, satirical  fable (wicked, that is, in the sense of modern 'youf-speak'), Deogolwulf shows what an awkward, uncomfortable prophet Darwin is to follow in this 'po-mo' age of ludicrous sentimentality and self-delusion. 

Not content with breaking the china at the Darwinistas' dinner party, in his preceding post he aims a kick or three at the furniture in the hallowed sanctuary of Lincoln-worship by pointing up the emptiness of that famous piece of 'Abe-made' codswallop "government of the people, by the people, for the people".  I trust that no-one will be cruel enough to show it to 'Oprah' who might turn a whiter shade of pale black and thus ruin his image.

Anyway, no-one does it better than Deogolwulf - he should fence for Britain with the rapier at the next Olympics - so I urge you all to go and read him!