Science7
Bones Dr. Douglas Ubelaker & Henry Scammell
June 2007
The Dancing Wu Li Masters
Gary Zukav
June 2007
Fantastic Voyage Ray Kurzweil & Terry Grossman, M.D. Sept 2007
Liberation Biology
Ronald Bailey
Sept 2007
Reversing Dry Eye Syndrome Steven L. Maskin, M.D. Oct 2007
Emergence
John H. Holland
Oct 2007
Spirit Bear
Charles Russell
Nov 2007
Moral Imagination
Mark Johnson
Dec 2007
From Molecule to Metaphor
Jerome A. Feldman
Dec 2007
Terra
Michael
Novacek
Feb 2007
Bones
Dr. Douglas Ubelaker & Henry Scammell
June 2007
A somewhat old book, copyright 1992. One might call it a "How I
Done It". Ubelaker, at the time the book was written, was a
forensic anthropologist. He was a consultant in forensic
anthropology and was often called on by the FBI to consult on cases.
The book covers many of his colleagues, many of the cases that he
and they investigated and a certain amount of detail regarding how the
analysis was done. The book is sort of a cross between an
elemetary textbook and a book by Patricia Cornwell or Kathy Reichs.
Interesting reading, not much of a plot and nobody really tries
to get into the killers head.
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The Dancing Wu Li Masters
Gary Zukav
June 2007
Subtitled: An Overview of the New Physics
The previous book was an old book, this one is really old. It was
copyrighted in 1979. Zukav is a journalist who was invited to a
meeting with a number of physicists and a T'ai Ci Master at the Esalen
Institute in 1976. It is a fairly long paperback, 314 pages not
counting notes and index. He attempts to cover the "new physics",
relativity and quantum mechanics without math (I did find 2 or 3
equations in a footnote) and he doesn't do that bad of a job. It
is now of course over 30 years old, he is fascinated with certain parts
of Eastern Philosophy, he caught the standard physicist hubris, and he
unknowingly accepts several philosophical points as gospel that were
called into question in the 1980's, and 1990's.
I learned some stuff, I got thoroughly bored by some of the Eastern
Philosophy, and the book could have been condensed to less than 100
pages. Update it to 2007, drop the philosophy, and the extra 200
pages and I might read the next edition.
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Fantastic Voyage Ray Kurzweil & Terry Grossman, M.D. Sept 2007
Subtitled: Live Long Enough to Live Forever
They have done such a fantastic job in their web site that my comments would be superfluous. Their web site is www.fantastic-voyage.net
. They have a complete table of contents with a description of
each chapter (under Book Excepts - Table of Contents), a summary of
their recommendations (under Resources - Short Guide to a Long Life),
and many more resources from the book as well as new developments.
I would expect them to maintain this web site for longer than I
maintain mine. If it goes away it is probably because one or both
of them has died which would suggest that the whole book is a bunch of
hokum anyway.
In terms of my feelings on the book, I am sure that most of the
specific details will be changed over the next 10-20-30 years but most
of these will be evolutionary or new developments changes, not major
errors in their thinking or conclusions.
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Liberation Biology
Ronald Bailey
Sept 2007
Subtitle: The Scientific and Moral Case for the Biotech Revolution
Preface Brave New World Reconsidered Huxley's Brave New World and Orwell's 1984
formed the basis of much thinking about the world in the last half of
the 20th century. With the collapse of Russia and the fall of
much of Communism the threats of 1984 have been pretty much forgotten. However the beliefs about the evils described in Brave New World
have been internalized by many who characterize themselves as
bioethicists. There is one major difference between the society
portrayed in Brave New World
and the biology that we are developing at the current time.
Huxley's biological advances were imposed on people by the
government, our current biological advances are offered to people and
desired by people but the "bioconservatives" want to forbid their use
because they "know better". It seems to me to be a "freedom"
issue. The freedom of individuals to choose their own destinies
or the freedom of self-described experts to choose a destiny for you.
Introduction Biopolitics: Fight of the Century How
will we celebrate the end of the twenty-first century? Will we
end it by celebrating birthdays of people 150 years old and in perfect
health or will we celebrate the birthdays of people who have survived
into their 60's and 70's. Will we continue to make progress in
biological and medical technology or will we stop medical and
biological research and regress as intelligent and ambitious young
people decide to go into other fields. There are many groups who
oppose biological research. They come from both the conservative
and liberal ends of the political spectrum. If we delay medical
treatments to people who need them, we are literally killing them.
Is it worth the lives or our friends, neighbors, and family to
maintain a bioconservatives view of biological purity?
C1 Forever Young: The Biology and Politics of Immortality
Throughout the years, starting with King Gilamesh 5,000 years ago
in the written record, humans have desired extended life spans.
Progress has been slow but it seems to be speeding up. An
article in the April 29, 2002 issue of Science pointed out that for the
last 160 years life expectancy has been rising about 2 1/2 years every
decade. Researchers using fast maturing species like fruit flies
and nematode worms have achieved dramatic results, doubling or tripling
their life spans.
However numerous people such as Leon Kass, Daniel Callahan, Jay
Olshansky, Bill McKibben, Francis Fukuyama and others are opposed to
life extension for various reasons.
Bailey lists a number of factors that seem to be related to aging and
dying, sexual maturity, mitochondria, inflammatory response, food
restrictions, free radicals, a number of specific genes, telomere
production, vitamins and hormones. He ends the chapter with a
discussion of the reasons why some people are opposed to life extension.
C2 Final Victory over Disease: Building Humanity's Extended Immune System
The chapter starts with some true stories of people who suffered
from life threatening genetic diseases, some of the treatments that
have kept them from dying at very young ages, and some of the problems
faced as these treatments are perfected. Some of the
possibilities for treatment include repairing defects in specific
genes. A point to be considered is the potential abuse of such
gene therapy - primarily in athletes. A lot of progress has been
made in determining the causal factors in many cancers and in using RNA
interference to stop the expression of harmful genes. A specific
problem is using gene sequencing to determine the probability of
specific genetic diseases. Test results have been used improperly
by insurance companies to deny coverage and there is the problem that
you may be pre-disposed to a particular disease but there is no
treatment yet, should the person be told?
Through gene sequencing we can now produce treatments and vaccines much
faster. It is also easier to create new disease organisms.
Bailey recommends that the best defense from this is to insure
that ethical researchers are ahead of those with criminal intent by
supporting ethical open research. In closing he notes early
therapies are dangerous and there will be deaths however this must be
balanced with the realization that without the research and therapies
these people are guaranteed to die. We must not be too cautious.
C3 Are Stem Cells Babies? The Ethics of Making Perfect Transplants
Stem cells may have the potential to aid in the cure for many
ailments. However the idea of using embryonic stem cells has been
met with severe criticism since the very beginning, primarily from the
religious right. There are many approaches to using stem cells
and each has its own advantages and disadvantages. The battle
over stem cells has three main aspects, religious, political, and
scientific. They all come down to the definition of life, living,
and soul. Bailey's main point can be narrowed down to the
definition of the soul and when does human life generate the soul (if
at all). Bailey holds that political arguments are just religious
arguments dressed up in politicians suits instead of priests robes.
Most of these arguments are not relevant from a biological point
of view and they all revolve around who gets to make the decision, and
it is almost never the concerned individuals. It is almost always
the priests or the politicians.
C4 Who's Afraid of Human Cloning?
A short chapter discussing the many people and groups that oppose
human cloning. A brief comment - an identical twin is technically
a clone, if they are so bad should we not dispose of one so as to be
ethically pure? Maybe both because which is the original and
which is the clone, are they not both ethically tainted?
C5 Hooray for Designer Babies! What is a designer
baby? Broadly speaking it could be any thing other than (for a
man) having sex with a virgin, keep her from having sex with any other
males, keep having sex with her until she has a baby. Any medical
intervention into this scenario would result in a designer baby.
Obligatory disclaimer - I have two grand children and two grand
(nephew and niece)'s who could be labeled designer children. I am
biased. The techniques range from a very simple intervention to
very sophisticated genetic testing and manipulation.
Some of the options are in vitro fertilization, inserting the fathers
sperm directly into the egg, replacement of mitochondria in an egg,
replacement of DNA sequences (for muscular dystrophy), other germline
DNA replacement therapies (both natural and artificial), testing of
fertilized eggs for genetic diseases and selecting only those that do
not have the disease and sex selection. He discusses some of the
opponents to "designer babies" and some of their objections.
Again it boils down to who makes the decisions, a self appointed
elite who believe that they alone are qualified to make these types of
ethical decisions or leaving them up to the people directly involved.
He does stress that the technology should proceed slowly and
carefully but with the realization that failure to use the best and
newest technology very well may mean that someone will die from genetic
disease or abnormality.
C6 Biotech Cornucopia: Improving Nature for Humanity's Benefit
In Oct. 1999 a storm killed over 10,000 in India and created
massive food shortages, in the summer and fall of 2002 failure of crops
in Zimbabwe, Zambia, and Malawi also created massive food shortages.
In both cases the US offered genetically modified corn and
soybeans. The local and national governments refused the
assistance. They didn't want to offer starving people "poisonous"
corn that the people of the Americas have been eating for years.
In Zambia hungry villagers stormed the warehouses and simply took
the corn.
The chapter goes on to describe some of the groups who oppose GM
(genetically modified) plants and animals and many of the ways foods
are modified and their benefits. The author is obviously in favor
of GM foods and explains much of the objections to it as simple
superstition. My feeling is that in an ideal world there would be
no need for GM foods and all people would have plenty to eat.
Until we have an ideal world many people simply need something to
eat. I don't particularly trust all of the companies involved,
many are performing modifications strictly for their own economic
benefit. However until we can reduce the worlds population down
to a sustainable level - given the problems with fossil fuels and
global warming - we are going to need all the help we can get. We
do need to be vary careful of unintended side effects. In the US
alone we have hundreds of species of "weed" plants and animals that
have been introduced and have caused severe economic and environmental
damage. We need to be very careful to make sure that our genetic
modifications do no cause unintended harmful side effects. I
doubt that many of the corporate GM producers take sufficient care.
C7 Changing Your Own Mind: The Neuroethics of Psychopharmacology
We are making tremendous strides in our effort to ameliorate
chemically caused brain malfunction, and it seems that progress is very
likely. However it would seem that for every therapy discovered,
there is a person or group that seemingly want to stop the use of the
therapy. It is true that any technology can be used to create
harm but do we want to ban all stone tools (or the rocks from which
they are made) or clothes because a rock can be used to smash a head in
and a pair of pants could be used to strangle a person? The
author lists a number of reasons why some people want to limit the use
of psychopharmacology.
- Neurological Enhancements Permanently Change the Brain. Is
the brain a constant? Do I have the same brain I did as a 6 year
old? Lots of things change the brain - we want to optimize our
performance.
- Neurological Enhancements are Antiegalitarian. Perhaps, but
so are lots of things that go along with having rich parents. And
a pill is easier to give (and cheaper) that making sure that everyone
is wealthy.
- Neurological Enhancements are Self-Defeating. If every
child's IQ was raised 30 points then no one would gain a competative
advantage. True, but everyone would be a lot smarter, is that bad?
- Neurological Enhancements are Difficult to Refuse. True, but it is also hard to refuse to breath oxygen - so what?
- Neurological Enhancements Undermine Good Character.
Character here is defined as the struggle to achieve. It
might be easier to solve the little problems but there are still the
bigger problems. If every kid could take a pill and get A's in
geometry and trig the teachers just would have to teach differential
equations and sperical trig.
- Neurological Enhancements Undermine Personal Responsibility.
Are we personally responsible for flaws in our genetic makeup?
Isn't it irresponsible for someone with bipolar or ADHD NOT to
take medicine?
- Neurological Enhancements Enforce Dubious Norms. The
arguments for this point seem to be aimed at cosmetic changes.
Who cares. It seems that the more capability we have for
cosmetic surgery and other personal enhancements people use it to
become more individualistic.
- Neurological Enhancements Make us Inauthentic. What is
authentic? Is being bipolar or depressed the "authentic"
personality?
Authenticity lies at the heart of the neuroethical argument. What
is the authentic or real personality? Is it "real" to be hyper as
in ADHD or the manic phase of bipolar or perhaps or perhaps the
personality of a late stage Alzheimer patient? Or perhaps the
"drugged" state of someone taking the appropriate "drugs"
(unfortunately we do not have "good drugs" for Alzheimers yet).
And who gets to make the decisions about taking the drugs.
A related question is what is a "personality"? Is it
constant - static or perhaps it changes as we go through life - growing
up, being educated, getting married, having children, etc.? What
about crime? If someone has a chemical or hormonal deficiency
that causes violence is it right to call them a criminal when we have
medications to relieve the deficiency?
The author points out that many of the self-styled bioethicists or
"drug tzars" seem convinced that they alone have the knowledge and
ability to make these decisions. What is wrong with giving
individuals the power to make these decisions for themselves.
There may need to be limits as with extremely addictive drugs
that are deadly but in all other cases the individual should make these
decisions for himself.
Conclusion The Age of Liberation Biology
Arguments on why or why not we should restrict research or
therapy. Early maps had vast regions around Europe and Africa
that were labeled, "Here be dragons." Maybe so, maybe not, but we
definitely now know that the Americas are there. If Columbus
would have truly believed this he never would have sailed to the
Americas. We don't know where we are going, and the only way we
will get there is to try it. We should be cautious, people will
get hurt and die, but we will never learn anything if we don't try.
We have always had nay-sayers and we always will but if we don't
ignore them sometimes we would still be stuck in Spain and someone else
would have made the first discoveries.
The book is extremely well documented. There are 35 pages of
notes, 29 pages of bibliography, and 22 pages of index.
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Reversing Dry Eye Syndrome Steven L. Maskin, M.D. Oct 2007
Subtitled: Practical Ways to Improve Your Comfort, Vision, and Appearance
C1 What Is Dry Eye Syndrome, and Who Gets It? Myth:
Dry eye syndrome is not a serious disease. Fact: If dry eys
syndrome is not treated properly, it can lead to severe eye problems,
including blindness. It is medically known as keratoconjunctivitis sicca.
It could also be called dysfunctional tear syndrome. There
are two basic causes, either a lack of tear production or an
abnormality in the tear production causing the tears them to evaporate
too fast. It is often made worse by wearing contacts.
The common symptoms of dry eye may be some of the following: eye pain,
redness or inflammation, scratchiness, feeling of a foreign body in the
eye, burning or stinging, constant or frequent itching, contact lens
discomfort, nighttime dryness, difficulty opening your eyes in the
morning, blurred vision, heavy or tired eyes, excessively watery eyes,
excessive mucus discharge, and sensitivity to light.
Dry eye may effect around 10% of people. It is more common in
women and increases with age, becoming more common after age 50.
It is exacerbated by exposure to wind or dryness, concentrated
use of the eyes (computer, TV, driving), exposure to smoke or chemicals
in the air, eye surgery, contact lenses, and some diseases.
C2 An Overview of the Eye Discusses the anatomy and common eye problems.
C3 The Dry Eye Proper
tear production is essential for vision. Dry eye typically occurs
when something goes wrong with tear production. A more detailed
look at the anatomy and physiology of tear production and a look at the
results when one or more of these systems fail.
C4 The Causes
Typically dry eye has one or more of four causes. These are
behavioral (what we do to our eyes), environmental (outside influences
on our eyes), aging, and diseases. Much of the chapter is
concerned with the diseases of the eye and how these are effected by
our behavior, our environment, and our age.
C5 Aging and Gender
Dry eye is more common in women than in men and especially so
after menopause. Contrary to what one might expect, it is more
related to androgen deficiency than to estrogen deficiency. Dry
eye is often associated with illnesses due to aging such as Parkinsons,
arthritis, and the medications taken by older people.
C6 Allergies, Toxicities, and Other Sensitivities
Allergies and dry eye are very different but they can overlap and
one can cause the other. One thing to be on the lookout for is
preservatives in eye drops. They can often cause an allergic
reaction. He discusses common allergies of the eyes.
Another thing to look our for. Eye drops that promise to
"Get the Red Out" contain vasoconstrictors to reduce the size of blood
vessels in the eye, they also slow down tear production.
C7 Contact Lenses
Contact lenses are used by many people for both aesthetic and
convenience purposes. However they may cause damage to the tear
production locations in the eyes. Their use needs to be
carefully monitored so that use does not damage the eye.
C8 LASIC and Other Refractive Surgeries Eye surgery
may be a wonderful solution to vision problems however sometimes it may
cause or exacerbate dry eye. If you have eye surgery you should
closely monitor your eyes. It can sometimes damage the tear
production of the eye.
C9 The Diagnosis A
description of the medical professionals involved in eye care.
What they can and cannot do. Who you should go to for what
types of problems. It includes a check list of things you need to
know before you visit an opthamologist and some of the tests that he or
she may want to perform.
C10 Treatment In 2004
an international panel agreed on 4 levels of dry eye with some
recommendations for treatment. The levels are mile, moderate,
severe, and extremely severe. The first step as a patient is to
eliminate or reduce all potential causes that you have control over,
environmental, behavioral, and allergies. In terms of diet an
adequate consumption of Omega-3 fatty acids seem very helpful - wild
fish, fish oil, or flaxseed are good. Increase water intake,
reduce caffeine, and take vitamin supplements including BioTears, TheraTears, and HydroEye.
Over the counter eyedrops (artificial tears) containing polysaccharides
such as hydrolxypropyl methlcellulose (HPMC) and carboxymethylcellulose
(CMC) are good. Some of these are the Refresh line by Allergan.
Some are Refresh Tears, Plus Tears, Liquigel, and Celluvisc.
Another line is Genteal by Novartis and TheraTears line by
Advanced Vision Research. Two new products are Systane by Alcon
an Nature's Tears EyeMist - a spray.
For more severe cases a prescription is necessary for Lotemax, a
cortisteroid or Cyclosporin A which is sold under the name of Restasis.
He discusses other medications and surgical interventions.
Refer to the book and an opthalmologist.
C11 Remedies for Home and Work
He discusses a lot of specific home remedies for specific
environments. I won't discuss them in detail other than to use
eyedrops, blink often, and take eye breaks (just close your eyes for a
minute or two).
C12 Twenty Frequently Asked Questions Like it says,
twenty questions with answers. The careful reader will know all
the answers. He concludes with an 18 page glossary, 21 pages of
resource information citations, and a 10 page index.
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Emergence
John H. Holland
Oct 2007
Subtitled: From Chaos to Order
This book was a big disappointment to me. First of all the book
was in the "New Books" section of the library (my local library is very
small but has access to all of the books in a much larger library
system) but when I got it home I discovered that it was copyright 1998.
The second problem was that the first 10 chapters seemed to be a
description of cutting edge thinking from computer science in the
1940's, 1950's, and to a limited extent into the 1960's. As a
college student I found it really exciting in the 1960's.
The eleventh chapter, on metaphor and innovation, looked a little
better but then he uses metaphor in strictly a literary manner, not in
any sort of explanatory manner like Lakoff uses it. Holland talks
around the subject but he never seems to get anywhere.
The twelfth and final chapter finally starts to get somewhere. He
lists a number of basic concepts and the points that he has attempted
to make. However then he again waxes literary and begins to talk
about talking about the problem of emergence. In my opinion there
is no question that emergence is real. I have seen others discuss
the observation that new laws are required every time you get beyond a
three-magnitude difference. For example, when you discuss falling
a 1 gram object falls, makes impact, and survives a fall in a very
different manner from a 1,000 gram object or a .001 gram object.
This same observation seems to work in many other areas.
Relationship with 1 person (dog, cat) compared with 1,000, traveling 1
foot per second vs. 1,000 fps or .001 fps, or the capabilities of a
"computer" with one logic element (or neuron) vs. 1,000 logic elements
(neurons).
In summary it is a very erudite book, it has the ability to string many
big words together is a reasonably pleasing manner, however the sum
total of the message is much less than the total of the words. A
specific example is his use of the phrase, "gedanken experiments in
physics", most authors would use thought experiments. What is the
purpose of using the German word other than to prove that he passed
German 101. I did, fine. But if I would have taken Spanish
101 or Russian 101 I just would have been irritated.
The book contains a bibliography of 2 1/2 pages and an index of 7
pages. My disappointment with the book shows up in the
bibliography. Many of the references are very old, 1940's,
1950's, and 1960's. One of his major topics is a discussion of
Conway's Game of Life. The Game of Life
is truly an excellent example of emergence however nowhere in the
bibliography is Conway mentioned. It almost seems as though the
contents of the bibliography were selected for the impression value,
not their relevance to the topic of the book.
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Spirit Bear
Charles Russell
Nov 2007
Subtitle: Encounters with the White Bear of the Western Rainforest
C1 Early Years
Russell was born and raised on a ranch in SW Alberta, Canada.
His grandfather homesteaded there in 1904. His father
married into the family and spent much of his time leading tourist pack
trips. Russell started going on pack trips at the age of six.
Soon after his first trip, and riding the same horse, he had his
first close encounter with a non-threatening grizzly with cubs, one of
which was white. Later a young grizzly choose the area around
their home for his summer residence.
In 1961, when he was 20, he and his brothers got a contract to film
grizzlys. Over the next few years he had a number of positive
encounters with grizzlys and one negative one.
C2 The Quest In 1991,
after a 20 year hiatus, Russell joined a team with a contract to film
the Spirit Bear, a white variant, not albino, of the bears on the coast
of British Columbia. They had a very difficult time with the
weather and the terrain. They found several white bears but did
not get all or the pictures they wanted.
C3 Eden Using the
pictures taken in the summer of 1991 they got a follow-up contract from
the BBC. Since the contract called for more pictures and more
time they decided to build a relatively permanent wooden camp site.
Following the construction but before the main shooting the author left
to film grizzlys farther north. The rest of the team, including a
baby, moved in. A long description of his encounters and
"discussions" with ravens.
C4 Spirits Meet After
finishing in the north the author came back to the Spirit Bear camp.
The weather had been dry and not many bears had been seen.
Shortly after he returned the weather improved and they got
opportunities to film a white bear. They soon found that the
bears were tolerant of people, were not aggressive (except towards
other bears) and would even "hide" behind humans to avoid conflicts
with other bears. The only times they felt threatened by the
bears was when one grabbed a boot thinking it was a salmon - quickly
releasing it when the bear discovered that it wasn't a salmon.
The other time was when two bears wanted the same salmon, and a
photographer was in the middle. They got into a fight under and
around his feet. Nobody got hurt but they did get a little
nervous. They "hung out" with this white bear the rest of the
summer, following him everywhere.
C5 Final Thoughts In
an effort to provide more visual documentation of the area the author
built an ultralight aircraft to use a photographic platform in the
following winter. The next summer he used to take pictures from
the air and to allow access to small lakes on the islands. They
took more pictures of white bears. He discusses the problems of
excessive clearcut logging.
The book ends with the names and addresses of two conservation
organizations specializing in bears and a two page index. The
book is somewhat old, published in 1994 but the pictures are great.
It is also a bit dated, it was written before the conservation
ethic encompassed a "whole earth" point of view centering around global
warming. His observations and descriptions of the relationship
between humans and bears are very interesting and very well documented.
The book has wonderful pictures.
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Moral Imagination
Mark Johnson
Dec 2007
Subtitle: Implication of Cognitive Science for Ethics
Preface Many people feel
that we need go get back to ultimate moral principles or laws.
Some say that these derive from God, some say that they derive
from the power of reason. Johnson feels that we need to apply
moral imagination (his term) to the problem. This term comes from
the studies of cognitive science and is based on the ability of the
human brain to learn from metaphor. He calls this imagination.
The book is somewhat old, published in 1993, and I am sure that
some of his terminology would change, but not the basis of his argument.
He sees the need for three stages in this project.
- Identify and analyze the imaginative character of our traditional folk theories of morality.
- Determine how our culturally inherited view of morality is inconsistent with our knowledge of cognitive science.
- Sketch the outline of an alternative, constructive view of
imaginative moral reasoning that is consistent with our current
knowledge of cognitive science.
Introduction Central
thesis: Humans are fundamentally imaginative moral animals.
The traditional view of morality as rule-following is false.
This results in tension between all sets of rules and the way the
way humans experience moral dilemmas. Through the use of moral
imagination (cognitive science, metaphor) we can evaluate traditional
morality, learn where it is right and wrong, and learn to apply a
morality, which although it can never be finally completed, will be
useful and capable of change depending on our current environment.
Moral absolutism (there exists a universally binding, absolute moral
law which tells us which acts are right or wrong) and moral relativism
(there are no absolute moral laws, all morality is relative to specific
group and culture at a given time) are both incomplete. The both
assume false views of reason and imagination and lead to false
expectation about what is possible or not possible in moral reasoning.
He discusses some of the terms of cognitive science, theory of
prototypes, frame semantics, metaphorical understanding, basic-level
experience, and narrative. He shows how these can be used to
evaluate moral or ethical dilemmas and come up with working hypotheses
for our moral problems.
C1 Reason as Force: The Moral Law Folk Theory
C2 Metaphoric Morality
In 1978 three young women were driving to volleyball practice in
a 1973 Ford Pinto, they were rear-ended by a 1972 Chevy van. The
Pinto's gas tank ruptured, the car burst into flames, and all three
died. A lawsuit was brought against Ford. Ford executives
had discussed the possibility if this type of event and decided that a
$6.65 part to help prevent this type of gas tank failure was too
expensive. A jury found Ford not liable - possibly for any number
of reasons. The question is how do we compare the moral
arithmetic to the financial and legal arithmetic to determine what is
the right (moral) thing to do. A description of how reason is
based on metaphor.
C3 The Metaphoric Basis of Moral Theory A description if Kantian ethics.
C4 Beyond Rules Moral absolutism and what these rules miss.
C5 The Impoverishment of Reason: Our Enlightenment Legacy
C6 What's Wrong with the Objectivist Self
C7 The Narrative Context of Self and Action Building an approach to morality by observing life narratives and imagining alternatives.
C8 Moral Imagination
Art (stories, plays, movies, etc.) are often better guides to
morality than learned or religious writings. We need to imagine
possible alternatives to our actions and reading how others have
responded to similar problems can provide guidance.
C9 Living without Absolutes: Objectivity and the Conditions for Criticism
The key to cognitive morality is not by having a "God's-eye point
of view" towards moral questions but by having numerous examples of
behavior which can be evaluated in terms or their outcomes, and then
evaluating the potential outcomes of your behavior.
An example of moral absolutes in action: classic argument prohibiting abortion.
- Killing an innocent person is morally prohibited because it fails
to respect his humanity (or his status as made in God's image, or as an
end-in-himself).
- A fetus is an innocent person.
- Abortion is an intentional killing of a fetus.
- Therefore, abortion is an intentional killing of an innocent person.
- Abortion is morally impermissible (as failing to respect the humanity or personhood of the fetus).
Problems: 1) Define person, define innocent person, 2) is a fetus a
person (innocent or not), how about a fertilized egg, implanted
fertilized egg, blastocyst, etc. there are many steps between
fertilization and the birth of a baby, 3) intentional? again - steps in
reproduction.
A different view of objectivity is now possible -- based on aspects of human experience:
- Biological purposes - all humans (primates, mammals, life) share
bodily nourishment, sexuality, procreation, shelter, etc. Any
successful group must make provision for these factors.
- Cognitive structure - much has been learned by cognitive science.
Much more is being learned. Any theory of morality that is
not consistent with this body of knowledge is highly suspect.
- Social relations - any society that supports social relations and
organization that does not satisfy the needs of humans cannot exist for
long periods of time without external force. Examples include
force and repression, lying or distrust of others, and shunning social
interaction.
- Ecological concerns - any group that fouls its own next for too
long will collapse. Easter Island, European settlement of
Greenland, and many of the early city-states of the Middle East are
examples of this. Successful long term survival requires moral
theories that take environmental concerns into account.
C10 Preserving our Best Enlightenment Moral Ideals A short list of the main problematic assumptions which lie at the heart of the Moral Law folk theory:
- The split self - the Judeo-Christian concept of the body vs. the
soul, this was a major point of the Enlightenment philosophers and
reason was associated with the soul but bodily processes were
associated with the body.
- Faculty Psychology - breaking mental capacities into specific
faculties like perception, imagination, feelings, understanding,
reason, and will.
- Universal, essential, disembodied reason - Universal Reason is what separates humans from animals.
- Radical freedom - complete freedom of the will to act independent of our bodily nature.
- Absolute moral laws - there is a specific set of Moral Laws,
derivable from Universal Reason, and capable of guiding our actions in
any conceivable situation.
- The scope of morality - morality is reduced to a restrictive set of rules and leaves out much of the reality of life.
How can this new morality allow us to live our lives in a moral or ethical manner? How can our moral ideas be rephrased?
- Universal moral personality - all humans and all creatures must
be assumed to have value in and of themselves. We must grant this
equal status to all humans and creatures unless we have specific
empirical results that show there is a significant difference.
- Respect - all people (animals?) deserve a right to full moral
agency such as freedom from slavery, bodily harm, and psychological
coercion. We must not use other people as a means to an end and
we must not use ourselves in a morally degrading manner.
- Moral principles - there are moral principles but they are not
universal and unvarying. They are related to our intellect and
our biological nature and our cultural condition. They are not
absolute rules but central or prototypical cases which may be applied
to our condition.
- Autonomy - we are autonomous beings and acting in moral ways
preserves out autonomy. We have the final say but we are
accountable for our actions.
- Rational criticism - we and all others must continually submit
our actions to the collective wisdom of our culture to determine if our
actions are moral. We (and others) will make errors and may
disagree but we must continue to submit to this scrutiny.
We are left in a world that requires much more of us than simple
unquestioned belief in authority. We stand to gain much more than
we loose.
The book has 22 pages of notes and a 5 page index. It doesn't
have a bibliography as such, the book, etc. references are carried
within the notes so you have to backtrack to find specific references -
I would prefer a specific bibliography.
Many of the chapters have no notes. Most of the early part of the
book was devoted to discussions of the philosophic principles of ethics
from the 1500's to the current time. Much of this was centered
around the positions of Immanuel Kant. While this is probably
essential for philosophical completeness I found it no more interesting
than when I took a philosophy of ethics course as an undergraduate.
I thought it was mostly irrelevant then and after reading
Johnson's book I have more articulated reasons for finding it
irrelevant. The main relevancy is the position of Descartes and
his concept of splitting the mind and the brain or body and this he is
never mentioned. My main interest is how to counter people who
have this view. How can they be prodded into seeing the light?
I understand the problem better now but how do I convince others
that my position, if not right, is at least not threatening. Many
fundamentalists, both Christian and Muslim, seem more convinced of
their position now than they were in 1993. In this sense we are
going backwards, how can we turn this around? Is theirs the last
gasp of a dying mode of thought or is it a preview of things to come?
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From Molecule to Metaphor
Jerome A. Feldman
Dec 2007
Subtitle: A Neural Theory of Language
I Embodied Information Processing
C1 The Mystery of Embodied Language
This book is based on two simple related principles: 1)
Thought is structured neural activity and 2) Language is inextricable
from thought and experience.
Language and culture are carried by family and culture (and based in
our genetic endowment and experience) and each child has to rebuilt it
all in her own mind. All mental activity is based on a neuron
receiving a signal, transmitting it to a synapse, the synapse enervates
another neuron or some effector cell such as a muscle cell. The
brain is constantly active - the Necker Cube - a wire frame "cube" that
can be imagined as switching back and forth between which vertex is
closest. The same works with language. Josh threw a ball.
Josh through a ball for charity. Josh threw a ball for
charity but it missed the clown's nose.
The mind is embodied within the physical body. Thought and
language are neural systems, they work by neural computation - not
formal symbol manipulation. The phrase, spinning your wheels,
invokes metaphors from many areas. The phrase, waltzing into
recession, again, many metaphors. The bridge linking neural
structure and meaningful language rests on three pillars, 1) neural
computation, 2) the embodied nature of thought and language, and 3) the
integrated organization of language.
C2 The Information Processing Perspective
Amoebas as information processors. Amoebas can be
conceptualized in three ways, 1) as a chemical factory, 2) as a
creature with needs, desires, and goals, and 3) as information
processors. Each way is useful and productive. However, not
reproducing sexually they don't need to communicate. Yeast cells
do so we can also study communications using them as models. For
most cells, information is carried in chemical signals and even for
neurons, which use electrical signals - this is based on chemical
reactions. Abstract information processing models, decimal vs.
binary notation. Touring machines, programs as data.
C3 Computational Models Simulation,
the Chinese Room and its relation to the Touring Test. A
comparison of neural information processing - brains and digital
computers. Mental structure parallels active neural structure.
Digital computers were designed to compute general functions -
brains evolved to control animal bodies. Brains have no separate
program, their processing is embedded throughout their structure.
II How the Brain Computes
C4 Neurons and Other Cells The
boundary between chemistry and biology. The chemical basis of
sensing the environment. The anatomy and physiology of the neuron
(nerve cell) and the synapse.
C5 The Society of Neurons Groups of
neurons - networks or circuits. The knee-jerk reflex which is a
small circuit of four neurons that only extends from the knee to the
spinal cord and then back. This is the model for much neural
computing, especially in "lower" animals such as the frog. More
advanced neural networks. The relationship between motor circuits
and sensory circuits, "empathy" - the activation of both motor and
sensory circuits then we observe actions taking place.
C6 Nature and Nurture The either/or argument
is now pretty much over except for some linguists and philosophers.
The answer is almost always both. The SEA (Structure,
Experience, Adaptation) cycle. This cycle seems to be the rule of
life for all phases after the first few divisions of a fertilized egg.
Brief discussion of the growth of the nervous system. Hebbs
Rule: each time a synaptic connection is active, if the receiving cell
becomes active then the connection is strengthened, if not the
connection is weakened. This seems to work for both short-term
and long-term memory. There are many more problems to be
addressed in this area.
III How the Mind Computes
C7 Connections in the Mind The Stroop
effect - it is harder to recognize a word if other signals about the
word do not match the "real" meaning of the word. For example it
is easier to recognize the word bold if it is viewed as bold instead of bold.
Next question, how fast can the brain compute? For higher
level involvement - driving a car, see an object on the road, decide to
stop - this seems to take about 500 ms or 1/2 a minute. After
discussing several experiments the core idea is simple - mental
connections are active neural connections. Thought, memory,
emotions are partially localized in the brain but beyond the first
localization there are links to many other areas of the brain.
Brain function is neither localized to a single neuron (group of
neurons) or spread holographically across the entire brain.
C8 Embodied Concepts and Their Words The
first seven chapters discussed neural functioning that is present in
all animals. Now Feldman turns to specific language behaviors.
The basis for all concepts is categorization. Conceptual
categories: All or none, classical definitions as in scientific naming
conventions, typical or prototype categories (typical case prototypes
vs. ideal case prototypes), radial categories. The finding that
the first learned categories are at the "genus" level - dog, cat,
horse, bear - and not at the species or individual level and not at
higher levels (animal, primate, etc. Similarly furniture (no),
chair (yes), and rocking chair (no). Concepts create semantic
spaces and different cultures break them out differently although they
all have similar concepts (color is an example).
C9 The Computational Bridge What are
the "laws of thought?" The attempt to specify exact grammatical
rules go back to the Greeks and to Sanskrit scholars. For this
purpose the brain can be viewed as an information processing system. Any theory of neural information processing has to account for three crucial information processing functions:
- How are words and concepts represented in the brain?
- How do these representations cooperate in mental activity?
- How does the brain learn language?
No one knows the answer yet, these questions form a structure upon
which to build. Freud and William James started this quest in
psychological thinking. Frank Rosenblatt constructed neural
models in the 1950's but the first models were not to satisfactory.
The new connectionist models began in the 1980's and continue.
They postulate large arrays of processors contain facts with
links to each other. Each connection has a weight and if a
connection is correct it is rewarded by raising its weight. The
recruitment mechanism adds more techniques for building links.
These models are hinted at but not explained well enough to
duplicate without further information.
IV Learning Concrete Words
C10 First Words Very young children
imitate behavior that they see parents and caregivers emit.
Babbling is an effort by children to imitate spoken behavior.
When these are reinforced they are gradually shaped into words.
Current thinking seems to be that children learn "chunks" of
behavior and then when a new word or action is presented they
"fast-map" or recruit several of these "chunks" of behavior into the
new word (action) and learn it in one try (one trial learning).
Another method is the mutual-exclusion principle. Children
assume that there is only one name for a thing, thus a new word must be
a part or a feature of the thing - a paw must be a part of a dog.
Another aspect to be learned is causality. All of these
features of learning are probabilistic, errors will be made and
corrected.
C11 Conceptual Schemas and Cultural Frames
The basic structure of the chapter is that the real world has
specific relationships but each culture (language) may put them
together in any way. One of the problems with (second) language
translation and learning is that a simple table lookup often doesn't
say how a specific relationship is mapped onto the manner in which the
language uses it.
He uses four levels of description, 1) language and thought, 2)
computational, 3) connectionist networks, and 4) neural systems.
Neural systems are the structure of the brain.
Connectionist networks are our best guess representations of how
the neural systems link together. Computational is our best
hypothesis of neural structures link to provide relationships to other
neural features. Language and thought take these linked
relationships and convert them into language. Question,
unconscious learning and behavior, similarities and differences.
A problem, computational model sometimes fail to maintain a link
to neural systems.
Conceptual schemas are representations of data at the computational and
connectionist level. Cultural frames are representations of data
at the language and thought level. They should show relationships
to conceptual schemas.
C12 Learning Spatial Relation Words
All languages respond to all features of the natural world,
however they commonly break these features up in different ways.
He discusses (briefly) a computer model that learns simple
relationships (above, below, right, in, on, etc) and learns to display
the correct relationship (the ball is above the square) in each of the
several languages used. Other models can perform better but only
within the confines of one or two very similar languages. It is
therefore a better model of human learning than individual Spanish (or
German, etc.) language learning programs.
V Learning Words for Actions
C13 Embodied Knowledge of Actions
Two facts: children are very good at doing things before they
learn the words for them, an action unfolds through time, so the child
has some unconscious neural plan for the actions she performs.
Computational models of a cat walking at a trot and a pace.
Languages label (have words for) on the action properties of
which we are aware. The simulated android Jack which is
commercially used to examine how the human body reacts in work or
dangerous situations (car crashes). The best way to recognize
activities is to predict future behavior and compare the predictions
with later actions. The evidence shows that people use the same
neural circuitry when imagining behavior as when actual performing it.
C14 Learning Action Words
Brief description of a computer model of learning words which
pertain to specific actions using several languages. The model
was restricted actions that could be performed by on hand using objects
on a table. The hand performed and action and then a word was
applied to the action.
VI Abstract and Metaphorical Words
C15 Conceptual Systems
Levels of categorization: basic level (ex. bird), superordinate
level (ex. flying animals), subordinate level (ex. Robin). All
learning of categories starts at the basic level. The other
levels involve additional learning. The basic level is the
highest level at which shared mental imagery, motor schemas, and
gestalt perception characterize the entire category. When
children learn a new word they usually assume that it is not a synonym
for a word they already know. As children learn the language they
learn super- and sub-categories and how they relate.
Languages tend to split categories in ways that have meaning to them
but not necessarily to other languages. The Wharf-Sapir
Hypothesis. Metaphor as a basic mechanism for thought.
C16 Metaphors and Meaning
Hypothesis: essentially all of our cultural, abstract, and
theoretical concepts derive their meaning by mapping, through metaphor,
to the embodied experimental concepts. We start with basic
abilities and builds on these through experience. A list of
"primary metaphors", Affection is warmth, etc. The chapter is
based on metaphor theory, much taken from Metaphors We Live By by Lakoff and Johnson.
C17 Understanding as Simulation
He presents 7 sentences and evaluates what you can know and/or
guess about the situation: Harry {walked, came, waltzed, stumbled,
escorted}{(to, into} the café {wall}. Each option presents
a different scenario. In understanding it seems that we put
ourselves in place of [Harry] and view ourself as participating in the
sentence, we simulate the event in our brain and body. A number
of studies have suggested that this is the case. Considerable
discussion of the grammar involved. He adds a word or two to the
sentences mentioned above and discusses the grammatical changes.
"George Bush was born on third base and thinks he hit a triple."
from Ann Richards as a very complex set of metaphors.
VII Understanding Stories
C18 The Structure of Action and Events
To the 7 sentences above, add the word "was" after "Harry" and
change the "-ed" to "-ing". How can both groups of sentences be
simulated? Both in the computational and connectionist senses.
C19 Belief and Interference
Discussion of condition dependence - probability of an object
having a property; multiple properties - the probability of property a given the value of property b.
A short trip down the fuzzy logic road. He discusses the
probability of an apple being sweet or sour, then sweet or sour
depending on the color of the apple {red, green}, and then adding the
variety of apple. He presents a method diagramming conditional
dependence and how it can be used over time. I still prefer fuzzy
math and fuzzy logic.
C20 Understanding News Stories He presents a number of statements taken from the news and explains how they were analyzed by a computer program.
VIII Combining Form and Meaning
C21 Combining Forms--Grammar
Language is a set of tool with which we attempt to guide another
mind to evoke a mental representation that approximates one we have.
There are only three mechanisms within language for conveying a
semantic relation, a word that contains a meaning, word order, and some
change in a base word such as "-ed" as an ending denoting past tense.
He uses the term Context Free Grammar (CFG) where I (45 years
ago) would have used Phrase Structure or Backus-Naur (Backus-Normal)
grammar. He discusses some of the problems in trying to use the
same model of language over several different languages. Why grammar
does not convey the entire amount of information that is present in the
utterance.
C22 The Language Wars Brief discussion of The Linguistics Wars
(Harris 1983) about the controversy between Noam Chomsky and George
Lakoff). All normal human children can achieve competency in
their mother language. With minor exceptions this is the only
group that can. Are all languages relatively similar because of
the nature of language or of the nature of brains? Will be able
to "speak" dolphin or will we need a new brain (or perhaps fins/flukes
whatever)?
Core questions about grammar:
- Are formal grammar rules expressed in the brain?
- Is grammar independent of other brain structures?
- Is there some special genetic encoding specifically for grammar?
The language wars are between those who answer "Yes" to these questions
vs. those who answer "No". Is there any middle ground?
Does this hinder or help the study of language? How much of
this is academic tradition?
There are many serious questions surrounding these issues. Do the
genes carry enough information to generate some a priori structures for
grammar, how many types of grammars are possible, are they inherent
within all people and as children we "select" the one that matches our
external environment, etc. etc. These questions will not be
solved soon but productive work continues to get done. Maybe the
questions are relevant, maybe not.
C23 Combining Meanings--Embodied Construction Grammar Feldman postulates a four step language understanding process:
- Analysis: An
utterance embedded within a situation acts as input. The analysis
uses conceptual knowledge (schemas) and linguistic knowledge
(constructions). The output of the analysis is -
- Semantic Specification
- Simulation: The semantic specification is evaluated using situational knowledge which resultes in one or more -
- Inferences
After a discussion of these steps he proposes a method of computational modeling. This is taken from a design called embodied construction grammar
or ECG (Bergen & Chang 2005). This is described in
considerable detail using the sentence, "Harry strolled to Berkeley."
IX Embodied Language
C24 Embodied Language Understanding
A major goal of ECG development has been to provide a formal
notation for cognitive linguistics. It seems that only four basic
formal structures are needed. Schemas and Constructions have been discussed earlier. Metaphors provide an example of the third, Maps. The fourth is the Mental Space.
More discussion of ECG. The additional problems of spoken vs.
written language. How are ambiguous utterances analyzed, the
problem of missing words and implications which turn out to be
erroneous or misleading (probability of being correct is low).
C25 Learning Constructions
A brief summary of Nancy Chang's model of children's language
learning. She uses a variant of the language process in Ch. 23
and ECG. It is obviously a first model but it seems to show
promise.
C26 Remaining Mysteries
There are two remaining mysteries of language, how did human
language originate and what is the nature of personal experience?
Language was first used long, long ago. Since there was no
physical evidence before writing we cannot date it that way.
There are no "simple" languages, all human languages are equally
complex and capable of describing the natural world. At present
there is no good evidence of proto-languages in animals (the higher
apes). Early hominids did not have some of the anatomical
structures that are necessary for speech but this does not rule out
sign language. The best evidence suggests somewhere between
100,000 and 1 million years ago but this is very iffy.
Personal experience is even more iffy. The debate is still on
between the religious, philosophers, psychologists, and neurologists.
His recommendation as to the best source is Looking for Spinoza by Antonio Damasio (2003).
C27 All Together Now
A brief overview of the entire book. Any embodied theory of
language rests on two fundamental principles and a related scientific
stance:
- Thought is structured neural activity.
- Language is inseparable from thought and experience.
- The study of language should be explicitly based on these principles.
A discussion of some of the literature in this area. The problem
of building a robot. How can we talk to it? If robots
cannot share our subjective experience will we ever be able to
communicate naturally with them? (Define natural - how about
augmented humans who would presumably understand much more about human
- electronic interfaces.)
Progress in this will be difficult in part because of the many
disciplines involved and the difficulty of knowing about promising
results in other areas.
There are 7 pages of references and further reading and 5 pages of index.
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Terra
Michael Novacek
Feb 2007
Subtitled: Our 100-Million-Year-Old Ecosystem--and the Threats That Now Put It at Risk
Prologue: The Hyena It was
a summer morning in the Sahara, Novacek was walking on an ancient (60
million years) shoreline. He had an ancient turtle shell in his
hand. He was thinking of the history of the area, both ancient
and recent. He smelled decaying flesh and saw a few bones, he
walked a little closer. Then he heard a footfall, something
four-footed and large. From behind a boulder about eight feet
away a big hyena walked out. It was the largest hyena he had ever
seen. It wasn't hungry. They parted company. Later he would
contemplate the meeting, our ancestors 7 mya had these encounters
often, they too survived. But can we survive much longer?
Without a miracle of politics and resolve our world will loose a
large percentage of its species in the next 1 to 2 hundred years, will
this particular ape be one of them?
This book is about the last 100 million years, from the birth of the
grasses until the present, the modern world. He describes how the
book will cover the story and why he wrote it.
Part One: The Way of the World
C1 A Creature in the Forest The saola, Pseudoryx
nghetinhensis, about 220 lbs, looking like a cross between a deer and
an antelope, but not really. They were first discovered in 1992
in the mountains between Laos and Vietnam. There may be up to 200
of them still alive. In 2002 he was able to travel to Vietnam to
discuss museums. There he was able to see a stuffed saola, sample
the cuisine, and observe the country. Of particular interest was
the number of wild animals eaten. The devastation of animals in
that area of the world and throughout the rest of the world. 65
mya a rock the size of Mount Everest hit the earth and wiped out almost
all large animals. Are we going to be more destructive? We
already have a good start.
C2 Lush Life Spiders
have been found living just below the tip of Everest, at 29,000 feet.
Life becomes common between 20,000 and 17,000 feet. Birds
fly at over 25,000 feet, spiders have been found at over 30,000 feet on
airplane wings. No one knows how high bacteria and other
micro-organisms can float. Life thrives in ocean vents and on the
bottom of deeps. Bacteria live in deep-sea vents and boiling
cauldrons in Yellowstone. In between there are millions of
different species.
A brief foray into his academic career, Darwin, Linnaeus, the
definition of a species, DNA, taking a census of life, and the number
of species going extinct in a year.
C3 Ephemeral Life How
long does a species last before it is replaced by something else?
Some as much as 20 my, perhaps an average of between 1 and 2 my,
some only a very short time. Twice there have been major die-offs
of huge numbers of species, about 250 mya and on 65 mya. A
useful concept is the background extinction rate - how many species go
extinct in a given period of time, per year, decade, or century.
How have humans influenced this rate? Recent data shows
that the extinction rate is thousands of times greater than the long
term extinction rate. Some have estimated that as many as 30% to
50% of all species will be lost by 2100.
C4 Elephants, Dung Beetles, and Ecosystems
Elephants eat a lot of food, they are messy eaters, and they
produce a lot of waste. They mess up forests, fields, and
anything else that has food. Luckily we have an efficient cleanup
crew, dung beetles. Humans and elephants don't co-exist very well
and there is competition. The food chain (web), the nitrogen
cycle, the carbon cycle, and the increase in atmospheric CO2.
How are we going to coexist with all of the other life on the
planet? So far this question doesn't have any answers, just
questions.
C5 Evolution--Life Through a New Lens
Science and religion are in separate realms (Lakoff might
disagree), just like government in the United States and religion.
They do not intersect but when people try to make them do so,
there are problems.
Evolution, which was finally codified by Darwin and Wallace in 1858,
had many precursors in the 18th and 19th century. Early
approaches to "The Tree of Life", cladistics, and DNA. A
phylogeny for mammals for the last 140 my. Creationism and
intelligent design.
Part Two: The World Becomes Modern
C6 Ancient Ground History, naming, dates, flips in
the magnetic poles, plate tectonics, fossil formation, discussion of
some some early life forms - before the dinosaurs, the concept of a
"missing link".
C7 Imperial Collapse
The modern coal era. The rise of plants - gymnosperms and
angiosperms. The climate during the Carboniferous Period (354 -
290 mya). Average temperature went up to 72°F (now it is
54°F), at times CO2 levels went up to 1,500 ppm (now it is 380 ppm and rising), and O2 levels went up to 35% (now it is 21%). CO2 levels were very high at the beginning, O2 was about 15%, CO2 slowly dropped until it reached about 400 ppm at the Permian extinction. O2
levels had slowly risen until a maximum just before the Permian
extinction. It then dropped down to about 12% and has slowly
risen until our current 21%.
High O2 concentration and high air pressure may have allowed
giant insects (dragonflies with 2.5 ft. wingspans). The
predecessors of modern mammals probably originated during this time.
C8 The Dinosaurs of Middle Earth
Early trees, the ginkgos and cycads, the rise of modern conifers,
new insects and insect-plant dependence. The rise and
proliferation of dinosaurs.
C9 A Flower in the Forest
The origin and rise of flowering plants about 140 to 130 mya.
A discussion of the sex life of plants. Sex in insects and
mammals. In several species of praying mantids the male cannot
release the spermatophore with its sperm until the female eats his
head. The head of the male contains a gland whose secretions
inhibit copulation. The male can continue to copulate and
ejaculate because these functions are controlled by a nerve ganglion in
the abdominal region. He raises the question as to what type of
an intelligent designer would come up with this type of life plan.
Other strange sexual practices and apparatus.
C10 The Garden of Delights
Bees and flowers - a small amount of detail about the many ways
in which bees and other insects (as well as a very few others) interact
with flowers. The incredible diversity of evolution.
C11 Toward a New Ecosystem
More on early flowers and insects. The Raritan Formation in
New Jersey. The rise of the monocots which include grasses.
C12 Dinosaur Camelot
The Cretaceous dinosaurs of Mongolia. Roy Chapman Andrews
and the Flaming Cliffs. The puzzling relationship between
dinosaurs and plants.
Part Three: Death and Resurrection
C 13 A Puzzling Catastrophe The town of Gubbio in
the Ubrian hills of Italy and the Scaglia Rossa Limestone. In the
early 1970's Walter Alvarez and Bill Lowrie were studying the limestone
deposits. They noticed that there was a great difference between
the fossils above and below a thin dark line in the limestone. To
help answer some questions, Alvarez talked to his father who had a
Nobel Prize in physics. The discussion continued for a while and
as it happened, Novacek, the author, was working on his PhD in the same
building. He had no way of knowing that two floors above his
office that both geology and paleontology were about to be completely
upset.
He goes on in considerable detail describing the assumed physical
events and the scientific discussions which led to the theory that the
K/T extinction event was caused by a large meteorite that hit the earth
at the north end of the Yucatán Peninsula of Mexico. There
are still questions about the effect of a meteorite strike of this size
would have on plants and animals. As an interesting aside. after
viewing the K/T line in the limestone he came back down the mountain,
had dinner, and checked into a hotel. There, after contemplating
the vast catastrophe that killed all of the dinosaurs and many other
species, he watched the towers burning on 9/11.
C14 The Era After The
aftermath of the K/T extinctions. All life was devastated but it
started coming back very quickly. Many species came back very
quickly, ferns and some others came back fully within 10,000 years.
A full recovery of the terrestrial carbon cycle occurred within
130,000 years. Some marine species were fully recovered within 2
to 3 my. Conifers and angiosperms took perhaps 1.5 my.
Animal species recovered from only about 15 species to about 60
species within perhaps 1 my. The size of the largest animals went
from mouse sized to squirrel size in perhaps 2 my but it took 15 my for
the first badger sized animal to appear. By 20 my the first large
animals appeared and it wasn't until 30 my that the first true giant
mammals appeared. Most researchers think that it takes between 10
and 20 my for a completely functioning ecosystem to arrive.
He then describes some of the many life forms that have evolved since
the K/T event including the line of primates that originated some 5 to
7 mya in Africa.
Part Four: Terra Humana
C15 Who They Were Olduvai Gorge. The spot
where the story of Homo was first written. The story of the
Leakey's and Olduvai. Other areas in Africa where ancient human
remains have been found. Some of the questions surrounding the
neanderthal and Homo florensiensis.
C16 The Exterminators
Everywhere that humans have gone, large prey species have gone
also. The trouble is gone for humans means arrived and the gone
for prey species means extinct. There are a few exceptions to
this, many of the animals in Africa were doing fine until guns and
steel and a few like several in North America who bred in large numbers
or were large herd animals or perhaps were more likely to see humans as
food resources like the grizzly and polar bear. By far the vast
majority became extinct within several thousand years of humans
arriving in their territory.
The hypothesis that humans killed them is the most generally accepted
although a few disagree. Of course in the last several hundred
years no animal has a chance if they are not protected.
C17 The Cultivators
The life of a hunter-gatherer can be very rich and full. In
fact in many if not most cases, their remains show that they were
taller and in better health than the farmers that replaced them.
Why then give it up? By cultivating crops you can support
more people on the land than it will support using a hunter-gatherer
economy.
Plant and animal domestication came to the "old world" between
11,500 years ago and 9,000 years ago. It came to the Americas
between 5,500 and 4,500 years ago. Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel is an excellent discussion of this. The author disagrees with a few details but not many.
C18 Land Rush He
starts out by describing the three years he spent in northern Wisconsin
as a boy. This leads into a discussion of the glaciers of the
most recent Ice Age, and how the ice sculpted the surface of Canada and
northern US. Then into farms, some working, some abandoned.
Then into cultivation over all the earth following the last ice
age. Then to the water that farmers and all humans need to live.
Then to the massive changes that we are causing to the ecosystems
using the honey bee as an example. It's not a pretty picture.
C19 Dark Forces
Humans have caused extinction for thousands of species.
Recently laws have begun to prevent killing of a number of
species. Some of these are working, some are not. A fairly
new problem is the destruction of sea life. Our most recent is
invasive species. His major example is the zebra mussel. The
first zebra mussel was spotted in Lake St. Clair, a small lake between
Lake Erie and Lake Huron in 1988, it probably came in ballast water
from a ship from Europe.
Invasive species are not a new problem, about 3 mya the land
bridge between North and South America was created. Many species
in South America were killed by competitors from the north.
Invasive species share a number of qualities:
- They tend to be highly opportunistic.
- They tend to reproduce at very high levels.
- They tend to be extraordinarily destructive very quickly.
Two examples, on Christmas Island the yellow crazy any killed 3 million
red land crabs in 18 months, the Nile perch promoted the
extinction of 200 native fish species in Lake Victoria since 1954.
Many feel that when a species evolves in concert with other species
they all evolve to survive the existence of others and predator species
keep all species in check. However when invasive species arrive
they often damage native species and there are no predators to keep
them in control. Biological controls may be risky and they
require extensive testing to be sure that the control does no provide a
greater risk than the species they are controlling.
C20 The Waste of a World
Pollution. He tells a story of growing up in Mar Vista, on
the outskirts of Los Angeles. The kids in the neighborhood would
have contests on the smoggiest days. They would breath the air
extremely deeply and try not to cough. This was almost
impossible. The smog in LA has gotten better, but not a lot.
60,000 years ago humans were burning large tracts of forestland and
generating smoke. By 3,000 BC smelting of copper began.
Galen wrote about the health hazards in 200 BC. Rome was
the largest and dirtiest city in the world. The Cloaca Maxima was
built in 500 BC. Pliny (AD 23-79) wrote about workers in zinc
smelters. In 1361 King Edward I of England banned coal burning in
London. In 1858 the stench from the Thames River (the Great
Stink) became so bad that London's sewer system was built.
There is scientific evidence of this from the Greenland ice layers.
Copper deposits began about 3,000 BC. and gradually rose until
about 500 BC. They remained fairly constant until Rome fell about
500 AD. There was a rise about 1100 AD due to copper smelting in
China. Lead shows a similar pattern, rising levels until 300 AD,
then a drop off. By 1700 it was again high and continued rising
until the 1990's with the use of unleaded gasoline.
He then discusses water and land pollution including the Exxon Valdez
and others, Bhopal, etc. We are making and living in a sewer.
C21 Heat Wave A long
chapter covering many aspects of global temperature. The evidence
for recent global warming. The global temperature record.
Temperature was relatively constant from 1860 to 1910, then a
rise until 1940, constant until 1975, and then a rapid rise since.
Much discussion about the various factors involved. Global
temperatures over the last 500 my. A graph of the last 70 my.
A slow rise from 70 mya to a high at 50 mya. Then a slow
fall until just before the present day with an abrupt drop at about 34
mya and a rapid rise at 28 mya.
A graph of global sea level and CO2 concentration over the
last 450,000 years. They match quite well. A discussion of
projected sea level both with and without human CO2.
We should be getting colder, we are not. The effects that
global warming will have on weather. The effect of climate change
on living species. What will be the end result when we add the
human effect of species with the climate warming? Coral
bleaching, the effect of CO2 on marine species.
Acidification of oceans and the drop in carbonate ions used by
many species. What will the effect be on humans?
We can do something about this, but we need to do it fast to avoid the potential extremes.
C22 Future World What
will we do? He first went to China in 1990 and he has been back
at least 20 times. At first Beijing still showed signs of the
"old country" with construction. Most of the old is gone and the
smog and other pollution are the most eye-catching sight and smell.
Is this our future? Three premises underscore our certainty
about this.
- The changes we are witnessing today are in may ways unparalleled
not only in the entire length of human history but in many millions of
years preceding that history
- Facets of the current events were nonetheless foreshadowed by certain events in the past, from which we can learn something.
- Our environmental and evolutionary future will be altered and
redefined by any major change occurring in the vital services already
provided--nutrient recycling, productivity, CO2
sequestering--by the present ecosystems and their diverse species.
What has occurred, is occurring, and will occur over the next few
decades has the power to transform a 100-million-year old ecosystem.
We have 6 billion people now, in 2050 we will have 8.9 billion.
Put these in what remains of our natural habitats and you have a
serious problem. We are well into creating the sixth great
extinction event. There are six important facts that we must
consider.
- We are not just experiencing the "normal" or background rate of
extinction, it is ten thousand times faster than the background rate.
It is projected that we will lose 30 to 50% of our species by
2050, this is not as high as the Permian 250 mya when we lost 90%, but
it is close to the K/T extinction when we lost the dinosaurs. It
may be the second highest in 500 million years, and we are doing it all
ourselves.
- We have been modifying the ecosystems of the earth for more than
40 million years, but there is no guarantee that we will be able to
continue this in the future. There is evidence that we are
approaching a threshold, and what is at stake is a 100 million year old
ecosystem.
- Extinction is irreversible. As Michael Soule has said, "Death is one thing, and end to birth is something else."
- The irreversibility of species extinction and its cascading
effects impede ecosystem recovery. The "speedy" recovery after
the K/T event took hundreds of thousands of years. The recovery
of large vertebrates took tens of millions of years.
- The loss of a species is not an event unto itself; it is one
event that inevitably leads to others that can threaten ecosystem
collapse.
- The diversity of species is directly related to the sustenance of
human life, not to mention our health, our pleasure, and our happiness.
These are all first order effects, what happens when the second order
effects start? We may have an Earth dominated by pest and weed
ecology. The species that are invasive will probably be the least
effected, mice, cockroaches, etc. Another problem is the
interaction of humans, climate, and ecosystems. Humans have
fought wars over health, wealth, resources, trade, government, ans
societal prerogatives. When these changes become worse it is
likely that armed conflicts will arise.
In some areas we are making progress, but they are usually in terms of
specific species, and these are large and "attractive", what about
the smaller and less noticeable species? He suggests that there
are three options for a global strategy of land use:
- Preserve natural ecosystems to maximize the benefits we expect from them - which does not provide for food crops.
- Develop intensive croplands - which fails to provide ecosystem services.
- Develop croplands mixing agriculture with natural components.
This provide some, but not all of the foodstuffs of option 2 and
provides many of the ecosystem services.
There are a number of different options for reducing CO2
levels, we must use most if not all of them. The leading polluter
countries have yet to take many positive steps to solve the problems,
this must end. There is reason for hope, but there is reason for
pessimism also.
There are 69 pages of notes and references by chapter, 20 pages of index, and 3 pages of illustration credits.
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