I'm in the process of watching a (Great Courses) video course titled "Understanding DNA, Genes and their Real-World Applications," taught by Professor David Sadava. In today's lecture (#5) he asked whether one's original cell still exists in each adult. Each of us came from one cell, a fertilized egg, which divided, then divided again, on and on. Sadava's question was whether our original cells might still be alive somewhere in our adult human bodies, decades later. His answer was that there is no compelling reason to assume that that original cell is not still "somewhere" inside of you, one cell among the 60 trillion cells that make up your body.
Intriguing thought.
At Edge.com, V.S. Ramachandran began his talk titled "Adventures in Behavioral Neurology with this description of the brain:
Let me tell you about the problem confronting us. The brain is a 1.5 kilogram mass of jelly, the consistency of tofu, you can hold it in the palm of your hand, yet it can contemplate the vastness of space and time, the meaning of infinity and the meaning of existence. It can ask questions about who am I, where do I come from, questions about love and beauty, aesthetics, and art, and all these questions arising from this lump of jelly. It is truly the greatest of mysteries. The question is how does it come about?
When you look at the structure of the brain it's made up of neurons. Of course, everybody knows that these days. There are 100 billion of these nerve cells. Each of these cells makes about 1,000 to 10,000 contacts with other neurons. From this information people have calculated that the number of possible brain states, of permutations and combinations of brain activity, exceeds the number of elementary particles in the universe.
Peter Lawler, citing to the writings of Dr. Craig Bowron, argues that "we're much less accepting of the thought that death necessarily completes every natural life." I agree. Why is this so? Lawler suggests that "Each of us has a hard time thinking of himself or herself as a biological being." Why would that be so? Lawler offers the following:
1. Changing demographics. 80% of Americans live in urban areas, where death (especially the death of non-human animals) is rarely witnessed, and our food (notably our meat) is antiseptically prepared by grocery stores. Because most of us don't live in places where we see death as an ordinary and necessary part of life, we are better able to deny it.
2. In modern society, we segregate our elderly off to special places where we don't see them. Back in 1850, 70 percent of "white elderly adults lived with their children." Today, that number is only 16%.
At bottom, our young "know less and less and about being old and less and less about death and dying."
See also, my earlier article regarding the work of Mark Johnson, "Why it matters that humans are animals." See also, my previous writing on terror management theory.
This is a long but excellent discussion centering on the value of science. D.J. Grothe leads the panel discussion; the panel includes Richard Dawkins, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Ann Druyan and Victor Stenger. The values of science go well beyond the practical benefits of understanding how the world works. Those benefits include the following: Science keeps us from pretending that we are the center of the universe. It keeps us from fooling and misleading ourselves. Neil deGrasse Tyson argues that science shouldn't be considered as a specialized endeavor; it should be considered the study of reality. The challenges to science include pop culture, post-modernism, religion and fear of death. At the 40-minute mark Richard Dawkins argues that a huge challenge is helping students to understand the vast scale of the universe-he gives a terrific illustration.
Note the exchange between Dawkins and Druyan at the 45-minute mark. The question is how vigorously should one push back against people who attack science because it conflicts with their religion. Dawkins, as is clear from his books and many media appearances, has little patience with religious people attacking science. Druyan insists that no progress can be made by calling religious people "stupid." She advocates taking the time to cultivate a relationship, because this is more likely to result in a believer who starts to listen. She adds that the fact that there are religious scientists demonstrates that religion is not amenable to logic. Tyson indicates that he strenuously avoids discussing religious dogma; instead, he works hard to keep nonsense of all types out of science discussions and science classrooms, and to make scientific discussions only about science. If people want to talk religion on their own time, that's their prerogative, and he doesn't have a stake in that.
Moderated by D.J. Grothe (of Point of Inquiry), this conference took place at the New York Academy of Sciences at a Center for Inquiry conference titled "Secular Society and its Enemies."
This afternoon I decided to gather uses of evolutionary explanations in fields other than biology. This post features Daniel Dennett discussing evolution in fields other than biology, including languages and music. This discussion is in the video between 15 min and 21 min.
Here is a wealth of other applications of natural selection including mention of Gerald Edelman's work (it is often called "neural darwinism," though I didn't use that term in this article). This same post also discusses Randolf Nesse's work on "Darwinian Medicine." Here's a video featuring Nesse. This same article also mentions Geoffrey Miller, who has relied on Darwin's work to explain the evolution of art and consumer behavior.
I previously wrote a long post on Geoffrey Miller's work on consumer behavior here. Gad Saad also discusses consumer behavior by reference to evolutionary theory.
An article in Discover Magazine, "We All Live in Darwin's World," discusses yet other applications of natural selection outside of biology. This article includes the following quote:
"Natural selection is a source of insight that is unbelievably powerful,” [David Sloan] Wilson says. And its power is not limited to the life sciences. The same selective paradigm can describe the rise of complexity in inanimate systems: stock markets, transit schedules. Though other mathematical models are capable of simulating complex phenomena, only Darwin’s approach shows how certain complex systems not only arise but also adapt over time to the constraints imposed by their environment, as living systems do.
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