Narcissus Should Have Had Some Swimming Lessons

The Precambrian Rabbit:

(Last time)

Apparently, JBS Haldane, an outspoken proponent of Darwin's theory of evolution, was once accused of religious zealotry in his dedication. He was told that he was unwilling to accept counter-evidence. The stories - there are multiple accounts - say that he replied, "fossilized rabbits in the Precambrian." The more I'm reading about the story, the more it seems to be... scientific folklore? The accounts range, but for our purposes, it doesn't matter. Essentially, as skeptics and free-thinkers, it's important for us to be willing to admit counter-evidence to avoid belief-fossilization. So the question was put: what is your Precambrian rabbit when it comes to religion? Is there something that could make you a believer?

And so the conversation was launched... We talked about problems of verification and direct, observable, divine intervention. Hallucination might explain any appearance of angels or apocalyptic beasts. We eventually stumbled upon the conundrum of whether or not a deity could even be trusted. Surely, any deity powerful enough to come across as a god could easily just be sufficiently more advanced than the human species. James brought up Ardra from Star Trek: the Next Generation. It would be very feasible for an alien to trick humanity in its present state into believing of its divinity. Arthur C. Clark's Third Law was referenced regularly throughout the conversation. Magic isn't always magic.

Cyrus pointed out that the appearance of a deity is entirely different than a system of belief. After all, when it comes right down to it, the possibility becomes far less mystical when we think of the fact that there are essentially three possibilities for the abiogenesis as it were: it was moved; it moved of its own natural force; a third unknown possibility. None of these possibilities jump to religion. As Charles pointed out, the belief in something that isn't explicable, immediately, by science doesn't mean that a person has adopted a belief structure - that's a very large jump.

This eventually brought us to a round robin conversation about our personal experiences that could make us question hard science - I won't go into what people said because some of the conversation ranged from somewhat to deeply personal. Not only was I asked specifically to keep some of these secret, I don't think that I could do some of these justice. I don't know if I remembered to mention this, but as far as helmets go, it's pretty compelling. As time went on, the conversation got lighter - referencing the God of Gaps, 42, and the Game of Roy.

Next Sunday:

On the 2nd of April, I was thinking that we could talk about something that touches intellect, evolution, philosophy, and possibility a person's raison d'être: let's talk about beauty. Why did our species develop it? Beyond sexual appeal - why do we find colors and patterns and various aesthetics so pleasing? Why are religious people so obsessed with using it as a reason for belief? Evolutionary aesthetics? Where do you find beauty? What do you think the reason for this is? Is there a reason?

Why Do They Keep Using Chromosomes In Advertising?

Because sex cells.

BAM.

Synopsis:

This week's discussion started off discussing the difference between Lamarckism (sorry, I believe I called it "Lamarckianism") and epigenetics -  This segued into whether or not positive experiences could potentially produce epigenetic changes. If traumatic events can change DNA coding, could positive events reverse the effects? I postulated that because so much of our evolutionary development is predicated on survival, it might stand to reason that trauma is more of a galvanizing force. This split the group a bit as it was pointed out there are plenty of people who have nurturing, caring families, and that could influence genetics. There are a great many ways that "nurture" can affect us while appearing to be our "nature". The article that I sent out about twin studies talks about this in detail. Francie pointed out that development can even be affected by prenatal events - right down things like where a fetus is in the womb.

After a while, our conversation turned to a more concise definition of epigentics - which Jayne provided us: how genetics are expressed (as in, whether they are or aren't depending on the potential for traumatic experiences blocking them.) Just as our brains produce chemicals when we are experiencing pleasure, they could potentially leave chemical signatures in our DNA. We talked a bit about the temperaments of children even before they are able to consciously manifest said personalities. Much like Darwin's finches, children's personalities can change within a generation.

This led to the point that change is demonstrably generational - particularly with things like lead poisoning. Steve brought up a study about lead, demonstrating this. Kia brought up similar points in Slow Death by Rubber Duck. Eventually, this brought Francie to a deeper realizing that adoption could cause a recursive cycle of stress hormones for several generations. This segued into The Psychopath Test (and, tangentially, So You Have Been Publicly Shamed) and whether or not we could be looking at a preponderance of psychopaths in the coming years. We batted around the possibility of this.

Eventually, we broke into neuroscience and its (lack of) funding. This brought up the fact that genetic tech - from CRISPR to the growing of organs from our own cells - is basically a slave to funding. This makes it problematic because it allows the interests of the wealthy to control any and all conversations about the direction of the advancements. There is still a lot that we don't know, even about the sequenced human genome. 

Another problem with the ability to select genetics is that it would probably pare down diversity, which is a big bonus to resisting things like the blight that is killing off the cavendish banana. Artificial selection has occurred - even in humans - going back to the Spartans. We also talked about government projects that test and potentially influence genetics. We discussed the MK Ultra experiments. After a while, we talked about the ethics of testing prisoners and whether or not that could yield results that could be parsed. This became an argument about ethics. While it was pointed out that the whole idea was to find an ethical testing method. A few other group members pointed out that because of the inherently disadvantaged position of prisoners there couldn't be any ethical way to test them. The discussion of the prison system came back to the societal expectation that pervades our "justice" system in saying that those who have done wrong deserve punishment - rehabilitation is incidental.

This came to a short discussion of pedophilia and the fact that the damning nature of even a prognosis can mean societal shame over something that a person may merely have been born with a neurological proclivity toward. Because our society has placed this in such a realm of taboo that those who admit to it may experience more shame and penalty than if they were to not seek help at all - thereby exacerbating the problem. There was a fantastic bit on NPR about this... which I cannot find... so instead, there is this.

We decided at the end of this discussion that it might be better to come back to these scientific topics in a while - we've been on them for a while.

Next Week:

Firstly, I really liked Scott's idea today: IS there anything that could make you become religious? I would assume that I was hallucinating if I saw Jesus coming down from heaven in the style of the book of Revelation. So what could make me join the ranks of the believers? Have I shored up science in my own mind to the extent that it has become a religion? How do you all feel?

Also, we're going to have our final locker/bench assembly this Saturday. If you've worked on the assembly, you should come to get a picture with the lockers. We're going to try to get a write up in the News and Record. Have a great week!

Ann also wanted to ask if anyone had interest in the TED talk in Greensboro: http://tedxgreensboro.com/

Also: 

Sorry, Francie! 

She sent me this, and I forgot all about it.

http://developingchild.harvard.edu/science/deep-dives/gene-environment-interaction/