[traveling mode - recycled material - first appeared here]
Most of you are probably familiar with the case of the peppered moth. In it’s original form, the moth was lighter in color. Enter the industrial revolution and the discoloration of surfaces, such as tree trunks, due to soot in the air. Over the course of moth generations, they took on a darker coloration. Those that blended with their environment better avoided predation and survived to reproduce. Dark color-genes were naturally selected for, you could say. Though there wasn’t an agent doing the selecting, nor was there a greater purpose to the selection.
A similar case has been discovered and studied. This time it was not peppered moths in England, but deer mice Nebraska. And the species did not darken in color, but lighten. Why? During the last ice age, “glaciers deposited sand dunes atop what had been much darker soil.”
For a mouse, as with a moth, standing out is not a good thing. Although hawks and other predators would differ in their preference for the color of their dinner.
How do we know these mice were once darker in color? Because the darker variety still exists. One might argue that the darker is a transitional variant of sorts. At least were the sand dune mice to eventually become a completely isolated and separate breeding population that eventually didn’t recognize the darker mice as potential mates. Call it evolution in action. And it’s happening right under our noses.
Here a little more info from the source article:
This and other evidence, including much greater genetic uniformity among pale mutants than their dark wildtype cousins, suggests this mutation is a relatively recent development, likely arising shortly after the formation of the Sand Hills in north-central Nebraska.
By mating light Sand Hills mice and dark mice found outside the Sand Hills, Linnen and Hoekstra determined that the light coloration seen in Agouti mutants is genetically dominant to the darker coats seen among wildtype mice.
One last point. During a recent Colbert Report episode, Richard Dawkins told the host of the show that any purpose to life is a human purpose. We create any purpose perceived. And I agree with that. Dawkins also said that, yes, evolution is random. But this point I wonder about. Hear me out.
In the case of the mice, for instance, genetic mutation responsible for the change in deer mice coloration. I wonder if this type of mutation is completely random. Could there be some sort of epigenetic input involved? Biologists have recently come to understand that experiences can turn off and on already existing genes. Nurture triggers nature. Can some types of experience likewise make some genes more likely to mutate than others? Has the differing visual input (experience) of the deer mice, triggered a greater propensity for it to undergo genetic change (nature) in it’s fur-coloring genes? I wouldn’t be surprise if in the future we discover that much of randomness to evolution is actually more of a reflection of our ignorance than anything else. Of course, the opposite of random is not purposefully determined.
A tom cranberry bird (otherwise known as a male cardinal). Not enough breast meat to top a cracker.
Carolina chickadee. In some cultures they fry small birds whole and eat them bones and all. I’d prefer to use this tiny guy for entertainment outside my window than calories on my table.
Boat-tailed grackle. Interesting bird, but obnoxious. Travels in small gangs, will empty a feeder in little time. You have my blessing to eat a couple. Maybe wrapping a drumstick in bacon would be nice. Precious few servings per bird.
Blue jay. Not many of these around my small neck of woods. The feathers might make a nice table centerpiece. But getting the bird to sit still for any amount of time would be difficult.
Don’t you dare eat this bird! A somewhat oddly named red-bellied woodpecker. At best their bellies become crimson blushed. Because it is a woodpecker and dines on dead-wood insects, and because dead wood is scarce in developed areas of Florida . . . the future doesn’t look bright for this species.
Barred owl. A carnivore. But do you really want to eat recycled lizards and mice?
There we go! Wild turkey photographed last spring on the riverbank while boating (as was the above owl). But you might want to select one of his cousins from the supermarket freezer case. Quite tasty, lots of meat. What’s not to love!
Enjoy.
[recycled material - first appeared here]
A couple months ago I read of research into what was billed as a sixth sense. You can’t call it seeing, nor smell. It’s not quite touch nor hearing. Taste? No. What is it?
Fish and some amphibians possess a unique sensory capability in the so-called lateral-line system. It allows them, in effect, to “touch” objects in their surroundings without direct physical contact or to “see” in the dark. [source]
Is this sixth sense in any way similar to “touch” or “sight”? Hmm. If you ask me, it is a lot closer to hearing. Fish, of course, don’t have ears. But, oddly, many make noises, so they can perceive these. How? It seems that while they lack outer ears, they do have an inner ear structure. Vibrations pass through their body to the inner ear, which allows them to hear. Just as you can hear strong vibrations even with fingers jammed in your ears.
A major difference is that land animals hear vibrations that pass through a gas, our thin atmosphere, while fish sense vibrations that pass through their dense, liquid environment. I believe the “sixth sense” talked of in the research is much like hearing because it relies upon sensing movements in the water. Here’s the nitty-gritty of how the sense works:
This remote sensing system, at first glance mysterious, rests on measurement of the pressure distribution and velocity field in the surrounding water. The lateral-line organs responsible for this are aligned along the left and right sides of the fish’s body and also surround the eyes and mouth. They consist of gelatinous, flexible, flag-like units about a tenth of a millimeter long. These so-called neuromasts – which sit either directly on the animal’s skin or just underneath, in channels that water can permeate through pores – are sensitive to the slightest motion of the water. Coupled to them are hair cells similar to the acoustic pressure sensors in the human inner ear. Nerves deliver signals from the hair cells for processing in the brain, which localizes and identifies possible sources of the changes detected in the water’s motion. [bold mine]
There you have it. Fish can hear/feel changes in their liquid atmosphere. Would a human equivalent be the ability to decipher the direction from where a slight puff of air has brushed the skin? Would we not only hear and see someone place a stack of books on a table, but also feel the slight wave of compressed air generated by it?
And what happens when a fish is pulled from of the water? Does “all go silent” for this sense? Or does it instead perceive a raucous of strange noises? A fishy tinnitus? I wonder.
To truly get into a fish’s head you’d have to inhabit its whole body.
He sees you when you’re sleeping
He knows when you’re awake
He knows if you’ve been bad or good
So be good for goodness sake. (64)
Although the above words are about a supernatural being, that being is not considered a god. Maybe a saint, but not a god. Yet the watching is god-like. Besides Santa Claus, personal gods tend to have the ability to monitor behavior. They can watch you and judge your behavior as bad or good. Because there is no limit to their seeing, you will not get away with violating the rules of your religion. As the Biblical character Job laments, Will you never look away from me? (Job 7:19)
In any primate group their must be a balance between behavior that is directly self-serving and behavior that serves to maintain group integrity. There are thus checks and balances, including the instinct to be vigilant for cheaters—you can’t trust them, can you?—and to punish violators. A good example of this are the many economic/psychological studies employing the “ultimatum” game. In an extreme version, two complete strangers–individuals not of the same group past or future–must divide a sum of money. One stranger decides upon his cut of the money, say a total of $100. He or she then slides the remaining amount under the door to the unseen and unknown other. If the other accepts that amount, they both get to keep the money. If not, neither gets any money. Manifesting just how social a species we are, most individuals in this scenario will split the money equally or near-equally and slide 40 or 50 dollars under the door. Both players walk away richer. When the money is unevenly divided, however, the risk for rejection of the sum rises dramatically, the result being that both players walk away with nothing gained. And it happens more often than you would think. Many an individual receiving a 20 dollar cut will refuse the free money. He or she will instead punish the unfairness, in effect punishing themselves as well. No one likes a cheater.
In her paper on the evolution of cheater detection, Denise D. Cummins wrote, “[C]heater detection plays a broader role in social coordination as a fundamental, primitive cognitive adaptation to dominance hierarchies. . . . In order to maintain priority of access to resources, dominant individuals monitor the behavior of subordinates and aggress against those who “cheat” (violate social norms).” (65)
As a super-dominant being, you would expect a god to monitor the behavior of all of its subordinates and punish those caught cheating. Even in social groups where rules and laws have not been codified by religion, and where a single, supreme alpha has not been designated, you will often find invisible spirits that take an interest in ‘who does what.’ (66) Why would these para-normal entities care? Because, in some way, they are one of us; we are them. One characteristic that distinguishes the religious from the paranormal is consistent involvement and interest of the invisible party. Thoughts of a door-banging and chain-dragging kind of ghost may be spooky, but they fail to incite social emotions as readily as the holy-ghost kind of invisible entity. Only one of these kinds of ghosts will make us wonder if “they” know about our recent behavioral transgression.
In his book on evolutionary underpinnings of religion, anthropologist Scott Atran notes that if we want to enforce a social contract made between individuals, get more people involved. Make social contracts a community affair. For then there will be more eyes watching for violation and a greater probability that a wronged party will have someone to back them up in a dispute. What typically makes social contracts a community affair? Religion. Atran writes, “Displays of commitment to supernatural agents signal sincere willingness to cooperate with the community of believers.” (67)
Not only do invisible alphas provide a super-member for a group to form around, as dominant beings they are especially good at catching cheaters, and thus, presumably, at deterring cheating. Psychological experiments conducted on human primates have found that when adopting a status of high-rank, an individual will be more vigilant for cheating than when adopting a position of low rank.(68) It seems we innately expect for more dominant individuals to watch over less.
When a king sits on his throne to judge, he winnows out all evil with his eyes. (Proverbs 20:8)
And so we invite a super-being into our social circle to help us be good, to get along. In her ruminations about the origins of church-going rituals, Karen Armstrong notes that from early Biblical texts it can be surmised that early, semi-nomadic Israelites carried the “home” of their god with them—the Ark of the Covenant. In tent-walled temples, they renewed their commitment to Yahweh, their number one, and through him, to one another. (69)
Is this a reason for church-going behavior today? Do individuals gather together to acknowledge their number one? Does church-going strengthen individual commitment to a group, does it remind members of important social rules? Do the texts and teachings inform them they are being watched, and if they violate the special rules they will receive not coal in their Christmas stocking, but something worse?
Do you really want to risk being bad? You better watch out.
—
(64) “Santa Claus is Coming to Town” by John Frederick Coots and Haven Gillespie
(65) Cummins, D. D. “Cheater Detection is Modified by Social Rank: The Impact of Dominance of the Evolution of Cognitive Functions,” Evolution and Human Behavior, Volume 20, Issue 4, July 1999, 220-248.
(66) Wilson, D.S. Darwin’s Cathedral: Evolution, Religion, and the Nature of Society, University of Chicago, Chicago, 2002, p. 64
(67) Atran, S., In God’s We Trust: The Evolutionary Landscape of Religion, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2002, p.16
(68) Cummins, D. D., July 1999, 220-248.
(69) Armstrong, K. The Great Transformation: The Beginning of our Religious Traditions, Knopf, New York, 2006, p.43
“In addition to serving as an explanation for the creation of our universe, our world, and ourselves, God became the ultimate enforcer of rules, the final arbiter of moral dilemmas, and the pinnacle object of commitment.” (57) — Michael Shermer
Then they will follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws. They will be my people, and I will be their God. (Ezekiel 11:20)
While religion can provide a undisputed alpha for a people to follow, there is a problem that comes with the nature of a supernatural being. Namely, “he” resides “up there.” Above. In the heavens. You can’t see him as being “right here,” part of the group. And as the saying goes, “When the cat is away, the mouse will play.”
When your alpha is remote, how might he or she be capable of influencing individual behavior and adequately rule a group? For one, you can make vision uni-directional. No, you cannot see him. But he can see you. He is always watching. He knows everything. In the next section I’ll address this scenario. In this section, however, I’ll discuss a second way a physically absent alpha can exert control on his group. In brief, like a parent who leaves a to-do list for children when leaving the house—admonishing the youth that these things must get done, perhaps with stated repercussions if they do or don’t—a god can dictate rules for his people. Or call them laws.
“Because of Moses’ traditional role in what was, in actual fact, a set of laws that developed slowly over the centuries, the whole is termed the ‘Mosaic law’ or, more simply still, ‘the Law.’ The Hebrew word for the first five books is ‘Torah,’ which is the Hebrew word for ‘law.’” (58)
One might call Moses the first administrative assistant to Yahweh. He dictated laws delivered from above. And much of the Old Testament is, in fact, about laws: about when to apply them, and what happens if you violate them. “Deuteronomy” means second law; in the Pentateuch, the first five books of the OT, (the Torah) there is mention of over six hundred laws.(59) Or call them commandments. Rules. Decrees about how to behave to keep your god’s favor, and, not incidentally, to help maintain social cohesion. Rules help people to not only know what to do, but what to expect.
I remember your ancient laws, O LORD, and I find comfort in them. (Psalms 119:52)
Many of the rules in the Bible may seem arbitrary at first blush. Consider Exodus 17:10:
I will even set my face against that soul that eateth blood, and will cut him off from among his people.
Rules can serve many functions: for helping people get along, for establishing and maintaining group identity, and for propping up the status of the alpha via symbolism.
Any astute reader of the Bible will notice that the “New Covenant” Jesus presents is much less law-like than what we find in the older texts. As Elaine Pagels pointed out in her book, The Origin of Satan: “Whereas Moses’ law prohibits murder, Jesus’ ‘new Torah’ prohibits anger, insults, and name calling; where Moses’ law prohibits adultery, Jesus prohibits lust.”(60) In a sense, this seems like stroke of spiritual genius, turning from behavior to the feeling states that can precede and precipitate it. Yet this turn may have been out of necessity. Jesus preached in more of a cultural crossroads that already has established law. There was Roman law “on the books” and members of Jewish churches had their own sets of laws. So as not to usurp or violate pre-existing laws, and to prevent both alienating individuals in other groups he may otherwise be able to recruit and inciting the wrath of these other groups by stepping on their toes, Jesus went more abstract. Rather than concretely outlining how individuals must “clean up their act,” Jesus instructed his followers and crowds of prospective followers to “purify their hearts.”
Oh sure, there may have been some Carl Rogers-type humanism behind his ways. But we mustn’t forget how strongly our social environment will influence our psychology.
[A]nd whatever other commandment there may be, are summed up in this one rule: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Love does no harm to its neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law. (Romans 13:9)
In their paper, “Belief in Moralizing Gods,” published in the journal, Evolution and Human Behavior, Frans L. Roes and Michel Raymond present the case that a type of god, namely one that cares about the behavior of his people—a “moralizing god”—likely serves as a social tool. And tools are invented and employed where a need exists. They write:
“In the case of hostile neighbouring societies, this means cooperation for defensive reasons and, in that of recurring droughts, the maintenance of irrigation networks and restraint in water usage. Cooperation between large numbers of people invariable means moral rules regulating relations between them and prescribing what is right and what is wrong, and with these recurring threats, the moral rules should be imposed with authority. How better than by a moralizing god?” (61)
The god-concept can be a very useful tool for a number of reasons. As Roes and Raymond point out, 1)a god has a potentially unlimited lifespan, 2) because the rules come from a god, group members are more likely to perceive them as impartial, and 3) “Belief in these gods signals acceptance of the rules.”(62) Given a large social group, with little individual knowledge of one another, that last reason could be tremendously helpful. Want to know what rules a person lives by? Determine what god they accept as their leader.
Of course, in terms of actual belief and behavior, it is more complicated than that. For example, the rules a religious person ascribes to tends to govern their behavior when within group. Outside of the group, not so much.(59) Which is not surprising, as social psychology 101 will inform us. But it does highlight the fact that at least originally, religion evolved as a social tool. It isn’t as personal as modern minds have us suppose.
—
(57) Shermer, M. The Science of Good and Evil: Why People Cheat, Gossip, Care, Share, and Follow the Golden Rule, Times Books, New York, 2004, p.47
(58) Asimov, I., Asimov’s Guide to the Bible: The Old and New Testaments, Wing Books, New York, 1969, p.17
(59) Dennett, D., Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon, Viking, New York, 2006, p.335
(60) Pagels, E., The Origin of Satan, Vintage, New York, 1995, p. 82
(61) Roes, F. L. & Raymond, R., “Belief in Moralizing Gods,” Evolution and Human Behavior, Vol. 24(2), 2003.
(62) Roes, F. L., and Raymond, M., March 2003, Pages 126?135.
(63) Wilson, D.S. Darwin’s Cathedral: Evolution, Religion, and the Nature of Society, University of Chicago, Chicago, 2002, p. 180
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