This Easter morning I experienced a moment of . . . reverence, I guess. For an atheist to say that may not make sense at first blush. But I mean Easter in the “pagan” (i.e., original) way. While I walked with the dogs in our backyard in the early light I noticed that the cypress tree I transplanted earlier in the week is pushing out new growth: tiny green buds. Hallelujah! I mean, Yay! Groovy even. Or something.
A few moments later, while sitting at my desk and staring absent-mindedly out the window I saw a bird running along the grass. But not just any bird. A brown thrasher. Hadn’t seen one of those in months. It may be the male or female who frequents our yard year after year, at least until the what we call winter comes. Yay!
A couple days ago the great crested flycatcher returned. While I haven’t actually spotted one yet, I’ve heard a couple calling to each other from the top of oak trees. They are enthusiastic singers, but somewhat unfortunately, don’t have the most beautiful song. Simon Cowell would no doubt judge them to be “just awful,” if they were to appear on American Bird Idol.
But ahhh, the cycles of nature. So wonderful. I almost feel like celebrating Easter today. At least the form before it was bastardized by Christians. According to the online etymology dictionary, the origin of the word Easter is:
O.E. Eastre (Northumbrian Eostre), from P.Gmc. *Austron, a goddess of fertility and sunrise whose feast was celebrated at the spring equinox, from *austra-, from PIE *aus- “to shine” (especially of the dawn). Bede says Anglo-Saxon Christians adopted her name and many of the celebratory practices for their Mass of Christ’s resurrection. Ultimately related to east. Almost all neighboring languages use a variant of Latin Pasche to name this holiday. [source; bold mine]
Now I understand.
News out of Princeton University informs us that high-fructose corn syrup appears to be bad for you. And not just calories bad. The article’s lead paragraphs read:
A Princeton University research team has demonstrated that all sweeteners are not equal when it comes to weight gain: Rats with access to high-fructose corn syrup gained significantly more weight than those with access to table sugar, even when their overall caloric intake was the same.
In addition to causing significant weight gain in lab animals, long-term consumption of high-fructose corn syrup also led to abnormal increases in body fat, especially in the abdomen, and a rise in circulating blood fats called triglycerides. The researchers say the work sheds light on the factors contributing to obesity trends in the United States. [source, bold mine]
This is certainly an important experimental result. It could have great implications for the American diet and food industry.
At the risk of being accused of shilling for Big Agra, but with a motive of simply wanting a more accurate understanding, I’d like to point out something that is missing from the study. Recall that the finding boils down to “high-fructose corn syrup” as the independent variable (with table sugar as a control), and health changes as the dependent variables.
Yet there is a slight problem with that first variable. It consists of high-fructose calories from a specific source: corn syrup. Another source of high fructose calories is honey. It is very similar to corn syrup in its ratio of fructose to glucose. I therefore wonder if honey would have caused similar changes in the rats. If so or if not — that’s an important finding. For then we would know if the “corn syrup” part had anything to do with it.
Of course, not many people have diets high in honey. So the practical value of that element wouldn’t be substantial. But the political importance would still be there. For in our culture many people believe that “natural is better.” And while I value many aspects of nature and natural things, I don’t value blind beliefs. Is natural really better, at least in this case of fructose and dietary risks? I’d like to know.
This headline over at ScienceDaily got me chuckling: Biology May Not Be So Complex After All, Physicist Finds. I’m not a biologist, but I’m almost certain most biologists encountering that would think, Huh? I like the “Physicists Finds.” The parable of the blind men and the elephant came to mind. Perhaps the physicist has the hind end in his grasp and has concluded that “biology” simply consist of two symmetrical parts bifurcated by a . . . I’ll leave it there.
But wait a minute. Am I being fair? What did the physicist discover?
Emory biophysicist Ilya Nemenman has identified parameters for several biochemical networks that distill the entire behavior of these systems into simple equivalent dynamics.
Hmm. Further down in the piece I think I learned that Nemenman has basically discovered an aggregate property of a number of biological systems. Which is something. Perhaps something very important. But I wonder. At this point wouldn’t it be more accurate to state that the physicist has discovered biology may be easier to describe/model “after all”? For there is a difference. And to the philosophically-inclined, that different is no quibble.
The above is a photo of a backyard tree trunk. The tree is just a few years old, so the trunk is only about 4 inches in diameter. From a distance, the tree is healthy. It puts out plenty of leaves and flowers every fall. But man, what blemishes in that shot. Fungi, lichen, and toward the bottom there, is that a row of woodpecker divots (sapsucker)? To say nothing of bacteria and insects. Above the surface. Who knows what’s going on below!
Health, like many words, is a sloppy category. When do we put something in the “healthy” box, when in the “not-healthy” box?
Words and concepts aren’t perfect. Some, in fact, are rotten and infested with bugs.
In previous posts over at the evolving mind I have explained why I have a beef with using spirituality as a scientific variable. In brief, the term is usually poorly defined, vague, has widely different meanings to different people AND via its associations gives legitimacy to a whole host of completely non-scientific concepts. (See Unscientific Science & Including Voodoo in Medicine.)
As you might imagine an article with the following title caught my attention: Spirituality is key to kids’ happiness
See if the logic of the piece likewise strikes you as problematic.
Let’s start with the title. Spirituality is key to happiness. Two variables related in a strong way. Key.
First sentence states:
“To make children happier, we may need to encourage them to develop a strong sense of personal worth according to Dr. Mark Holder from the University of British Columbia in Canada and his colleagues Dr. Ben Coleman and Judi Wallace.” [bold mine]
Um, personal worth, have the researchers veered off track?
Second sentence:
Their research shows that children who feel that their lives have meaning and value and who develop deep, quality relationships – both measures of spirituality – are happier. [bold mine]
And there you have it, the bogosity in a nutshell. The researchers go from more precise variables found to be associated with happiness to slapping a less precise but apparently more favored term: spirituality.
Ironically, but quite relevantly, the researchers also noted that:
It would appear, however, that their religious practices have little effect on their happiness.
Divorce spirituality from religion and what have you got? Good question. Some people try to do it, but I don’t think the two can be completely separated. But that’s a topic for another post. Here’s how the article attempts to divorce the two concepts:
Both spirituality (an inner belief system that a person relies on for strength and comfort) and religiousness (institutional religious rituals, practices and beliefs) have been linked to increased happiness in adults and adolescents. [bold mine]
So just thinking the talk is spirituality while walking the talk is religion?
By the way, the “have been linked” should be qualified with this information: in some studies of poor quality design lacking adequate secular controls.
And speaking of secular controls, that is perhaps my primary concern with all of this: the assumption that all meaningful beliefs are religious/spiritual. Please, please, please include secular controls in these studies. Then we could better make sense of this final, logic-abusing quote:
According to the authors, “enhancing personal meaning may be a key factor in the relation between spirituality and happiness.” [bold mine]
While the title touts spirituality as key, in the body of the piece we see it is personal meaning. Oh, but it’s key to the other variable. But is it? Here’s where the logic gets bent:
1) personal meaning found to be associated with happiness
2) personal meaning must then be a key factor in the relation between spirituality and happiness
What?! Why inject spirituality? My guess: to keep alive and promote the cherished assumption that spirituality is key to happiness. Yet the real issue is personal meaning — something that non-religious and non-spiritual people can and do have in their lives.
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