Earth: The Water Planet

10.10.11 Where did Earth's water come from? The short answer is from comets, and possibly asteroids. New research indicates that Earth's water matches the water in comets from the Kuiper Belt region beyond Neptune, while the source of comet water that didn't match Earth is  probably the Oort cloud out beyond Kuiper belt. More: Comet water linked to Earth's oceans

 Space Travel or Extinction

13.09.11 As long as the human species remains on Earth, a single widespread disaster can eliminate us permanently. In effect, by remaining only on Earth the human species is trapped in an evolutionary bottleneck, and the only way out, the only chance of long-term survival, is to travel out into space and live beyond the terrestrial realm. The longer we wait, the greater our chances of extinction.

[C]urrent forest management practices, including fire suppression, often create forests full of trees of uniform age, which are particularly susceptible. Careful monitoring and changing forest management practices to create stands of varying ages could help [eastern U.S.] forests weather the coming swarm [of pine beetles]. 13.04.11

Eugen Sänger & Irene Bredt: Designing the First Space Plane

08.04.11 Eugen Sänger (1905-1964) was a visionary Austrian rocket scientist who worked to develop novel propulsion systems, like the ramjet engine, during the early part of the 20^th century. Eugen Sänger’s most famous project was a sub-orbital space-plane he designed for Nazi Germany’s Third Reich. His reusable rocket plane was intended to take-off horizontally from a rail with rocket boosters, and then skip across the atmosphere to drop bombs on New York City, and then return to Germany, circumnavigating the globe in less than a few hours.

These plans were certainly ambitious, but not impossible, and given a few more years there’s no reason the Germans of World War II couldn’t have been the first in space, albeit for an unfortunate purpose!

Eugen Sänger didn’t want to build weapons, he wanted to travel into space and the best way he thought to approach that problem was with a reusable space plane for research and civilian travel. Eugen viewed his space plane as the stepping-stone to build and maintain a space station, and beyond. Unfortunately, once World War II started the German government declared all rocketry research as state secrets. This meant that Eugen, and other scientists like him, couldn’t openly collaborate and share their work. The only jobs available during the war were to build weapons. So, Sänger went to work researching aircraft engines and designing a space bomber that the Wehrmacht wanted as a way to strike back at the United States.

The space bomber never got beyond the planning stage, to build it would have severely taxed the already diminishing resources of Nazi Germany during the final years of the war. Not only that but Sänger was (unnecessarily) competing with Wernher von Braun’s vertical launch rockets, and the political territoriality of the government did much to sabotage the orbital bomber plan anyway. New York was never in any real danger from this threat, but it’s a fascinating possibility to contemplate.

Although after the war he turned down an offer to move to the United States, Sänger’s theories were picked up by NASA and much of those key concepts later became the Space Shuttle.

But Eugen Sänger, as the designer and engineer, was only part of the story of early rocketry and advanced propulsion systems for space travel. Irene Bredt, who worked with Sänger for years and later became his wife, was the mathematical genius behind the computations to measure and test the rocketry theory. These two personalities had such valuable minds that Stalin issued orders to capture them and bring them back to the Soviet Union. Nothing came of Stalin’s plans even though it was so important that he assigned his son to carry it out. Apparently, Vasilli Stalin spent all his time having fun in Paris.

1. Sänger – Germany’s Orbital Rocket Bomber in World War II, by David Myhra, 2002, Schiffer Publishing.

Cascade

July 2010

The environmental implications of his analysis, based on more than 30 years inside the industry, will alarm environmentalists who have exploited the concept of peak oil to press the urgency of the need to find greener alternatives.

"The bad news is that by underestimating proven oil reserves we have been lulled into a false sense of security in terms of environmental issues, because it suggests we will have to find alternatives to fossil fuels in a few decades," said Dr Pike. "We should not be surprised if oil dominates well into the twenty-second century. It highlights a major error in energy and environmental planning – we are dramatically underestimating the challenge facing us," he said.

From: Oil shortage a myth, says industry insider, June 9, 2008.

Patterns

Macroscope

05.10.02 Few tools surpass that of Multi-Spectral Imagery (MSI), usually via satellite, for measuring and gauging the scope and extent of human endeavors upon the natural environment. MSI is like a macroscope because it measures a large accumulation of factors, a very holistic and holological way of viewing the world, as opposed to the typical reductionist microscopic view, simply taking the smallest part of a larger system and attempting to understand it exclusively. One method is not intrinsically superior to the other, both have their place, but the common reductionist view can be misleading. So for example if we want to know the cost of sending a rocket into space but the first three rockets blow up while the fourth is a success, then the true cost for one successful rocket mission is thus multiplied by four. We may get what we set out for but was it really worth it after all? Entrepreneurs are great but how many fail? Most new business fail but we focus on the successful ones and gain a distorted view of the true situation in the process.

So if a microscope makes small things look bigger, a macroscope makes big things look smaller. The macroscope gives us a clearer picture and adds all the effects together, so if say 4 out of 5 new business fail then we see we are not so far ahead after all! None of this is to say that technology or risk is always the wrong choice; Holology isn't so much about value statements but rather an effort to elucidate the facts and ideas behind it all so that we gain a clearer view of what the options are one way or the other.

Technology is only as useful as the intelligence directing it and the applications it's employed in. It must be understood that by employing technology to disrupt nature for whatever purpose noble or profane, consequences will ensue. By building giant dams and creating cities in the desert we gain many things, housing, employment, entertainment, etc. But we can't let those flashy, neon-glowing benefits hide the very serious side-effects that also occur. Water shortages, endangering of key animal species, the destabilization and permanent destruction of delicate ecosystems, even altered weather patterns are associated just with cities alone, not including the diverted water supplies, for example.

Las Vegas, Palm Springs, and the Imperial valley are all located in the same part of the world but they nonetheless demonstrate a concern prevalent around the industrialized globe - human intervention to disrupt natural equilibrium in favor of (unsustainable) resource extraction. In this case it's damming the Colorado river and diverting the water into deserts to build cities and grow thirsty crops like 'iceberg lettuce' for fast food burgers. This plan worked well while the water supplies lasted, but with soaring demand and finite supply no exit is apparent from this intractable dilemma or the established legal and environmental obligations.

Even more important than the direct and measurable effects of applied technology is the interface with the social and political structures of our society. Building a dam and predicting its immediate effects are easy -- concrete here, water there. But grasping the future political ramifications varies from the uncertain to the damn near impossible, yet it must be done because the failure to do so creates terrible problems and social strains. Complicated systems involving multiple elements are often so complex as to be difficult if not impossible to predict, it's necessary to zoom out where the macroscope is most useful. Example: Phoenix Arizona is a very popular place to live and has experienced rapid growth over the past 10, 15 and 20 years. But once people are established in towns and cities they expect water and power every day, and lots of it. Where will it come from when the underground aquifers are tapped out? Where will the power come from when the dam generators are maxed out? Politics is power, so how will government meddle or rectify all of this? How will market-economics change this? Whoever started it is obligated to figure it all out, but they don't do they?

Those thirsty cities in the desert can't be undone. The environmental damage in many cases cannot be undone either, merely ameliorated through extensive regulations and more government control, eventually bogging the entire process down into an endless series of impact assessments and lawsuits. This is the MAD magazine, 'Rube Goldberg' way of doing it, of avoiding continual technologically driven fiascoes. But in our industrialized society, exclusively driven by immediate needs and immediate profit, it's essentially impossible to not repeat these mistakes over and over again with each one ending in a more cataclysmic finale than the last. Not just the way we do things but the reasons we do things must be completely reanalyzed, otherwise the future battles ensuing from the techno-fallout will only get uglier and more divisive. The hard way or the easy way - which path will we take?

Change your perspective, redefine the boundaries. The first step on a path towards improvement is acquiring a new perspective. By looking at the same thing from a different viewpoint we're that much closer to understudying what's works and what needs to be fixed.

The Event With thanks to Delvaux, Apollo 17 and others.

April 2003

Science as presently practiced is a false savior...

06.11.01 As research accumulates science is increasingly characterized by extreme specialization and arcane topics. Except for rare exceptions this knowledge is very poorly translated into the public consciousness as haute vulgarization. And while the public perception of science and technology is primarily positive, gradually some sectors of society are taking the opposite position. Science certainly has a latent crisis of communications for one. Many scientific journals are published that literally no one reads! Check out a university library and you'll see what I mean, they're clogged with plenty of examples. Arcane and unbelievably obscure organizations, publications and scientific niches are nearly limitless. The most obscure one I've come across recently is called 'Recontre Assyriologique Internationale' which, apparently, is a French group involved in deciphering ancient tablets associated with the epic of Gilgamesh! It's mystifying to me why anyone would want to dedicate their entire life to something so arcane, but apparently someone's paying them a living wage and (hopefully) we're gaining some useful scientific knowledge even if no one besides their group of half dozen can decipher it.

Through choice or destiny many of these professionals are incapable of dealing with the interconnected complexities of reality, the pursuit of specificity is often a means of escape, to avoid a bewildering real world composed of multiple elements interacting and generating shades of gray and ambiguity, and sometimes it's just a means of enhancing personal power. And it goes farther than that because it's an attitude, it's a bias towards one's own field. For example physicist Ernest Rutherford pronounced, "All science is either physics or stamp collecting." Ask a geologist and they'll tell you everything is geology, why? Because we all live on the Earth! Go to any other branch of science and you'll find the same singular arrogance. To a career scientist their field of endeavor is the equivalent of their hometown sports team and they have an uncritical ego attachment to its success over that of competing interests.

The point is this: by specializing to the extreme science is sacrificing larger meaning. With every researcher being paid to study their own minute corner the collective message is being ignored. There is no support or financial reward to cross disciplines and draw conclusions from the larger context. This fundamental flaw in modern science is the loophole that generates an endless parade of perverse technological products from biological weapons to cosmetic surgery. What works wonderfully on the small scale of the test bench often fails to translate into equally successful large scale real world results. Edgar Allan Poe, besides being a compelling author was also a shrewd observer who wrote in The Purloined Letter,

Mathematical reasoning is merely logic applied to observation upon form and quantity; the great error lies in supposing that even the truths of what is called pure algebra are abstract or general truths. And this error is so egregious that I am confounded at the universality with which it has been received.
Mathematical axioms are not axioms of general truth. What is true of relation - of form and quantity - is often grossly false in regard to morals, for example. In this latter science it is usually untrue that the aggregated parts are equal to the whole. ... But the mathematician argues , from his finite truths, through the habit, as if they were of an absolutely general applicability.

This failure is most poignant amongst inconclusive endeavors of human health and environment, issues like cellular phone cancer or vaccine safety. Industry can argue lack of connecting evidence and reductionist researchers can't provide the connecting evidence because they lack interdisciplinary knowledge since, like they say, you don't get tenure analyzing other people's research. Reductionism and narrow focus get rewarded but holistic analysis is eschewed. Some issues are so complex and imperative that the only prudent means of achieving answers is qualitative.

A reasoned and careful qualitative conclusion in difficult cases will prove equally useful anyhow. Yet most scientists are quick to express their acquired hatred for anything non-quantifiable, even though they use feeling and intuition everyday of their lives. Eventually they'll come to the conclusion that some problems are too complicated and too riddled with interrelated elements to ever achieve the perfect black and white numerical answer. Narrow reductionism alone only makes confusion greater and protects polluters, corrupt industries, and lazy politicians. In order to find the desperately needed solutions of the present and future we have to think differently and research differently than the traditional methods. Understanding the equilibrium of complex environments requires research and knowledge within a collective context; this is Holology.

Church of the Green

28.04.01 Everywhere we look environmental messages are inescapable, from Earth-friendly labels on household products to 'wackos' building tents in trees to protest harvesting by multinational logging companies. Chronic advertising of green crises to sell breakfast cereal, Hollywood films or ideologies generates a heated sense of urgency that only adds fuel to the divisiveness of polarized views. Furthermore, interest and activism is bred at increasingly young ages through the large percentage of education time and material, from primary school to university level, which consists of environmental awareness. Most is simply scientific discussion of zoology, ecology, and bio-buzz-word-here, and so on. But the division between fad, substance, general knowledge, and indoctrination is not always clear. Facts are difficult to convey devoid of larger context and that big picture, for good or evil, is invariably colored by personal ideology and the prejudices of the course material designers and teachers alike.

I think he [Bernstein, see below] is wrong to say that the welfare of other creatures is not linked to our own welfare," said Bennett H. Beach of The Wilderness Society in Washington. "It's about each person's moral views, and a lot of faith communities as well as environmentalists are saying that these are all God's creatures and we don't have the inherent right to completely eliminate other life forms. - Bennett H. Beach of The Wilderness Society in Washington.D.C. [1]

No matter if the science (of global warming) is all phony ... climate change (provides) the greatest opportunity to bring about justice and equality in the world. - Christine Stewart former Canadian minister of the environment. [1]

Environmentalists and sympathisers claim their cause is soundly rooted in ethics and spiritual aspirations towards greater good, or at least the good of wildlife and nature.

The environmentalist movement is consistently antagonistic to the requirements of human life on Earth," said Bernstein. "Man's nature requires him to continually reshape his environment... But the greens oppose every productive activity on which human survival depends." Andrew Bernstein of the Ayn Rand Institute of California. He continues, "Environmentalism is the most virulent form of the self-sacrifice ethics ever spawned," And "...environmentalism is the most destructive doctrine ever devised. [1]

Blatant exaggerations aside, (environmentalism has nothing on Christianity, yet) clearly we can see two strongly delineated positions - Humanity first or Earth first with no middle ground. And I think that even the human-first Ayn Rand Institute's position would find significant support amongst the populace but pro-environmentalists are consistently much more vocal than their opposing citizens. And this is a key point, environmentalism is a virulent ideology spread through fiery rhetoric and enthusiastic, even religiously devout followers. The environmental 'jihad' is palpable. Yet Bernstein and his crew sound very much like reactionary extremists, establishing themselves as merely the polar opposite to the environmental holy warriors, while both fail in concocting valid solutions capable of addressing the issues with compromise and objectivity.

And it seems that the voluble activists so visible within the green movement are more concerned with spreading the righteousness of their ideology than in actually rescuing the planet or solving environmental problems. Indeed much is to be gained by militancy and cynically making the situation worse because it generates sympathetic news headlines and attracts converts, mostly college-age idealists.

This ultimate irony here is that the source of environmentalist’s ideological power is the fact that the more the environment collapses the more tenable their wayward ideas become. By utilizing pseudo-science and half-truths some environmentalists actually feed off of eco-destruction, despite hypocritical bleating to the contrary. The more apparent the damage becomes the more clear and inescapable is their public message and the more palatable their policy goals appear. They don't wish to be rational and avoid contradiction - they seek it. They proclaim their allegiance with nature yet act to see it destroyed. Mis-quotes, butchered science and conjecture are big bucks and fuel for ideological goals; this environmentalism is not science it's a very sick religion.

Although environmentalism may posses a facile appearance of scientific legitimacy in fact the Green ideology consistently proves otherwise through the rejection of contrary scientific evidence and the convenient acceptance of supportive evidence. The most glaring and dangerous example I can think of at the moment comes from the forests of the western American states which have been plagued by increasingly intense and devastating fires over the past decade. This is a product of the dogmatic approach to forest 'conservation' guided by environmental activism and mistaken ham-fisted government attempts to maintain these natural resources by the United States Forest Service, among other agencies. Think of the brush clearing in Los Alamos New Mexico of 2000 that turned into the worst forest fire in the state's history. The concept was sound but the execution, compounded by lengthy delays, meant that it was too late.

I don't envy the firefighters in this blaze. Los Alamos New Mexico is in very rugged country, clearly depicted by this infrared Landsat 7 image from 2000. The town is on the right center, bright green is the golf course, the blue haze is smoke, pink is hot, red is fire and the blackened regions are burned out.

This confused policy is clearly more than just academic - it's killing people and destroying acres of wilderness. Apocalyptic, interstate, high-heat conflagrations are much worse than clear cutting, and once devastated no one can claim any benefit either economic or aesthetic. Instead the government spends billions in the vain effort to put out and prevent these inevitable fires. The reason they happen is due to the buildup of brush and detritus on the forest floor and too many trees trying to grow per unit of space, a natural phenomenon that is regularly cleaned-up during summer lightning fires without taking out the entire forest, except that these forests aren't in an natural state and haven't been for decades. Thank Smokey Bear, thank encroaching human settlement into forest land and the concomitant need to protect the habitations, thank monomaniacal environmentalists demanding blanket bans on logging and burning. All the effort to protect the forest has only resulted in the exact opposite - massive destruction of the forest! The only way to correct decades of bad policy is not to acquiesce to the environmentalist position but to quickly clean out the overgrowth through careful logging and brush clearing. And once cleaned up the forest should be left to burn and grow naturally as it has done for thousands of years.

With all dogmatic fervor comes a faith based need for action regardless of compromise or negotiations. Rapacious capitalist plunderers of bio-diversity are intrinsically evil and if you aren't a supporter of the Green movement you are an enemy! This is a very virulent mentality clearly borrowed from the history books on religious propaganda -- and for good reason because it works, tactically at least. And this Earth worship goes even deeper in certain corners actually becoming a full blown religious concept replete with ritual accoutrements and mimicry of ancient cult practices. Yet for most green supporters they view the whole anti-pollution, anti-capitalism ideology grab-bag as an ethical and moral issue played out upon a political playing field of lawsuits, protests and legislation. Many take a cynical view and play to the constituency for ego gratification or money, But this is no different than any other movement.

Furthermore, environmentalism serves as an outlet for rampant public frustration at the visible arrogance of industry and the capitalist plundering of the globe coupled with the ineffectualness of public servants to rectify pollution and exploitation by the commercial interests. In other words, they have legitimate grievances but have chosen inadequate means to redress. And in the example case of global warming science isn't being honestly and accurately utilized, its become a tool for extenuating political and ideological objectives. Look at who gets the government and private foundation grant money, is it the don't-panic anti-global warming science groups? Hardly! They found the weakness (money) and hijacked science. And it's not so much dishonest scientists as just science in this gray area of global weather prediction making guesses at horrendously complex interactions and patterns, cycles that operate on millennia with data that stretches back 100 years or less! Media outlets and gullible, scientifically ignorant public that hears and propagates what they want: the simplest answer that fits with the already established myths.

In many ways Green ideology is a new belief system filling the gaping religious vacuum left by the death of Christian legitimacy. Add it up, the ethical and moral parallels, the rejection of compromise and lack of rational objectivism, the militancy and the need for self-sacrifice for higher ideals. And what are Greens really winning, is this not the triumph of memetic influence over genetic, or what? Almost a complete rejection of civilization, or at least in rhetoric, and yet civilization is the best means to extenuate birth rates. A regression to primitivism for who's benefit? Not you or me, but for the spotted owl and the Brazilian rainforest. I tend to think the whole cult status of popular extremist environmentalism will soon fade as they enact any of their espoused objectives because the same proponents love the benefits of civilization and technology so much that they are deluded to the point they hold cognitive dissonance decrying the evils of technology yet happily reaping the benefits. In other words I don't see too many of them wearing animal skins, living in teepees and growing their own food. It's going to change and much of it will be determined by the directions the leadership takes, be it political activism, Green party politics, or radical revolutionary campaigns such as the Earth Liberation Front (ELF). Organizations which are anti-capitalist meaning pro-Marxist, or to a lesser degree the theological aspects, may grow into a full fledged religious institution of Earth worship and Gaia worship.

So what can be done to interject a modicum of objectivity for finding reasonable solutions allowing humanity and environment to live in harmony? Well, it's not blind faith and it never is because that's just denial of the truth, contrary evidence and the rejection of responsibility. But if science is largely working for the faith-based answers, or at least is at the moment in league with the media simpletons, what's left to work with?

To combat these forces of regression rational people need to go on the offensive and highlight the absurdity of the radical environmental positions and the detrimental effects of implementing ludicrous policy, which isn't difficult to do. No more cars, no more travel, no more power, no more abundant food. It's a simple task but that doesn't solve the problems created by corrupt and greedy business and exploiters. Second step is to lay blame where it belongs, instead of general anger aimed at capitalism instead focus on the egregious errors, dumping, waste, pollution, exploitation and the specific CEOs and people responsible. Focus on the sell-out politicians that try to play to both sides and pocket the change and allow the environmental damage in the first place. Furthermore blame laissez-faire economics, "free"-trade and the ability to export disadvantageous effects either through transfer to foreign countries or simply lack of responsibility for damages done. This is the only way things will change, not through faith in Gaia or fire-bombing silos full of genetically-altered grain. Seek to understand the machine and how it works.

A few environmentalists know this, the quiet ranks of intelligent and educated citizens, they need to reign in the radicals or at least get them directed in the proper or propitious direction. Dump the cult faith-based ideology and reject them as the collective hazard they are. Transfer it back to a human issue, human health versus pollution and environmental damage. By transplanting the values into animal and plant life it becomes non-quantifiable after all how much pain do animals feel, are we damaging their feelings, how much harm is done by making an unknown species extinct? How can we ever know for sure? We run the very real risk of merely overlaying our own emotions onto animals, giving them our values and creating warped and wholly erroneous concepts of justice and sympathy where they never should be in the first place! Where does it end, to what purpose are we headed, to a reinvention of the Jain religion, should we start wearing surgical masks lest we inhale insect relatives?

Skewed priorities, any idea system that generates self-hatred, any ideology that feeds off a need for immolation, self-flagellation and unhealthy psychological debasement is doomed to destroy the planet and humanity with it. We've already seen what Christianity does, radical Green ideology and anything that serves it is no better. The only values that are useful are those that relate to our human well-being, those are the only values that can be quantified because we know ourselves, our pain and our profit. Yet this doesn't preclude a healthy understanding of environment and biology because we are intricately linked into a holistic system that seeks equilibrium above all else, and when we push or damage for immediate benefit the negative effects always return with a vengeance often when and where they're least expected, this is just logical. We can reach these goals of efficiency, recycling and careful, measured development incorporating the needs of the present with those of our descendants with a much more measurable and flexible methodology than Green 'religion'. All it requires is a clear understanding of consequences and system that punishes irresponsibility instead of rewarding it.

The challenge today becomes one of cleaving the valid from the invalid and the more arcane the subject, the more complex the concept the greater the difficulty and the more easily duped are both the public, and more importantly in many cases, the legislature that's being paid to know better. Understanding culpability is crucial to understanding solutions.

1. Groups to stage anti-Earth Day event, by Kelly Hearn, UPI, April 20, 2001.

2. From Papal Indulgences to Carbon Credits Is Global Warming a Sin?, by Alexander Cockburn, Counterpunch newsletter, April 28-29 2007.

Ascent of The Meme Model

22.04.01 If the reader is unaware of what a meme is, they certainly have much company, but ignorance makes a poor defense. The well known evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins first established the term in his monumental book The Selfish Gene originally published in 1976. The meme model has turned out to be very flexible and powerful in describing and predicting human behavior, among other things. So it has grown and 'evolved' as it were into an official word and a scientific concept. Hence the book I'm now referring to is the 1999 work The Meme Machine written by Susan Blackmore.

The problems of sociobiology in explaining very complex human behavior, such as the intricacies of altruism within the Darwinian model are notable. And the Meme concept appears certainly to me anyway as the best way to resolve these problems. Meme's as self-perpetuating, self-replicating entities independently evolving of human DNA. Memes here are ideas, and ideas become quite powerful when the get inside those big human brains with all that computing capability, as well as the social propagation-power of speech, writing, and the Internet. But I'm not going to rewrite the very well done book.

"Memes can gain an advantage by becoming associated with a persons self concept." [p. 232] Explains why when attacking a persons ideas it so often is interpreted as an attack on the person themselves, people feel offended and if you don't agree with their opinion you're are just wrong and against them and everything they hold dear.

"Humans, like many of their primate relatives, have evolved to defer to high status males and to be afraid of them." [p. 178] God is a symbolic version of the dominant ape, with all the accoutrements of modern knowledge and culture thrown in to generate fear and genuflection. This also provides a cogent explanation of our phallocentric perceptions of God.

"The greatest altruism should be shown to those who are capable of being convinced." [p. 173]

The author's conclusions concerning consciousness is especially imaginative if not simply nihilistic, Buddhist Nietzschian nihilist anyway. Negation of free will and the illusion of self-direction, that the best means to deal with the avalanche of information and ideas is to just focus on the now and act rather than decide. Well, that has a modicum of legitimacy that unconscious decisions are simpler and often more accurate but to then try and pawn this whole thing off as a way of life is disingenuous and unlikely, to say the least. Ironically I think it's just a demonstration of a doomed meme because it doesn't provide an answer, it doesn't provide a way out or a solution or an alternative. Just a revisitation of fate used so often to explain away events void of historical forces. A parallel is clear between fate and memetic force, those ideas that get into the mind and compel actions or similarly the subconscious not-free-will idea that we automatically follow those memetic influences - very fatalistic.

Susan Blackmore demonstrates the power of memes both in themselves and as a model to explain social phenomena but then acquiesces to that as if we have no power, as if genetic influence is negated and humans are just hopeless pawns to these forces, or even worse nothing BUT a summation of these forces. And I think the meme model may have certain self-fulfilling aspects that could negate its validity.

Meme's aren't the ultimate reason for human behaviour because biology and genetics still plays a significant role, another vector to add into the equation of direction. We can see this in how different cultures and races interact to the same virulent messages, from agit-prop to advertising, within polyglot countries like America or Brazil. And this is likely the authors most glaring error, that being the treatment of every mind, of every person, as basically interchangeable and equally capable of being corrupted by memetic influences. It's as if she wants to write genetic influences out of the picture either out of convenience for the hypothesis or more likely because of the erroneous assumption that memetic evolution is more powerful and more influential. Consciousness, or what 'me' means, has always been difficult to answer, even for metaphysics let alone for science, so it's understandable the authors hypothetical answer has a few rough edges.

Yet I don't fully see why one can't use the memes, pick ones 'you' want? Who cares what the 'you' really is, it's a myth of convenience anyway. I think 'you' is not that singular nor that transient anyway it's a summation of experiences memories, fears, emotions, ideas and memes and all that. The alternative, the answer, is that one has to use prudence and care to select and avoid the memetic influences. And so what if the memes are just crafting themselves - is that any worse than lack of free will being a bag of protein floating around in a sea of influences and memetic slave-drivers? Isn't that pretty much what most people already do anyway - slaves to circumstance? On the contrary one should think ahead, one should plan and study the past and chart a course. But if anyone doesn't want to they certainly have that option indeed that's the default anyhow! Genetics matters because, even as she explained, creativity comes from having a brain with the right design to be able to mix and interpret memes to deliver a unique and valuable product.

In conclusion memes are a powerful force and one worth understanding, as well as the attempt to control - sort of a new spin on propaganda theory. If nothing else it's a new view on environment versus genetic influences, a good start towards a holological solution.

New Rule...

21.12.00 I don't know how many times I've read of intelligent scientists with impeccable research and wonderful studies but as soon as they attempt to apply that knowledge to life they fail abysmally. Example Muray and Hernstein's Bell Curve 'solutions', Malthus' extremely Victorian 'moral restraint' principles, Newton on religion, most anything from Buckminster Fuller, etc. It's the affliction of the specialists mind, they're successful at their focused endeavors by virtue of the fact they have no extraneous influences clouding their thinking. Unfortunately that makes them about the worst people around to try and apply conclusions to social problems. Scientists really shouldn't design or implement policy and the 'Natural Law Party' never made much sense to me either. It seems to me that scientists for the most part just do not have the ability to separate the practical from the impractical in policy-making.

Anthropology factoids

1) Of course everybody knows about the two types of ear wax, right? The regular and the dry flaky kind that Asians have. But Asians also have different teeth, shovel type incisors with a scooped out reverse portion that developed some 40,000 years ago. This fact is useful in dating American human fossils in the sense that nothing has been found without that feature.

2) Even though Amerindians populated the North American Continent for 12,000 years they had no technological progression, European discoverers found them living the same stone-age lifestyles as they brought with them from Asia. Even after 12,000 years the Amerindians never invented the wheel! One irony of note is the fact that horses (or rather animals similar to modern domesticated horses) existed throughout North America but were exterminated through disease and over-hunting by the natives, giving the European invaders a significant shock weapon when they arrived in the 15 and 1600's. A weapon the Amerindians could have had themselves. 02.12.00

Selective Perceptions

2001

To put it broadly, it is important to define the method, the technique, and from its application to await the definite result, which must be gathered entirely from actual experience. One of the characteristics of experimental sciences is to proceed to the making of an experiment without preconceptions of any sort as to the final result of the experiment itself. - Maria Montessori