Monday, February 25, 2013

The Riddle of the Human Species


The Riddle of the Human Species

The Stone is a forum for contemporary philosophers on issues both timely and timeless.

The task of understanding humanity is too important and too daunting to leave to the humanities. Their many branches, from philosophy to law to history and the creative arts, have described the particularities of human nature with genius and exquisite detail, back and forth in endless permutations. But they have not explained why we possess our special nature and not some other out of a vast number of conceivable possibilities. In that sense, the humanities have not accounted for a full understanding of our species’ existence.
So, just what are we? The key to the great riddle lies in the circumstance and process that created our species. The human condition is a product of history, not just the six millenniums of civilization but very much further back, across hundreds of millenniums. The whole of it, biological and cultural evolution, in seamless unity, must be explored for an answer to the mystery. When thus viewed across its entire traverse, the history of humanity also becomes the key to learning how and why our species survived.
A majority of people prefer to interpret history as the unfolding of a supernatural design, to whose author we owe obedience. But that comforting interpretation has grown less supportable as knowledge of the real world has expanded. Scientific knowledge (measured by numbers of scientists and scientific journals) in particular has been doubling every 10 to 20 years for over a century. In traditional explanations of the past, religious creation stories have been blended with the humanities to attribute meaning to our species’s existence. It is time to consider what science might give to the humanities and the humanities to science in a common search for a more solidly grounded answer to the great riddle.
To begin, biologists have found that the biological origin of advanced social behavior in humans was similar to that occurring elsewhere in the animal kingdom. Using comparative studies of thousands of animal species, from insects to mammals, they have concluded that the most complex societies have arisen through eusociality — roughly, “true” social condition. The members of a eusocial group cooperatively rear the young across multiple generations. They also divide labor through the surrender by some members of at least some of their personal reproduction in a way that increases the “reproductive success” (lifetime reproduction) of other members.

Eusociality stands out as an oddity in a couple of ways. One is its extreme rarity. Out of hundreds of thousands of evolving lines of animals on the land during the past 400 million years, the condition, so far as we can determine, has arisen only about two dozen times. This is likely to be an underestimate, due to sampling error. Nevertheless, we can be certain that the number of originations was very small.
Furthermore, the known eusocial species arose very late in the history of life. It appears to have occurred not at all during the great Paleozoic diversification of insects, 350 to 250 million years before the present, during which the variety of insects approached that of today. Nor is there as yet any evidence of eusocial species during the Mesozoic Era until the appearance of the earliest termites and ants between 200 and 150 million years ago. Humans at the Homo level appeared only very recently, following tens of millions of years of evolution among the primates.
Once attained, advanced social behavior at the eusocial grade has proved a major ecological success. Of the two dozen independent lines, just two within the insects — ants and termites — globally dominate invertebrates on the land. Although they are represented by fewer than 20 thousand of the million known living insect species, ants and termites compose more than half of the world’s insect body weight.
The history of eusociality raises a question: given the enormous advantage it confers, why was this advanced form of social behavior so rare and long delayed? The answer appears to be the special sequence of preliminary evolutionary changes that must occur before the final step to eusociality can be taken. In all of the eusocial species analyzed to date, the final step before eusociality is the construction of a protected nest, from which foraging trips begin and within which the young are raised to maturity. The original nest builders can be a lone female, a mated pair, or a small and weakly organized group. When this final preliminary step is attained, all that is needed to create a eusocial colony is for the parents and offspring to stay at the nest and cooperate in raising additional generations of young. Such primitive assemblages then divide easily into risk-prone foragers and risk-averse parents and nurses.
What brought one primate line to the rare level of eusociality? Paleontologists have found that the circumstances were humble. In Africa about two million years ago, one species of the primarily vegetarian australopithecine evidently shifted its diet to include a much higher reliance on meat. For a group to harvest such a high-energy, widely dispersed source of food, it did not pay to roam about as a loosely organized pack of adults and young like present-day chimpanzees and bonobos. It was more efficient to occupy a campsite (thus, the nest) and send out hunters who could bring home meat, either killed or scavenged, to share with others. In exchange, the hunters received protection of the campsite and their own young offspring kept there.
From studies of modern humans, including hunter-gatherers, whose lives tell us so much about human origins, social psychologists have deduced the mental growth that began with hunting and campsites. A premium was placed on personal relationships geared to both competition and cooperation among the members. The process was ceaselessly dynamic and demanding. It far exceeded in intensity anything similar experienced by the roaming, loosely organized bands of most animal societies. It required a memory good enough to assess the intentions of fellow members, to predict their responses, from one moment to the next; and it resulted in the ability to invent and inwardly rehearse competing scenarios of future interactions.
The social intelligence of the campsite-anchored prehumans evolved as a kind of non-stop game of chess. Today, at the terminus of this evolutionary process, our immense memory banks are smoothly activated across the past, present, and future. They allow us to evaluate the prospects and consequences variously of alliances, bonding, sexual contact, rivalries, domination, deception, loyalty and betrayal. We instinctively delight in the telling of countless stories about others as players upon the inner stage. The best of it is expressed in the creative arts, political theory, and other higher-level activities we have come to call the humanities.
The definitive part of the long creation story evidently began with the primitive Homo habilis (or a species closely related to it) two million years ago. Prior to the habilines the prehumans had been animals. Largely vegetarians, they had human-like bodies, but their cranial capacity remained chimpanzee-size, at or below 500 cubic centimeters. Starting with the habiline period the capacity grew precipitously: to 680 cubic centimeters in Homo habilis, 900 in Homo erectus, and about 1,400 in Homo sapiens. The expansion of the human brain was one of the most rapid episodes of evolution of complex organs in the history of life.
Still, to recognize the rare coming together of cooperating primates is not enough to account for the full potential of modern humans that brain capacity provides. Evolutionary biologists have searched for the grandmaster of advanced social evolution, the combination of forces and environmental circumstances that bestowed greater longevity and more successful reproduction on the possession of high social intelligence. At present there are two competing theories of the principal force. The first is kin selection: individuals favor collateral kin (relatives other than offspring) making it easier for altruism to evolve among members of the same group. Altruism in turn engenders complex social organization, and, in the one case that involves big mammals, human-level intelligence.
The second, more recently argued theory (full disclosure: I am one of the modern version’s authors), the grandmaster is multilevel selection. This formulation recognizes two levels at which natural selection operates: individual selection based on competition and cooperation among members of the same group, and group selection, which arises from competition and cooperation between groups. Multilevel selection is gaining in favor among evolutionary biologists because of a recent mathematical proof that kin selection can arise only under special conditions that demonstrably do not exist, and the better fit of multilevel selection to all of the two dozen known animal cases of eusocial evolution.
The roles of both individual and group selection are indelibly stamped (to borrow a phrase from Charles Darwin) upon our social behavior. As expected, we are intensely interested in the minutiae of behavior of those around us. Gossip is a prevailing subject of conversation, everywhere from hunter-gatherer campsites to royal courts. The mind is a kaleidoscopically shifting map of others, each of whom is drawn emotionally in shades of trust, love, hatred, suspicion, admiration, envy and sociability. We are compulsively driven to create and belong to groups, variously nested, overlapping or separate, and large or small. Almost all groups compete with those of similar kind in some manner or other. We tend to think of our own as superior, and we find our identity within them.
The existence of competition and conflict, the latter often violent, has been a hallmark of societies as far back as archaeological evidence is able to offer. These and other traits we call human nature are so deeply resident in our emotions and habits of thought as to seem just part of some greater nature, like the air we all breathe, and the molecular machinery that drives all of life. But they are not. Instead, they are among the idiosyncratic hereditary traits that define our species.
The major features of the biological origins of our species are coming into focus, and with this clarification the potential of a more fruitful contact between science and the humanities. The convergence between these two great branches of learning will matter hugely when enough people have thought it through. On the science side, genetics, the brain sciences, evolutionary biology, and paleontology will be seen in a different light. Students will be taught prehistory as well as conventional history, the whole presented as the living world’s greatest epic.
We will also, I believe, take a more serious look at our place in nature. Exalted we are indeed, risen to be the mind of the biosphere without a doubt, our spirits capable of awe and ever more breathtaking leaps of imagination. But we are still part of earth’s fauna and flora. We are bound to it by emotion, physiology, and not least, deep history. It is dangerous to think of this planet as a way station to a better world, or continue to convert it into a literal, human-engineered spaceship. Contrary to general opinion, demons and gods do not vie for our allegiance. We are self-made, independent, alone and fragile. Self-understanding is what counts for long-term survival, both for individuals and for the species.
Edward O. Wilson is Honorary Curator in Entomology and University Research Professor Emeritus, Harvard University. He has received more than 100 awards for his research and writing, including the U. S. National Medal of Science, the Crafoord Prize and two Pulitzer Prizes in non-fiction. His most recent book is “The Social Conquest of Earth.”

Sunday, February 24, 2013

Reflections on Mortality


Reflections on Mortality: What Does It Matter?
Fred Allebach 2/24/13

By the time you’re dead, you’ll never know how long you lived, so what does it matter then if you live 5, 10, 60 years or 85? To our egos yes it matters because it seems as if each month, each year adds up to a larger cumulative whole. If we live longer, we’ve had more life, and more is better than less. But who will be there to measure after we are gone? You won’t be and soon enough, no one you know will be either. And since at death your life and consciousness is extinguished, there will be no way to for you to measure that you have had more or less. Therefore it doesn’t really matter in the big picture because there is no way to tell from the side of eternal silence whether you have had more or less life. It only matters to the living how much life you had.

Let’s say for example that I want to do such and such hikes, do such and such projects, travel to such and such places, learn such and such songs, learn to appreciate Mozart, OK, that is all fine and good. This is how I occupy myself in life, with my interests. This is what life is all about, following my path. It is destiny only in the sense that wherever I am, that is my destination. It doesn’t really matter what that destination is for me or you or whoever. It is what it is. All the hopes and desires of an individual person are what drives them through life. But from the side of eternal rest, there is no quantifying a life, there’s nobody from over there to say anything, there is no difference then between someone who died at age 10 and someone who died at age 90; neither of them dead is in a position to know how long they lived relative to anyone else.

All the cumulative joy, knowledge, experience and wisdom you may ever have, that will be stripped away. The fullness of each moment you ever had, the memory of that, you only have it now; that’s as much as you can possess, today, now. When you die it’s as if a cosmic reset button is pushed and all lives and all people are equal; that’s it; each life but a puff of smoke, the breath of a buffalo on a frozen prairie morning.

You’re going to get what you get and in the end no one will know who had more or less. After a few generations have gone by the huge majority of people who lived and died will be totally forgotten.

This brings up one reason you might try to have more rather than less life, so you can accumulate more of a legacy, either in terms of artistic expression, writings and discoveries, the amassing of more wealth etc. This is the only way you can defeat the finality of eternal silence, the creation of a transcending legacy that will be remembered by many people across long periods of time and space, Johann Sebastian Bach for example, Galileo, Andrew Carnegie, Mother Teresa, Plato, etc.

Another reason you might try for more life is so the quality of life for your associates won’t suffer from you being gone forever while they are currently not gone forever. While it will not matter to you in the end if you lived more or less, it will matter to your friends and family because during their allotted time, they will know you’re gone.  Thus you can forestall suffering of friends and family by eating well, exercising etc, to prolong your life, because in the moment, which is all we really have, we are conscious of being happy or not, and having someone special gone for good impinges on happiness in the moment.

In the end it matters to none, as all memories, family and friends will all be silent forever; there will be no ultimate quantifying of our lives. Into the vastness of eternity we will be extinct, forever and ever, extinct along with 90% of all of life that has come before us.

“In the end human thought accomplishes so little. It’s wings are strong, but not as strong as the destiny which gave them to us. It will not let us escape nor reach any further than it desires. Our journey is predestined and, after a brief roaming which fills us with joy and expectation, we are drawn back again as the falcon is drawn back by the leash in the hand of the falconer. When shall we attain liberty? When will the leash be severed and the falcon soar into the open spaces?
-When? Will it ever be? Or is it not the secret of our being that we are and always will be bound to the hand of the falconer? If this were changed then we would cease to be human beings and our fate would not longer be that of humanity.
The Dwarf
Par Lagerkvist, 1945, p.53

It is only for the moment in which we now live that anything matters, and for that we may want to prolong our time, for the sake of others with whom we share this eternal moment. Our only destiny is to live and die, and to experience all the moments in between.

I am, now. There will be a time when I am not. Read this typical Black Death era phrase from the tomb of Edward the Black Prince, 1330-1376:

Whoso thou be that passeth by;
Where these corps entombed lie:
Understand what I shall say,
As at this time speak I may.
Such as thou art, sometime was I,
Such as I am, such shalt thou be.



Saturday, February 23, 2013

Classification of All Life


Fred Allebach

CLASSIFICATION   Taxonomy, Phylogeny, Cladistics, Systematics:  Relations and similarities of all life
                                            
terms                                   human                      garlic
Kingdom                            Animalia                   Plantae                 

Phylum (Division)             Chordata                   Angiospermophyta

Subphylum*                     Vertebrata

Class                                Mammalia                  Monocotyledoneae

Order                                Primates                    Liliales

Family                              Hominoidea                Liliaceae

Genus                                Homo                          Alium

Species                             sapiens                      sativum
*intermediate levels can be added w/prefixes sub- and super-

FIVE KINGDOMS model

Monera- bacteria, cyanobacteria (blue-green algae/stromatolites), prokaryotes 
Protista- single celled eukaryotes, individual protozoans and some types of algae
Fungi-      molds, mushrooms
Plantae-   multicellular algae and land plants
Animalia- multicellular animals

Prokaryotes:  mostly small cells, all are microbes, many are strictly anaerobes (which are killed by oxygen) much simpler than....
Eukaryotes:   mostly large cells, some are microbes, most are large organisms, almost all are aerobic

Viruses -  non-cellular molecular parasites, line between organic and inorganic, living/not living, they are not cells, they are particles of genetic material and protein, can invade cells and take over metabolic processes and reproduce, have natural selection just as with "life", can be crystalline and inert, "as crystals they were clearly not living cells but some sort of inert entity." -see "the crystalline entity" on Star Trek: The Next Generation

Human viruses: Measles,  Rubella, Atypical pneumonia, common cold (Coryza viruses, Rhinoviruses) influenza, Hepatitis, Mononucleosis, Poliomyelitis, Mumps, Smallpox, Rabies, Dengue fever, Yellow fever, HIV

Phyla of Kingdom Animalia:  all the major types of animals

Protista, (Protozoa), includes certain plant-like organisms
Porifera: sponges
Placozoa: "scale-ozoa"
Cnidaria: (Coelenterata), hydras, jellyfish, sea anemones, corals, the cnidae or nematocysts are used to ensnare or poison prey                                                                                  
Ctenophora: sea gooseberries or comb jellies, similar to Cnidaria
Platyhelminthes: flat worms
Nemertea: littoral and marine worms, a few terrestrial genera
Rotifera: small, minute animals distinguished by a complex feeding apparatus
Nematomorpha: horse hair worms Order: Gordioidea, appears as long horse hair or violin string up to a meter long, in springs, streams and stagnant water, especially in the mountains (I saw one in Romero Canyon)
Nematoda: eel worms
Mollusca: bivalves, cephalopods, gastropods, brachiopods
Annelida: earth worms, tongue worms, segemented, worm-like animals
Onychophora: some features of annelids and arthropods
Arthropoda: insects, spiders, crustaceans (barnacles)
Echinodermata: spiny skinned: sea urchins, sea stars, sand dollars, sea cucumber, feather star, crinoids/ sea lilies
Chordata

CHORDATA

Superphyla: Craniata (Vertebrata) with cranium, visceral arches, vertebrae and brain,
Phylum: Chordata
Subphylum: Gnathostomata: with jaws and usually paired appendages

Superclass: Pisces: paired fins, gills and skin w/scales
Class:  Placodermi: ancient fishes
           Chondrichthyes: sharks and rays, skeleton cartilage
           Osteichthyes: bony fishes

Superclass: Tetrapoda: paired limbs, lungs, cornified skin and bony skeleton
Class: Amphibia
          Reptilia
          Aves
          Mammalia


Class Amphibia 

Order Salientia          frogs and toads
          Caudata            salamanders
          Meanres            sirens (small front legs no tail)
          Gymnophiona      no limbs, tropics

Class Reptilia

Subclass Anapsida

Order Cotylosauria                 primitive ancestors
Order Testudines                    turtles

Subclass Euryapsida               ancient marine reptiles
Subclass Ichthyopterygia        ancient fish-like reptiles
Subclass Lepidosauria              diapsids

Order Rhynchocephalia              primitive lizard-like
Order Squamata                        advanced lepidosaurians: lizards, snakes, amphisbaenids

Subclass Archosauria                four extinct orders including dinosaurs and pterosaurs

Order Crocodilia                       alligators (el legarto) and crocodiles

Subclass Synapsida

Order Pelycosauria                     early mammal-like reptiles
Order Therapsida                         advanced mammal-like reptiles

Class Mammalia
                               
Order Marsupiala
         Insectivora                     tenrecs, shrews, moles, hedgehog
         Edentata                         sloths, anteaters, armadillos
         Pholidota                         pangolin
         Tubilidentata                  aardvark
         Chiroptera                       bats
         Dermoptera                      flying lemur
         Primates                          monkeys, apes, humans
         Carnivora                          Canids, Mustelids, Ursids, Viverrids, Procyonids,
                                                   Felids, Hyaenids, Phocids, Otarids
         Proboscidea                     elephants
         Sirenia                             manatee, sea cow
         Hyracoidea                        conies
         Perissodactyla                  odd-toes ungulates: tapirs, rhinos, horses
         Artiodactyla                      even-toed ungulates: pigs, camels, deer, sheep,
                                                   goats, giraffes, antelope, cattle
         Cetaceae                            whales
         Rodentia                             rodents, gnawing mammals
         Lagomorpha                         rabbits, hares

Class Aves

Order Struthioniformes                 ostriches
          Rheiformes                          rheas
          Casuariiformes                    cassowaries
          Aepyornithiformes              elephant birds: turkey to ostrich sized flightless
                                                     birds of Africa and Madagascar: EXTINCT historically
          Dinorthiformes                    moas, EXTINCT w/in last 300 years
          Apterygiformes                   kiwis
          Tinamiformes                      tinamous: Mexico to S. America
          Gaviformes                           loons
          Sphenisciformes                   penguins
          Podicipediformes                  grebes
          Procellariiformes                 albatrosses, shearwaters, fulmars, petrels,
                                                        tropic birds
          Pelecaniformes                  pelicans, gannets, cormorants, aningha, frigate bird
          Ciconiiformes                      herons, bitterns, storks, ibises

Subphyla: Agnatha: no true jaws or paired appendages

Class: Ostracodermi: ancient armored fishes
           Cyclostomata: lampreys and hagfish

Superphyla Acrania: no cranium or brain
Phylum Chordata
Subphyla: Hemichordata: notochord short, anterior, nerve tissues in epidermis
Class: Enteropneusta: tongue worms (annelids?)
          Pterobranchia:
          Graptozoa: graptolites: colonial, branched, w/ chitinous covering

Subphyla: Tunicata:
Class: Larvacea: tadpole-like
          Ascidiacea: ascidians, tunic w/ scattered muscles, many gill slits
          Thaliacea: chain tunicates, tunic w/ circular muscle bands
          
Subphyla: Cephalochordata: notochord and nerve chord along entire body
Class: Leptocardii: Lancelets, slender, fish-like, no scales, many gill slits


Division Plantae:  one method

Algae: one celled, colonial or many celled w/ chlorophyl and no true root, stem or leaf
Phaeophyta: brown algae
Chlorophyta: green algae
Rhodophyta: red algae

Land Plants:
Nonvascular Plants:
Bryophyta: bryophytes, moss
Hepatophyta: liverworts
Anthocerophyta: hornworts

Vascular Plants:

Seedless Plants:
Psilophyta: whisk ferns
Pteridophyta/ Filicinophyta: ferns
Sphenophyta: horsetails: Geneus Equisetum
Lycophyta: club moss:

Seed plants:

Gymnosperms:
Cycadophta: cycads :         
Ginkgophyta: Ginkgos :     
Gnetophyta:                                         
Coniferophyta: conifers
Angiosperms:    
Anthophyta:


Kingdom Fungi:


acotyledonous or cryptogamous plant, mushrooms, mold, mildew, rust


LICHEN:  cryptogamous plant w/out stem or leaf consisting of algae and fungi growing in close association


A modified two division scheme of plants and animals with no separate Kingdoms of Protista or Fungi, 1987:

Superkingdom Prokaryota



Kingdom A             Monera
  Division 1               Schizonta              Bacteria
  Division 2               Cyanophyta            Blue-green algae (Cyanobacteria)
  Division 3               Prochlorophyta
 
Superkingdon Eukaryota

  Kingdom A        Phyta (plants)
    Division 1         Chlorophyta                Green algae
    Division 2         Charophyta                 Charophytes
    Division 3         Euglenophyta              Euglenids
    Division 4         Chrysophyta               Golden algae
    Division 5         Phaophyta                  Brown algae
    Division 6         Pyrrhophyta               Dinoflagellates
    Division 7         Rhodophyta                Red algae
    Division 8         Hepatophyta               Liverworts
    Division 9         Anthceratophyta        Hornworts
    Division 10       Bryophyta                   Mosses
    Division 11       Psilotophyta               Psilophytes
    Division 12       Microphyllophyta        Club and spike mosses
    Division 13       Arthrophyta                Horsetails and sphenopsids
    Division 14       Pteridophyta               Ferns
    Division 15       Cycadophyta                Cycads
    Division 16       Ginkgophyta                 Ginkgo
    Division 17       Coniferophyta              Conifers
    Division 18       Gnetophyta                   none
    Division 19        Anthophyta                 Flowering plants

Kingdom B          Mycetae (Fungi)
    Division 1          Myxomycota                Slime molds
    Division 2          Acrasiomycota            Cellular slime molds
    Division 3          Chytridiomycota
    Division 4          Oomycota                     Posteriorly uniflagellate fungi
    Division 5          Zygomycota                  Bread molds and others
    Division 6          Ascomycota                 Sac fungi
    Division 7          Basidiomycota             Club fungi
    Division 8          Deuteromycota             Imperfect fungi  

Superkingdom Animalia
It has become clear that there is no agreement on how to exactly break down the relations between all life. That we are all related is of no question. The lumpers group and the splitters divide.6