Natural History: Some Even More Random Rambling

Sometimes you have a new thought, an idea, or eureka moment, but it’s not gutsy enough to expand into a reasonable length article or essay. So, here’s a potpourri of thoughts too good not to record, but with not enough meat available to flesh out. 

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* We’ve all read and heard about how we consume way more salt than is necessary and that too much salt can cause high blood pressure and heart attacks and associated nasty conditions. What is never mentioned in all these health warnings about salt is the feedback mechanism that restores the proper balance. It’s akin to how many bars will put out free salted peanuts or salted chips for the customers. It’s not out of the pure kindness of the bartender. If you take in a lot of salt you get, surprise, thirsty. And so the bar makes up for the ‘free’ peanuts and chips by selling more drinks to quench the thirst you build up by eating all that ‘free’ salty stuff. In other words, if you over indulge in the salt, you’ll drink more fluids because you get extra thirsty, and the additional liquids will, when filtered through the kidneys, take the unnecessary salt with it (salty urine) and the proper balance is restored. So, if we consume way more salt than is necessary, we probably drink way more fluids as well. 

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* I think most of us would agree that a reasonable definition of free will is the ability to voluntarily and consciously choose between two (or more) courses of action. You make a decision by your own free will that’s generated by your internal conscious self with no external influences, like someone, even Mother Nature, holding a gun to your head! However…

What if you view an optical illusion, an apparent reality of which there are numerous classic examples available? Initially you have two choices. You can convince yourself that what you are seeing is indeed reality (wrong choice) or you can convince yourself that what you’re seeing is not reality (right choice). But that’s mission impossible.

You know – you are consciously aware – that what you are looking at is an illusion and not reality. Can you now, of your own free will, take that course of action that will actually convince yourself that what you are looking at is an illusion and not reality? You know it’s an illusion, but can you convince yourself of that fact? Try as you might, no matter what, you will still see that apparent reality – the illusion – even though you know it’s just an illusion. Your brain is fooled and your mind can’t do a damn thing about it. Your free will cannot free yourself from seeing the illusion. You cannot negate that illusionary effect of your own free will even though you know it is not reality.

Now some optical illusions give you the apparent free will to view the illusion as this thing or that thing (like the classic two faces or one vase), but you can’t sustain that. You will shift perspective between the two illusionary options quite against what your own free will dictates. Further, you don’t have the free will third option of seeing neither of the two illusionary options.  

In a somewhat similar vein, watching one of the season three episodes of “Through the Wormhole”, part of that episode, exploring the subconscious, showed the experiment of a test subject who was fitted with a pair of camera-glasses that showed him an image of a test dummy dressed the same as the test subject. The test subject was fully aware of this. The test subject was then conditioned by being stroked with a rod while at the same time viewing the test dummy being stroked. Then, the test dummy was suddenly violently assaulted, and of course the test subject reacted as if he were being assaulted and not the dummy. Even when the test subject was told that the dummy was going to be assaulted, he was aware of this in his conscious mind, he still couldn’t help himself via his subconscious reacting as if he were being assaulted instead of the dummy. 

In short, your conscious mind cannot override or overturn your subconscious, free will be damned.

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* Despite the very popular but self-promotional conception, human beings are the least rational species on this planet. Any other animal that acts irrationally, say via a genetic defect or disease or the equivalent of dementia, is a dead animal. I have yet to witness any animal acting in any way, shape, manner or form that wasn’t rational for either its own survival or the survival of its genes, its community or its kind. I most certainly cannot say the same about the human species.

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* Here’s a wicked thought experiment. Create two clones of yourself. Raise them to maturity. Then, remove their brains and toss them away (this is just a thought experiment and so morals and ethics can be bypassed). Now have your brain removed (and toss your body away). Have one hemisphere transplanted into one clone; the other hemisphere transplanted into the second clone. While the two hemispheres of your brain have slightly different emphasis in terms of functionality, you can function as a reasonable whole with just one hemisphere. Now the question arises, will you be self-aware in two bodies at the exact same time? You could accomplish twice as much and be totally aware of the totality!

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* Humans and cycles go hand in glove. Though most are artificial constructions and therefore rather phoney, cycles are important to humans and human society. The Day-Night cycle is of the most prime importance, and it is a natural cycle. Humans put a lot of stock in the seven day week cycle, which is an artificial construct, and to a lesser extent the month (also a phoney cycle even if ever so loosely based on the lunar cycle). The year is a natural cycle (in terms of the seasons) and probably of greatest significance next to the day and week cycles. Decades and centuries rank fairly low in importance and are artificial constructs in any event. The millennia are only important when the calendar changes over from say 1999 to 2000 (though the new millennia actually began in 2001) and 1000 year cycles lie outside of the human lifespan in any event. And that should be pretty much it – except for some ancient societies who had cycles of apparent importance so long that predated the very existence of those societies (and concluded well after those societies went extinct), like the Mayan long count (recall that famous doomsday date of 21 December 2012). Other societies measure ongoing cycles of creation-destruction in such lengthy periods that they really have no imminent impact on the societies propagating them. When societies have cycles of significance that are of no immediate significance, then you have an anomaly and you have got to wonder where hence gave that particular cyclic concept.

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* Try as I might, I could never teach my cats the barest and most basic rudiments of algebra or even those boneheaded elementary mathematics of arithmetic that elementary schoolkids master. I could never get my cats to understand and appreciate the ancient Egyptian cat cults and goddesses. Even the concept of biological evolution – the how and why cats evolved into cats and the ancestry of my cats would be so much triple-Dutch to them. Their wetware, neurochemistry, etc. just isn’t up to this. Sunshine gives them warmth – that they understand but not how the sun shines.

Now, the upshot of that is, despite the human arrogance that our minds can comprehend everything part and parcel of life, the Universe and everything, perhaps we just can’t through absolutely no fault of our own. Maybe human brains, in the here and now, are not capable of figuring all things out, like the meaning of quantum physics, and the theory of everything (TOE) which is basically a theory of quantum gravity and coming to terms with what exactly is dark matter and dark energy and answering all those other questions that have gone without resolution for thousands of years.  

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* You probably think of yourself as one singular organism. The expression “me, myself and I” are all singular. Yet, you know perfectly well that you are really a colony of billions of organisms (cells) working in more often as not the case in total harmony. Yet, as things turn out, you play host to billions and billions more microbes. Nine out of ten of the microbes that make you up aren’t really a part of you at all, like say those bacteria that survive and thrive in your mouth. So, are you an organism, a colony of organisms or an environment for organisms? I’m quite astounded to learn that 90% of me isn’t me! So perhaps our real purpose in life is to serve as hosts for the greater multitudes. The needs of the many [microbes] outweigh the needs of the one [Human].

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* In the simulated universe scenario I (and many others) have suggested we exist inside a computer as a software program or subroutine within a larger software program. The un-stated assumption is that the Supreme Programmer was of flesh-and-blood (terrestrial or extraterrestrial). But why make that assumption? Why not suggest that the Supreme Programmer was/is an Artificial Intelligence in its own right just being creative. Silicon –and-steel (artificial) intelligence is a logical evolutionary successor to flesh-and-blood (natural) intelligence and is likely to not only evolve far more rapidly (Moore’s Law) than human evolution ever did but have an overall longevity vastly in extent of ours.



Guess Who? Part Two

Humans share 98% of their DNA with their closest animal relatives, the chimpanzees. That 2% difference however was enough to put man on the moon while the chimps still frolic in and around the forest trees. So, humans should pat themselves on the back, right? We’re king of the mountain; top of the tops, lord and master over all we survey. But what else has that 2% difference bestowed upon us? Perhaps a closer comparison to the rest of the species inhabiting Planet Earth should deflate our massive egos a might.

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

Sex and all that Jazz

Only one species on this entire planet gives a damn about:

* Nudity or appearing in the nude. Why is this important? Is this really important at all, full-stop? No.

* Some of their members engaging in homosexuality. Why is this important? Is this really important at all? Not unless every human were gay, then the birth rate would tend to go down the gurgler, but clearly that’s not happening.

* Practicing birth control, which upsets other members of that species no end. Why is this important? Is this really important at all? Not unless each and every potential pregnancy is thwarted and the population plummets which again clearly isn’t happening.

* Practicing abortion, which upsets even a larger proportion of other members of that species. Why is this important? Is this really important at all? Not unless each and every pregnancy is aborted and the population plummets which yet again clearly isn’t happening.

* Those who practice abortion and not usually in an understanding way but rather by damning them, and often not just verbally. Since abortion isn’t important in the global scheme of things (i.e. – population), opponents are an irrelevancy.

* Pornography. Guess which species!

Fun and Games

Only one species on this entire planet gives a damn about:

* Sports, both as participants and/or as spectators. This is not important. This contributes bugger all to your health, education and welfare.

* Sports teams and their fate. This too contributes bugger all to your health, education and welfare. So why is this important?  

* The Olympic Games (winter or summer). This contributes absolutely nothing to your health, education and welfare. So is this really important at all? Not in the slightest.

Traits

Only one species on this entire planet:

* Pats themselves on the back and awards themselves with unearned honorary titles like “Saint” or “Sir”, “Honourable” or “Right Honourable”,  “Your Excellency” or “Your Highness” or “Your Honour”, etc.

* Is a racist species.

* Is a sexist species.

* Gives a damn about making things go ka-boom, blowing things up and reeking destructive havoc in general.

* Makes it their business to butt into the affairs and business of other members of that same species. Curiosity is one thing but this species goes way, way, way beyond that.

* Needs a sense of history.

* Feels a need to shave or have haircuts.

* Feels a need for privacy when going to the bathroom.

* Rationalizes their idiocy.

* Tends not to learn from their mistakes.

* Has the highest rate of obesity which is ever increasing.

* Has the ways and means of driving themselves to extinction.

* Needs to use an alarm clock.

* Thinks they know how to manage an entire planet and the only species who has stuffed everything completely up.

* Deliberately fouls their very own nest.

* Engages in self-harming activities like using drugs, alcohol, tobacco, playing excessively loud music, speeding, over-eating, eating foods extremely high in sugar and salt, suicide, etc.

* Litters, does graffiti and engages in deliberate acts of vandalism.

* Kills his own and other species too just for fun.

* Kills for fashion, like for fur coats.

* Engages in acts of terrorism.

* Engages in acts of torture both of their own kind and other species.

* Builds and used weapons of mass destruction.

* Is totally obsessed with being in constant communication 24/7/52 with other members of that same species.

* Drives around the car park for five minutes just to avoid walking an extra 100 feet.

Economics

Only one species on this entire planet:

* Imposes and cheats on taxes (boo, hiss).

* Will use and misuse money (the root of all evil?).

Legal Matters

Only one species on this entire planet:

* Has a need for a Ten Commandments, a constitution, a Bill of Rights, and an entire legal system, and guess what, it’s not your average puppy dog.

* Needs to utilize policemen.

* Needs to utilize prisons.

Conclusions

Now, should humans continue to pat themselves on the back as lords and masters of life, the universe and everything, or perhaps pat themselves on the back as being the lone idiot species inhabiting the Planet Earth?

Guess Who? Part One

Humans share 98% of their DNA with their closest animal relatives, the chimpanzees. That 2% difference however was enough to put man on the moon while the chimps still frolic in and around the forest trees. So, humans should pat themselves on the back, right? We’re king of the mountain; top of the tops, lord and master over all we survey. But what else has that 2% difference bestowed upon us? Perhaps a closer comparison to the rest of the species inhabiting Planet Earth should deflate our massive egos a might.

There are millions of species living on Planet Earth right now (and untold millions that have lived on Planet Earth but have gone extinct). Humans are just one of those millions of here and now species, so you’d think other species would mirror our traits, or vice versa. Alas, humans are unique, and it’s not something to pat ourselves on the back about.

When it comes to what is important, for all practical purposes it boils down to filling what’s empty; emptying what’s full; scratching where it itches. A good night’s sleep doesn’t go astray either or a good role in the hay (though that might qualify under the ‘empty what’s full’ criteria). In fact to be honest, there’s only one thing that’s really important and that’s your own health and personal well being. All else, with the exception I guess of the health and wellbeing of family, is irrelevant.

Guess Who?

Dress & Fashion

Only one species on this entire planet gives a damn about:

* Clothing fads and fashion. Why is this really important?

* Hairstyles. Is this really important?

* Wearing makeup. Why is this really important?

* Wearing high heels. Is this really important?

* Wearing a suit and tie. Why is this really important?

Special Calendar Dates

Only one species on this entire planet gives a damn about:

* Holidays and the need for them. Is this really important at all?

* Anniversaries. Is this too really important at all?

Some Personal Stuff

Only one species on this entire planet gives a damn about:

* Their family history. This is totally irrelevant to your health, education and welfare.

* What their neighbour thinks of them. This is also totally irrelevant to your health, education and welfare.

* Craving “Likes” on social media sites.

The Larger Context

Only one species on this entire planet gives a damn about:

* Deities. Unless you really believe and are convinced there’s any possible relationship between your invisible friend and your post-demise fate of which there’s not the slightest shred of evidence, far less proof, then this too is irrelevant.

* Their nationalism. “My country right or wrong” has not exactly been a philosophical key to the establishment of peace on earth, goodwill towards men (and women).

* Their race (or breed). The concept of all DNA is equal but some DNA is more equal than others is chemical claptrap.

* Philosophy or metaphysics or the meaning and purpose in life. It maybe interesting, but it’s hardly important.

Special People

Only one species on this entire planet gives a damn about:

* Royalty. Why are they important? Are they really important? Absolutely not! You earn you position in life; you’re not born into it.

* Celebrities. Why are they important? Are they really important at all? Absolutely not! Everyone sits on the commoner’s throne in the exact same way and puts their leggings on one leg at a time.

Entertainment

Only one species on this entire planet gives a damn about:

* The Academy Awards (and the thousands of related entertainment awards). Why is this important? Is this really important at all? Apart from the recipient, does anyone else really give a damn? This too is totally irrelevant to your health, education and welfare.

* Reality TV. Why is this important? Is this really important at all? You only have a fixed amount of hours in your life – why waste them of this sort of drivel? 

* Rap, hip-hop and heavy metal and thinks this represents something known to that same species as music. Oh well, different strokes for different folks.

To be continued…

Kiwi Cats: An Endangered Species?

Some people in New Zealand, and no doubt in other places, would like to exterminate the domestic pussycat because of its environmental impact, specifically on native wildlife. But the double standards applied here condemn the people advocating them way more than the objects of their condemnation.

Humans somehow have this ingrained idea that they can best manage the natural environment that Mother Nature created and evolved over billions of years before mankind was ever thought up in anyone’s philosophy. The end result of human management has been an unmitigated and ever ongoing environmental disaster. The latest in a long, long, long line of ‘humans know best’ has been a proposal to eliminate the domestic pussycat.

In early January 2013, the idea was floated in New Zealand that the domestic moggy, the dear old and much loved companion animal the pussycat, be phased out. All cats should be de-sexed and no further cats be obtained upon the natural death of existing moggies. Therefore, within 15 to 20 years, New Zealand would be pussycat free, and native wildlife, especially flightless birds, would be eternally grateful, because pussy cats like to eat little native flightless birds and other native wildlife too. Needless to say, the claws are out and fur is flying over the issue.

From the various online debates and commentaries I’ve seen, there seem to be three equally divided points of view. Point One: kill them all – the cats that is – or more humanely let them go extinct through natural attrition by neutering them all. Point Two, sharp and to the point, all jaws, paws and claws out and firing, touch my cats and you die. Companion animals are good for human well being, and besides cats catch mice and rats and other undesirable vermin*. Point Three is probably the most relevant – it’s a variation on the pot calling the kettle black; the all too frequent human double standard.

If you take the argument to its logical conclusion, perhaps one should exterminate spiders because they kill native flies; exterminate birds that eat pretty native butterflies; kill the lions that eat native zebras; or for that matter eliminate anything that kills and feeds off of anything else native. Sorry, the fundamental principle in nature, tooth and claw, is the relationship between prey and predator; eat or be eaten. Cats are just one of millions of species that kill to eat. It’s hardwired into their brains. If they kill and eat a native flightless bird, it’s not their fault. Puppy dogs hunt and kill too, but I don’t hear any equivalent about killing them off humanely or otherwise despite the fact that some dogs, pet dogs, have maimed and killed humans; the same cannot be said about the domestic moggy. And no doubt some native species hunt and kill for food other native species. Where do you draw the line in this quest to save native species? And just who self-anointed human beings to be judge, jury and executioner?

Prey animals, flightless birds or otherwise, have presumably over millions of years evolved natural abilities to avoid most predators most of the time; otherwise they wouldn’t be around for us to talk about them. That’s the natural way of things – a natural evolutionary arms race. Prey evolves ways and means to avoid predators; predators evolve better ways and means of catching prey. Failure results in extinction, and that too is nature’s way. Most species that have ever existed are now extinct.

While we don’t wish to see native wildlife hunted down and killed, the hardcore truth of the matter is that this is nature’s way, and if you have a problem with that, take it up with God – it’s His master plan. If you don’t accept a deity, blame Mother Nature. In any event, that’s the way it is and you can’t do anything to change that fundamental fact of life. Cats kill; dogs kill; spiders kill; lions kill; birds kill; sharks kill; and guess what – humans kill too. That’s part of the pot and kettle side of things. But humans don’t kill animals just for the need to put food on the table. Humans kill for the pure pleasure of killing things, just for fun, from hunting as a so-called ‘sport’, often with a semi-automatic rifle, and often in enclosed wildlife parks for that purpose where the animals can’t escape, to squashing ants who are outside in their own natural environment and bothering no one.

As for that other common reason given to cull the moggie – the neighbour’s cat uses my garden as a litter box. If that’s the most pressing problem this person has, well I’d like to be that person! Seriously, you get free fertilizer that’s 100% biodegradable and while the cat is around, it’s helping to keep your property free of mice and rats. I’ve been on the receiving end of both gifts and that doesn’t bother me at all. In any event, as a problem, personal or environmental, cat poo in the garden pales compared to doggie poo on the sidewalk.

There are several of the newer suburbs in Canberra (Australia) bordering on native grasslands and in these suburbs cat owners are legally required to confine their cats to their own property, say by using outdoor cat runs or keeping them indoors. I have no problem with that. The cat owners are happy (or should be); the cats should be happy too; and naïve wildlife can relax and worry about other things – like humans and humans who will probably build an ever newer suburb as the population expands, on that very native grassland. 

Confining your cat to your own property helps keep the cat safe too from other humans and traffic. You wouldn’t want your companion animal to end up as road kill.

Legally required or otherwise, human owners are morally responsible for the actions or their companion animals, and it is up to the owners of pets to ensure that other valued animals and people are not in harms way through the actions of animals under their control. That moral requirement exists because you cannot expect cats (hardwired to act in certain ways) to conform to human standards in the same way that you can teach a child.

Australia has declared war on the Cane Toad, the Common Indian Myna Bird, the Rabbit, Carp, the European Wasp, etc. in order to save native species and native habitats on which they depend. Yet every day hundreds of native Australian animals are killed by the motor car, deliberately shot, poisoned, trapped, etc. The Australian Capital Territory government routinely culls thousands of native Kangaroos because there are, allegedly, too many of them, allegedly, destroying native grasslands. Humans reek of the double standard!

Now IMHO, if ever there was a species that needed culling because of their environmental impact, including the extermination, intentional or otherwise, of native wildlife, its dear old Homo sapiens.  The pot has indeed called the kettle black. For some unfathomable reason, it’s A-OK for humans to condemn any and all non-human species for doing what comes naturally, yet when do humans point the finger at humans?  Those who advocate such extreme measures or controls on cats would never ever dream of applying that same logic to themselves and their fellow human companions. De-sex the moggies? That’s all fine and well and I agree on the grounds of animal welfare, but on the other foot, I’ve seen more than one news story or item about these mega-families where a couple revel in having literally offspring cheaper by the two dozen, all products from their own privates and private interactions.  Talk about your environmental impact! Even four of more kids is too many.

Kids or no kids, any one human being in any advanced first world country (New Zealand, Australia, Canada, USA, Europe, Japan, etc.) has a vastly greater detrimental environmental impact per day than any cat has had over the cat’s entire lifetime.

And don’t talk back to me about how cats torture small animals – that absolutely pales in significance with comparison to the daily tortures humans infest on animals, examples way, way too numerous to mention, though in very recent times we’ve seen some very graphic livestock cases of barbaric cruelty in Indonesia, Pakistan and even Israel. And what would the world come to without children pulling the wings off of flies, or as one disgusting co-worker of mine did, throwing live grubs onto a red hot barbeque just for ‘fun’.

When it comes to cats vs. humans, well, you don’t see cats driving 4WD gas-guzzlers on the freeway, one cat per car. You don’t see cats requiring vacations and holiday days off. You don’t see cats shopping down at the mall. You don’t see cats peddling drugs. Cats don’t litter. You don’t see cats going hunting with semi-automatic rifles shooting anything that moves; everything in sight. You don’t see cats maxing out their credit cards and going bankrupt. I’ve yet to see cats invent, build and test an atomic bomb. Cats have way too much sense to believe in deities, they don’t even deify their human ‘masters’.

Cats ask for nothing more than the basic necessities of life, and all their waste products are 100% biodegradable and recycled. Can humans make the same claim?

There is already at least one place that bans pussy cats to protect native wildlife – Lord Howe Island, off the coast of New South Wales, Australia. I imagine there are some similar small islands set aside as wildlife refuges that ban cats and dogs and other predators. I have no problem with that. Of course keeping them out from the get-go is not quite the same issue as eliminating or exterminating them once established, and when it comes to New Zealand, you can hardly claim the entire country as a native wildlife refuge, and cats are already well established there playing the role of companion animal and making lots of people happy.

Ultimately the New Zealand scenario is not going to happen – there are too many cat and companion animal lovers who vote. Then there’s the cat industry from veterinarians to the producers and manufacturers of cat food, kitty litter and litter boxes, cat collars, food bowls, etc. All of this and more means cats are a major employer as it were, given the number of moggies in residence not only in New Zealand but around the world. Human self-interest will ensure that cats will be with us for generations to come. 

*In fact that’s why the cat was accepted into human company in the first place. Back in the days of primarily rural settlements, agricultural-based communities and farms, cats kept in check the mice and rats and daresay the birds that would otherwise feed on the grains, etc. the farmers were trying to grow. There was no question back then what side the cat sided on with respect to human tolerance.

The Trouble with Human Evolution: Part Two

When it comes to the standard model of how modern humans evolved from our primate ancestors, be prepared to ask the tough questions and see if they get answered to your satisfaction. Questions like can you really go from primates to what makes you, the reader, you, via natural selection in 6 to 7 million years. So, if you think the standard model is unlikely, and you reject any supernatural explanation that leaves but two alternatives: artificial selection or we’re simulated beings.

Modern humans have evolved over the past six to seven million years a number of traits that make us, Homo sapiens, a very unique species indeed. Here are some more of them.

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

A VOCAL LANGUAGE

* Is an anomaly in that only humans vocalise not only everyday, routine, survival ‘language’ (all manner of animals do that) but abstract concepts (which no other animals do).

* A vocal or spoken language required to communicate abstract ideas, as apart from just making sounds, requires an evolutionary rearrangement of the relevant internal organs required; lips, teeth, tongue, hard and soft palate, larynx, etc.

C - Cats meow, lions roar, but their meow (or the lion’s roar) has nothing to do with communicating abstract concepts like basic mathematics.

TOOL USE

* Is an anomaly in that while a few other animals can make and use tools, that relative degree of sophistication relative to what humans have achieved is akin to comparing the survival skills of a day-old infant with that of an adult.

* Tool use requires an evolutionary rearrangement of the finger-hand-wrist-arm-shoulder configuration, as well as that extra-large brain thingy to figure out that a tool is required, what resources are required to make that tool, and how to manufacture the necessary implement from those resources. A lot of just-so conditions have to be met to accommodate even the most basic of tool technologies. 

* Tool use could ultimately prove our undoing as tool use, or technology, is a double-edged sword. A gun can put food on your table; it can also exterminate humans.

C - Cats are not adapted at using tools. If they could use a can opener and a spoon they could get their own meals! That would suit me just fine, but alas.

BREEDS or ETHNIC/RACIAL DISTINCTIONS

* Are anomalous in that when taking into consideration the rest of the animal and plant kingdom, breeds (groupings that look different but can still breed and produce non-sterile offspring) tend to be associated with artificial, not natural selection. Are human breeds therefore a product of artificial selection, and if so, by whom? 

* Human breeds cannot be adequately explained in the just 70,000 or some odd years since that one unique racial type of Homo sapiens migrated out of Africa and spread throughout the globe diverging into numerous racial types. Even if there were several migrations out of Africa, a wave of migrations, all those migrant waves were of one race or breed. The 70,000 year time period is very short, the blink of an eye in evolutionary terms, to achieve this uniqueness of going from a local African uni-race to a multiracial global society. Further, the evolutionary (survival of the fittest) advantage or reason(s) for ethnic distinctions are lacking any rational natural explanation, apart from in some selected races, skin colour.

C - Your standard pussycat comes in various breeds. That’s artificial selection at work, albeit the whodunit in this case is well known.

UNIQUE FACIAL FEATURES

* Are a relatively human anomaly. Apart from identical twins, no two humans from the neck up look the same, and thus this is how we tell human identities, once seen, apart. We tend to tell animals of the same species or breed (if applicable) apart by size, colour, skin/fur patterns, abnormalities, or else we don’t distinguish who’s who at all. To me, all magpie faces look the same. The question is, why humans have unique facial features and not the rest of the animal kingdom?

C - If you took 100 pure short-hair black cats, same size, same sex, same eye colour, could you tell them apart by looking at just their face? I doubt if I could.

THE WHITES-OF-YOUR-EYES

* Are anomalous in that apparently no other animal show them, and based on all the animals and birds I see around my local environment, that certainly seems to be the case.  So why do we show the whites-of-our-eyes? There would appear to be no rhyme or reason for this natural human evolutionary (if it was a natural selection) trait. The whites-of-our-eyes: how very, very odd.

C - Cats have whites-of-their-eyes, only you have to peel back the skin surrounding their eyeballs to see the whites-of-their-eyes. Looking at a standard cat, you’ll fail to see the whites-of-their-eyes.

EARLOBES

* Are anomalous in that apparently no other mammal (and certainly not any fish, amphibian, reptile or bird) have them. So why do we have them?

* Earlobes? WTF you ask? Well we all know that our earlobes serve a cultural purpose or function as a prime site as an accessory to fashion – pierced ears and earrings. However, earlobes serve no actual biological function. You could exist, survive and thrive without them. Because we alone have earlobes, and because they serve no biological purpose, they are anomalous.

* On the other hand, earlobes apparently don’t do us any harm. But, biological evolution tends to select for the positive benefit, not the neutral. Why would Mother Nature evolve them if they serve no biological purpose? WTF indeed!

C - Cats have ears; cats do not have earlobes.

RISK TAKING

* Is anomalous in that if done just for the sake of doing it, serves no positive evolutionary purpose or outcome while accenting a negative one, giving oneself a ‘Darwin Award’ for eliminating yourself from further contributions to the evolution of the human species. 

* No animal will engage in any hazardous activity that doesn’t have some connection towards its own, its immediate family brood, its community or its species survival. An animal doesn’t take risks just for the sake of taking risks and just for the thrill of it all. Humans however will often engage in extreme risky activities, without any benefit to anyone, including themselves, except to perhaps remove themselves from the gene pool. Risky behaviour might include right up to and including suicide which most decidedly removes you from the gene pool. Suicide is not a trait that tends to be shared by our animal relations, and apparent exceptions, like whales stranding themselves in shallow water, have a physiological explanation. 

C - Cats are not known to take risks above and beyond the call of their feline duty, even if they do occasionally get stuck up a tree!

PRIVACY AND EMBARRASSMENT

* Is anomalous in that no animal species, outside of the human species, seems to be the slightest bit concerned with privacy (not to be confused with territoriality or personal space, rather just privacy from being observed under certain conditions or in certain situations usually of a sexual or bodily function nature). Nor do animals, unlike humans, suffer any form of embarrassment. That suggests that there is no evolutionary or survival aspect to the need for privacy or the suffering of being embarrassed. Somehow, in humans alone (but not yet in babies or infants), these concepts have been imprinted onto our collective psyche. Imprinted by whom? What is the ultimate origin and how far back does it go? Why is it so? Who knows! But the upshot is that this has to be a cultural quirk; it’s certainly not a biological one.

* There are apparently two real taboo places in human society where intruders are not welcome: the bedroom and the bathroom, or put another way, sex and bodily functions, where privacy is paramount and when violated, embarrassment ensues. The latter especially is puzzling in that bodily functions are universal. Every human has to go to the bathroom, all women have ‘that time of the month’, so why these should be embarrassments if witnessed by others is anomalous. That’s also highlighted in that sex and bodily functions are not biological events which animals find requires privacy or causes embarrassment to them if witnessed by others.

* Nudity per se doesn’t seem to be the root cause, as people seem to be way less shy of appearing nude in fairly standard social situations than when engaged in more personal bedroom/bathroom matters that require exposure.

* Embarrassment in humans can be caused by many other oops events, maybe comical, like wearing mismatched socks, maybe somewhat more serious like splitting your pants in public. But if an equivalent event happens to an animal, no such reaction comes to the fore. For example, if you stumble and fall down, piss your pants, or vomit in public, you’re embarrassed. If an animal does the equivalent, it just picks itself up and acts like nothing unusual transpired. Animals don’t blush.

C - Cats don’t care if you or another cat sees them mate or go to the litter box. They don’t suffer embarrassment and they don’t blush.

CATS

C - Its only fair to ask in regards to my feline comparison, does a cat have any anatomical or physiological or behavioural feature unique to them and only them? The surprising answer is yes. Cats purr, and the reasons why and how are still not well understood. Humans don’t purr. No other animal purrs. Their big cat relatives don’t purr, but then again lions and tigers, etc. roar, and your pet pussy cat doesn’t. So perhaps the two vocalizations are related from way back when they all had a common ancestor! But purr or roar, there appears to be no evolutionary drawbacks, just positive survival benefits like warning off rival lions (my roar is louder than your roar) or mother/kitten bonding in cats.

CONCLUSIONS

* There are four possible explanations for the various anomalies associated with the existence of the modern human species relative to our alleged ancestral stock which goes right back to the chimpanzees. In descending order of probability, IMHO, there’s the simulated universe scenario inhabited by us as virtual entities (created by ‘persons’ or things unknown and probably forever unknowable); there’s artificial selection (the ancient astronaut theory); there’s natural selection (the Darwinian biological evolution concept); and way, way last, by a wide, wide margin, there’s supernatural creation (the dust-and-rib theory and variations thereof).

* Why this ordering of probabilities? There are many paths to a simulated universe, from wetware to software, via extraterrestrials or maybe a future ‘human’ society, that it borders on the near inevitable. There’s but one pathway to the artificial selection scenario, though that too is just about inevitable. There are many issues to be had with natural selection as this essay demonstrates, though that’s the standard model. Lastly, the concept of an all-perfect supernatural deity who would screw up things so royally is laughable – as is the concept of a supernatural deity in the first place.

* The interesting bit is that a virtual reality simulation could easily be a simulation of an ‘ancient astronaut’ generated artificial selection, or Darwinian natural selection, or even a supernatural creator deity! Truth be known, only the simulated universe scenario makes any real sense, IMHO, because therein, “anything goes”, and when it comes to the problems with human evolution, one needs an “anything goes” explanation.

The Trouble with Human Evolution: Part One

When it comes to the standard model of how modern humans evolved from our primate ancestors, especially apparently the chimpanzee, you should be prepared to ask the tough questions and see if they get answered to your satisfaction. Questions like can you really go from chimpanzee stock to what makes you, the reader, you, via natural selection in 6 to 7 million years? That’s not just a little change, but a massive change and on several broad physiological, anatomical and behavioural fronts. Contrast your society, lifestyle and body-plan with that of the chimpanzee. So, if you think the standard model is unlikely, and you reject any supernatural explanation, that leaves but two alternatives, an artificial selection by ancient aliens, or we’re akin to characters in a video game – we are simulated beings.

Modern humans have evolved over the past six to seven million years a number of traits that make us, Homo sapiens, a very unique species indeed. We alone of all the mammals (as well as all invertebrates, amphibians and reptiles) have a bipedal gait. We alone of all of our primate cousins are for all practical purposes hairless. Of all the animals that are, or have ever been, we’re top of the pops with respect to brain size as a function of body size, and in terms of intelligence, king of the hill full stop. And while animals can communicate via vocalizations and body language, none can communicate the extremely wide range of practical and especially abstract concepts that we can. Last, but not least, humans are nearly unique in making and using external tools, tools unique in terms of their sophistication.

All five major traits noted above, and a lot more that’s related besides, don’t seem to be a requirement for basic survival, since other species survive and thrive without them, and in fact all these major five defining traits (and more) seem to have some actual evolutionary drawbacks, not the least of which require very serious modifications to basic primate anatomy for apparently no increase in that Darwinian phrase “survival of the fittest”. The proof of that pudding is that our ultimate primate ancestor still survives – the chimpanzee; their ultimate descendent survives – the modern human; yet all those in-betweens hominids who were presumably adapting via natural selection resulting in all those evolutionary changing improvements, went kaput – over twenty species of them. If these “survival of the fittest” evolutionary adaptations were all that crash hot and necessary, then why was their demise? Any ancestral hominoids that went extinct prior to 200,000 years ago can’t have Homo sapiens as the villain. Those 20 plus extinct hominid species aside, why aren’t many of those natural selection improvements really so crash hot for us modern humans either? Here’s the trouble with human evolution. But first consider this.

THE ROOT CAUSE & DRIVING FORCE

The current standard model of human evolution explains the ‘why’ question due to rapid and extreme shifts in climate in continental Africa over that six to seven million year period. The central problem there IMHO is why these shifts failed to drastically produce evolutionary changes in the rest of the animal populations like elephants, lions, hyenas, giraffes, zebras, wildebeests and other African landlubbers as the Dark Continent went from jungle to forest to savannah to arid deserts and back again.

Now of course environmental change is a major driving force behind biological evolution, at least when it comes to natural selection. But one has to look at the Big Picture, the entirety of the bio-realm and not just isolate one changing species and link the two and ignore all else. The environment changes and hominoids change but all the other species seemingly don’t change. That makes for an anomaly. 

One of the key phrases in evolution is that “there is a price to pay” for change – no free lunch or get out of jail card is authorized. That “no pain, no gain” price applies whether you’re dealing with natural or artificial selection. But I sometimes wonder whether one is getting a fifty-cent gain return on a dollar investment worth of pain. Consider the following. 

OUR BIPEDAL GAIT

* Is an anomaly in that human beings, alone of all the mammals, walk routinely on just two legs.

* It called for a complete redesign of our musculoskeletal system vis-à-vis our chimpanzee ancestors.

* That results in an increase in all our various painful bad back trials and tribulations.

* And it also requires a rearrangement of our internal organ attachments.

* A bipedal gait needs a harder working heart to pump blood up to our now higher upper reaches, like the head and neck, instead of mainly sideways. A bipedal gait means having to fight the better fight against gravity.

* A bipedal gait results in an increase in difficulties in maintaining an upright balance (especially as one grows older) because the centre of gravity has shifted dramatically. It’s much easier to push over a standing human than say a standing dog.

* A bipedal gait further results in a decrease in survival value due to the ever possible loss of or injury to a leg, foot, ankle, etc. Lose the use of a leg and in the wilderness, you’re nearly helpless.

* A bipedal gait has to the best of my knowledge only arisen once before, and that was in the theropod dinosaur branch, like T-Rex, etc. That was the branch that gave rise to the birds, therefore they are also bipedal, but it originated with an early, early ancestor of T-Rex. Some may argue that kangaroos and their relatives like the wallabies are bipedal, but they don’t put one leg in front of the other in a left-right-left-right-left-right fashion. They hop, which doesn’t quite put them in the same category as humans or even birds. Further, the theropod dinosaurs, the birds, and even the kangaroos all have tails to help keep their centre of balance, well, balanced. That’s cheating!!! Humans lack that support structure (a rather sad tale I’m sure), so I’ll argue that the human bipedal gait is still unique among all animals, past and present. Humans remain the one and only really bona-fide bipedal entity. Okay, a few tailless primates can ‘walk’ for brief intervals, but their normal locomotion is via their four limbs on the ground when not swinging in the trees.

C - A bipedal gait isn’t a lifestyle walk-the-walk gait that is commonly noted in cats – in fact it isn’t noted at all. Why cats? Why not cats? C is for Cat; C is for Comparison. So as a comparison, let’s take cats, who have a multitude of feline relatives (tigers, lions, etc.) and who have survived and thrived for quite some considerable time. Why cats? Firstly because I’m familiar with cats and secondly because they are an advanced multicellular relatively sophisticated mammalian species, much liken to us. Cats share a great deal with us humans apart from being warm-blooded mammals. Cats, like humans are curious, playful, tend to look after number one, are territorial, like to sleep, dream, have a good memory, show emotions, and like humans have colonized the globe – except Antarctica – either as domestics or as ferals or as wild animals, etc. But, they don’t walk-the-walk on just their two hind legs!

A LARGE HUMAN BRAIN

* Is an anomaly, along with that associated brain thingy high IQ or intelligence we have, relative to the rest of the animal kingdom, which collectively aren’t quite, by any stretch of the imagination, in Einstein’s league. Humans have the largest brain size as a function of body size in the entire animal kingdom, again, apparently both past and present. .

* A large human brain makes for an increasingly hazardous childbirth. The relatively large head of the foetus at childbirth, having to pass through the space available via the hip opening, has resulted in not just a rather painful experience for the mother (and presumably the infant too) but has often led to the premature death of a lot of said newborns and/or their mothers. Now another anomaly here is that if the human body has accommodated all the massive anatomical changes required for a bipedal lifestyle, you’d think an increase in the birth canal hip opening size would have been relatively evolutionary child’s play. 

* The human brain takes years to develop fully, nearly two decades worth in fact, leaving infants totally dependent on others for survival. Infants need care not just for a few weeks or months or seasons, but for many, many years, extending right through their teens, thus cramping the lifestyle of the parents. This length of time for brain development and associated acquiring of survival skills to fully develop is unprecedented in all other primates.

* A large human brain is a very energy-intensive organ. In fact 25% of our energy requirements are required to fuel our upstairs grey-matter wetware. That in turn puts additional pressures on hunting and/or gathering for that extra in food resources required to supply that energy need. Apparently the increase in those energy demands is what drove us to begin to hunt down and eat meat and invent cooking (to make the meat easier to digest). Well, maybe.

C - Cats, however endearing, are not a little feline version of Einstein.

A LACK OF FUR

* Is an anomaly since humans alone of nearly 200 species of our primate cousins are considered a “naked ape”.

* Our relative lack of fur makes us dependent on sweating for temperature regulation, also making us highly dependent on sources of freshwater and salt.

* Our relative lack of fur has the apparent advantage of enabling humans to become long distance endurance runners since we can continually keep cool, even while running, by sweating, yet what we are running after (prey), or from (predators), don’t sweat and therefore are quickly overcome by heat exhaustion. We get a meal, or escape from being one. Well that’s the standard scenario. I think it would have made more sense to have used our social group numbers, increasing IQ and tool making abilities to hunt and ambush game rather than running them down. As for escaping predators, perhaps we should have retained our tree climbing abilities, and if no trees were available, there are always rocks to throw and sticks to club predators with. I’m not convinced loss of fur in order to sweat in order to run marathons in order to eat or avoid being eaten are related in a cause-and-effect way. In any event running is also very energy consuming and it isn’t normally sound practice to expend more energy than you have to, especially when you don’t know where and when your next meal is coming from. And if it is advantageous for evolving hominoids to lose fur, take up sweating, take up jogging, and run to exhaustion large prey animals, then it should also be advantageous for other predators, like the lion, to do the same. But that hasn’t happened. Why not?  

* Our relative lack of fur requires the need, as a substitution, for clothing in cooler environments. Why a human, originating in and adapted to a tropical climate without need of fur, therefore without need of clothing, would migrate into cooler, even cold habitats where fur, or now a clothing substitute instead, is a near requirement, is itself an anomaly. You swap fur for clothing, but clothing in itself requires a whole lot of special skills to produce – fur doesn’t.

C – Cats, as well as their wildlife big cat cousins, do not lack a natural covering of fur. 

To be continued…

Universals of the Human Condition: Part One

Every human is unique in terms of their worldview. Every society, every community, every suburb, every village, town, city, county, state, country has a unique identity. Every culture, race (ethnic grouping) also has a unique identity. Yet there are certain universals seemingly shared across the board by the great majority of individuals comprising any and all narrower divisions. Some of these universals are mysterious; some not so mysterious. Here are just a few of them.

Well it’s obvious that all humans share various and fundamental universals – death and taxes! Quite apart from that famous observation about certainty, we’re all susceptible to diseases like cancer, the flu and the common cold. Also universal are heart disease and heart attacks. We all have at least one phobia and we share common emotions as well as a common anatomy and body plan. We all need to fill what’s empty; empty what’s full; and scratch where it itches. Are there any exceptions for the need to sleep, perchance to dream? Let’s explore several other universals, though this is not meant to be a universally exhaustive list, which are innate to our internal psychology and/or based around external realities.

Afterlife: Humans are probably unique as a species in having a before-the-fact awareness that we are going to kick-the-bucket. I doubt if any other animal has an awareness of the concept of their own death. However, relatively few of us probably want to die, though the alternative, if you stop and think about it, immortality either with or without eternal youth, isn’t very pretty either. Anyway, it’s not surprising that we have come up with the next best security blanket going – an afterlife. Alas, wishing for it doesn’t make it so. You’d really think that if an afterlife was reality then somehow some definite proof would have filtered back to us aging mortals, just to shore up our belief system.  

Bigger Is Better; Size Matters: If you ask any child or adult to name several dinosaurs, it’s a sure bet they won’t name the turkey-sized ones! Then there’s the Guinness Book of Records that accents things that are big, bigger, biggest. Men want larger private parts; women bustier busts. And ask any Texan what really matters! We’ve all heard of keeping up with (and surpassing) the Jones family! They’re not called ‘Tiny Macs’ but of course ‘Big Macs’ and we’ve all heard of super-sizing!

Civilization: There are universal mythologies that don’t credit humans with any smarts in our march towards civilization. Important knowledge wasn’t hard won by us; rather it was given to us by the gods. You name it; it was a sort-of from on-high Xmas gift. Fire is one example; agriculture another; weaving yet another. If it wasn’t for the gods, we’d still be in the Stone Age, primitive hunter gatherers.

Clothing: To a greater or lesser extent, the human species now covers itself with clothing. Sometimes this is for protection, for the sake of art (so-called ‘fashion’), for conformity, and because society says so. That wasn’t always the case and in terms of animal life on Earth we’re the lone exception in having that kind of nature of body covering.

Cooking: When you think about it, cooking food is somewhat anomalous. All other life forms are adapted to eat all their nutrition in the raw state, be it the flesh of plants or the flesh of animals. And so too must early humans been so adapted, and even today we do eat a lot of plant flesh uncooked. The central ingredient required for cooking was fire, but whether the use of fire for cooking was obvious to Blind Freddy is doubtful. Fire was useful for light; for heat; for keeping large dangerous wildlife at bay, but cooking? No doubt the first cooking experiences were accidental, but that art has spread through to all societies. Cooking is now one of those universals. And while we think nothing of eating cooked meat now, and usually avoid raw meat, it must have been quite the brave individual to actually try cooked meat, say a dead animal ‘cooked’ in a bushfire after a lifetime of eating nothing but the raw variety. 

Creations: This one stumps me, unless we were told by the ‘creators’ or those more in the know that there were creations. I doubt we could figure out that things get created from personal observations and historical records. Consider the Sun. Every day we see the Sun rise and set. We ask our parents and they say that in their lifetime everyday the Sun rose and set. They say that their parents said the same to them, and their parents before them. We consult historical texts from thousands of years ago, and what do we read, well Mr. Sun rose and Mr. Sun set, it rises and sets, rises and sets. There is no person or history we can consult who can suggest anything other than the Sun rising and setting forever and ever and ever no matter how far back you go. If you could ask the dinosaurs their observations, well they too would have to tell you about that rising and setting Sun. Why would you not assume that the Sun has always risen and set? Translated, based on all available evidence you would have to conclude that the Sun had no starting point and based on probability, won’t have an end point either. The Sun is infinite in time. The Sun had no creation. The same argument applies to the ground underneath your feet – Planet Earth is infinite in time. Since you can’t actually question the dinosaurs, you have no reason, no contrary evidence not to believe humans as a species didn’t always exist. So how come you have “In the beginning God created…”? Why does every mythology contain creation stories – for the cosmos, the Sun, Earth, plants and animals, even for humans? - Something’s screwy somewhere. 

Deities: We don’t like mysteries. Well actually we do like mysteries as long as we can solve them to our satisfaction. If we can’t explain a mystery, there’s a convenient ‘out’ or explanation at hand. We attribute that unknown to some power higher than our own; a supernatural deity in other words. Unknown forces become ‘acts of god’ or godly miracles or ‘god works in mysterious ways’, etc. And so the unknown is explained. Mystery solved. That satisfies our curiosity, at least in the short term. That doesn’t mean supernatural deities really exist, but since we’ve named so many thousands of them they probably do exist – as extraterrestrial flesh-and-blood ‘deities’ that is. Regardless of their reality, a deity is also very useful as a scapegoat to blame when things go wrong, instead of blaming yourself, which would probably be a better reflection of reality. Deities can in the popular imagination get up close and personal and if you piss one off – not all that hard to do apparently – that explains all your troubles from the insignificant to the minor to the major, even life-threatening. And it’s a very universal human trait to shift the blame and find a scapegoat.

Fiction: When animals communicate with each other they tell the truth. Bees communicate where a new food source is; animals cry out warning/danger sounds and there is no doubting by those in hearing range the truth behind the message; dogs bark for a positive reason and whatever that reason, it’s representing something about the animal’s perception of reality. Humans however universally invent stories; untruths; fictions; lies; which sets us apart from other animals. The purpose of these fictitious inventions are varied – entertainment value; make a moral/ethical point, etc. Some fiction goes under another name – advertising! However, storytelling is a universal human trait; a universally absent one in the rest of the animal kingdom.

Fire: One thing common in major mythologies is that fire was a gift from lesser gods even if they nicked it first from higher authority. Prometheus is the obvious example though there are numerous parallel examples from North American Indians, even Polynesia and referenced in the Books of Enoch. However, that’s rather odd. You’d of thought that the ‘discovery’ of fire; the ‘gift’ of fire, was universally a natural event – no gods, no gifts, required. It would be a rare environment that didn’t experience natural forest or bushfires due to lightning strikes, or via lava starting fires from active volcanoes. Such natural sources should have prevented any need of an unnatural source, which is one via a deity.

Future Happenings: Animals have way too much on their plates to concern them in the here and now to worry too much about tomorrow. Even if they do it’s probably a case of ‘whatever will be, will be’. That’s despite some animals squirreling or storing away food in the good times for when times are not so plentiful. That’s just pure instinct on their part, not an original foresight concept thought through and through. Humans on the other hand from all walks of life, then and now, are obsessed with tomorrow and beyond. Maybe that’s because we alone know that our demise looms in that future of tomorrows. And so there’s a flourishing industry in astrology and soothsaying, prophets and oracles, tea leaves and chicken entrails. It’s all nonsense of course except to true believers, and perhaps, for deeply embedded psychological reasons, that includes the majority of us, even if we won’t admit it.    

Ghosts: That reports of and beliefs in spirits or phantoms or more commonly ghosts are universal throughout all societies, past and present. They probably have origins in people latching on to any possible evidence that proves there’s an afterlife. If the concept of an afterlife is a security blanket for humans facing inevitable death, ghosts are a security blanket that supports an afterlife. But, how do you then account for phantom trains and buildings or ghost ships or other non-living objects that sometimes appear as ghostly images? Something’s screwy somewhere – yet again! Actually that screwy-ness might be evidence that we’re actually ‘living’ in a simulated universe; we’re just virtual reality not real reality and phantom trains say are just the residue of previously overwritten software.

Humans First: Actually that’s ‘humans first and foremost’ in all things where there’s a conflict between what humans want and what everything else needs. Translated, when it comes to the use of land, humans vs. the environment for biodiversity or endangered species, it is humans first and foremost. A typical case history is the Amazon Forest vs. humans – humans 1; forest 0. If humans want to use land that’s home to an endangered species – screw the endangered species. If farmers have crops attacked by wildlife – kill the bastards! Universally, it’s called ‘progress’ and nothing stands in the way of human progress – even other humans as the native Amerindians found out. Ditto that for the Aztecs, Incas, and the Australian Aborigines too. I recall here the Spencer Tracy narration for the film “How the West Was Won”, narration that’s not exactly something that’s politically correct in today’s society: “This land has a name today, and is marked on maps. But, the names and the marks and the land all had to be won, won from nature and from primitive man.” [Easterners heading westward would] “Look at a mountain and see a watershed; look at a forest and see timber for houses; look at a stony field and see a farm”.  That’s how the west was conquered. Actually it’s all God’s fault of course. We take direction from His Holy Words and He instructed us to be fruitful and multiply (like rabbits) and take dominion over the Earth, its lands, oceans and all its living inhabitants. He, being all knowing, realised we’d get carried away and go way over-the-top and stuff things up. That’s His secret agenda – instead of drowning us in another flood, He’ll let us exterminate ourselves into an extinct species! That way God doesn’t have a guilty conscious.

Humour: Humans alone and collectively within the animal kingdom have a sense of humour. We tell and play practical jokes; comedy shows on TV abound as well as feature length comedy films. It’s a rare work of literature that doesn’t contain at least a few lighter moments; ditto most other works of drama. However, the question is why? Humour has no survival value in any Darwinian sense. I mean do your odds of surviving a shark attack just happen to lie in your telling the shark a few dirty jokes thus distracting it while rapidly back-pedalling out of the water? In any event, the transmission of humour usually resides in language, and humans were on the road to civilization way before we had language. So humour and survival do not seem to be linked. So, how do we explain this human trait? It’s universal; it’s yet another example of something’s screwy somewhere. 

To be continued…