12. desember 2003

The God of Pain Gregg Easterbrook is mostly known as a sports writer, but he also writes a lot about religion (where his big mouth got him fired from ESPN). I actually knew about the religion part first, since I know nothing about American Football, and I ran into his rather desperate Christian apologetics in a Wired article a year ago. My friend Rocketman brought to my attention a more recent example of Easterbrook's grasping for evidence for God's existence, in his Tuesday Morning Quarterback column at NFL.com. He discusses mechanisms that may explain so-called Near Death Experiences, and writes: Among them are that brain anoxia, or oxygen depravation, causes the optic nerves to sense white; and that at death the body releases all stored endorphins (no need to keep saving them) to stop mortal agony and create a sense of peace, making dying less traumatic. The latter biological possibility is actually one of the reasons TMQ believes that human beings were made by a God who loves us. Why would natural selection have cared about reducing a person's trauma at death? All natural selection cares about is fitness in passing down genes; if after replicating its DNA an organism dies in pain or panic, what's that to evolution? In Darwinian terms, there would be no "selection pressure" favoring the peaceful death over the horrible death. Yet there appear to be biological mechanisms that help most people die peacefully. Why are such mechanisms in our physiologies? Maybe because somebody loves us. I can see it clearly now: Just after the "God who loves us" had created cancer and malaria, and topped it off with the Ebola virus, he saw that it was good, but on second thoughts... "Nah, I think I'll at least give the poor creatures a few seconds of ecstacy when they expire, by adding a bit of an endorphine kick here." Easterbrook's theology is mildly disturbing, but he has at least a decent grasp of the biology. It is true that an endorphine kick at death can't specifically evolve by natural selection, since it would be no reproductive advantage with this feature. His argument still doesn't fly, however, because he has failed to account for this final endorphine kick being a side effect of another feature, one that is selected for by Darwinian mechanisms. And that is the primary purpose of endorphines: they are the natural pain killers in our brains. The brain being able to function during what would otherwise be intolerable pain would surely give organisms a survival advantage. It just so happens that when we pass away, this mechanism is sometimes triggered in our brains, mercifully letting us leave this world in bliss instead of pain. 10:23:39 PM    comment []  trackback []

Chimp, human genome differences investigated The human and chimpanzee genomes are about 99.2% identical, which essentially means that if your genes were 0.8% different, you'd live in a tree and eat lots of bananas. Now scientists are trying to find out what exactly those differences are, and which are due to natural selection. Of those human genes that have a known function - about half the total - nearly 50 are linked to smell. Many of them seem to be decaying into uselessness, probably reflecting the lesser importance of smell in our lifestyle relative to that of chimpanzees. The team also found changes in 21 human genes that are linked to hearing. "It is tantalizing to speculate that this could have to do with language," says [Svante] Paabo. "People will now analyse hearing in apes with greater interest." I wonder if we sometimes overestimate those differences that are related to mental skills, since we're very proud of our brains and consider it what sets us above other species. One can similarly imagine elephant scientists being exceptionally concerned with the length of a specie's nose. 8:46:04 PM    comment []  trackback []

Berlusconi prepares us for summit failure "Everybody" leads with the story about Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi warning against jumping to a bad deal. "If [negotiations] can't be concluded by Sunday morning, it would be better to continue [talking] than to make a bad deal," Silvio Berlusconi said. Let us get this right. He is not really warning against a bad deal, because any deal now would be great as far as he is concerned. A deal would mean breaking the impasse, and I just don't think e.g. Poland or the UK are likely to back down on their essential issues. No, Berlusconi is telling us that the summit will fail on voting rights, and he is making a preemptive statement that this isn't a bad thing. Which, of course, is correct only for those of us who'd like to see the new constitution draft being publicly burned at the Place de la Concorde. 8:36:52 PM    comment []  trackback []

This just in: Europeans don't give a shit Europeans have no clue and little interest in the ongoing Euro-constitution discussions at the EU summit. Ordinary Europeans have told the BBC they have little understanding of what the leaders are talking about. In Paris, people who spoke to the BBC's World Today programme either said they had "no idea" or hoped it would be a "constitution like the French one with liberty, fraternity and peace in the world". ...and no rain on Sundays. 5:41:47 PM    comment []  trackback []

Groan of the day "Heinz catch up" (Slate front page headline for this article about John Kerry and his rich wife) 5:35:22 PM    comment []  trackback []

Things to do in the blogsphere when you're creative The Gothamist writes about what not to do when blogging. He doesn't like the word blog, which is associated with the writings teenage girls do in a LiveJournal. He doesn't want bloggers writing about their jobs, lovers, dogs or themselves. And once you start blogging, don't stop doing it. Only eight rules so far, but they will keep coming. 1:53:33 PM    comment []  trackback []

"I'd rather just talk about music" Rolling Stone magazine has an interesting interview with Apple boss and guru Steve Jobs, where he's talking about iTunes, iPod and the music industry generally. 5:09:50 AM    comment []  trackback []

Prepare to have your door blown in Bradley A. Buckles, the director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), is to take over the Anti-Piracy Unit of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). With RIAA already having the same reputation the ATF got after the Waco massacre, it can only go further downhill from here. 2:51:04 AM    comment []  trackback []

Virginia arrests spammers Virginian law enforcement authorites have arrested one NC man, Jeremy Jaynes, for violation of the state's new antispam laws. State Attorney General Jerry Kilgore said negotiations about the surrender of a second man, Richard Rutowski, is ongoing. Jaynes and Rutowski are charged with violating limits on the number of messages a marketer can send and falsifying routing information. Both are illegal under the Virginia law that carries penalties of 1-5 years in prison and fines of up to $2,500 on each count. The two sent more than 100,000 messages in a 30-day period this past summer touting penny stocks, low mortgage rates and software to erase Internet browsing records, Virginia officials charged. Jaynes, who uses the alias Gaven Stubberfield, ranks as the eighth-worst spammer in the world, according to the anti-spam watchdog group Spamhaus. Neither man could immediately be reached for comment. Now throw away the key. 12:28:03 AM    comment []  trackback []

© Copyright 2004 Jan Haugland. Last update: 01.01.2004; 02:46:40.