Building better monkeys

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Most of my thoughts for this post come from an article in The Republic out of Columbus, Indiana.  It was titled "Building a Smarter Ape?"  and can be found here: http://www.therepublic.com/view/story/SCI-EVOLUTION_5848336/SCI-EVOLUTION_5848336/

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Of course it talks about the new Planet of the Apes movie, Rise of the Planet of the Apes.  It reports that increasing the size of the brain alone wouldn't allow apes to attain most human qualities.  Agreed.

It also claims that apes can be trained to use sign language.  Disagree.  Apes can learn signs, but that is very different than sign language, which is an entire set of languages with complex grammar, dialects, etc.  American Sign Language is one of these, a full language.  Signed Exact English is where people spell out the letters to make words in English, and very different from ASL, or any of the other sign

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languages.  Apes can learn signs.  Not sign language.  For example, the given example from Gary Marcus "They say they want more bananas, or they want to be tickled, not, "I wonder what would happen if France defaulted."  The apes wouldn't say (or sign) "I want a banana."  The sign would be more like this "banana I I I banana want banana I banana want want banana banana" The English language usually structures sentences subject verb object (I want a banana).  I thought I heard that American Sign Language usually has a different setup (like I banana want).  The ape never learns the preferred structure.  It throws out the needed words at apparently random intervals.  I'm not totally sure it would even get the verb word in there.

The article makes some interesting points about how some humans, because of developmental defects, have chimp sized brains, but that they, even with deficits, are much more advanced than apes.  The author also explains that neanderthals had larger brains than we do, but had no art or symbolic thought.  I read a research article that seems to refute this, saying that neanderthals were smarter than we give them credit for, but whatever. 

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The author of the article then gets into questions of advantages of a bigger brain.  Some theorists suggest that "varied climates required early hominids to be craftier" which is ridiculous to me at least, as there's all kinds of animals that lived in varied climates.  Maybe they are craftier, but they are certainly no closer to being human than the apes are.  Others, the author says, think that bigger brains allowed them to get more mates.  Again, this strategy would be equally effective for every other species that mates, but humans are different from all of them. 

A final thought with regards to why the bigger brains is that having the father involved in child care allowed more kids to be raised, and for kids to have longer developmental periods (no other animal has an 18 year development period. :)  This leads up to my favorite quote of the article "the no-strings-attached mating strategy of male chimps might be limiting their brainpower."  I love it. 

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Of the listed reasons for a bigger brain, it is the only one that I can't immediately rule out.  The others though seem to be possible driving causes for a bigger brain, whereas this one doesn't show a cause, but rather, a way that would allow for bigger brains to develop. 

My reasoning on the issue, which is equally scientific (that is to say unscientific, just as these others are as yet unproven hypotheses) is that we have bigger brains, because we needed bigger brains, to allow us to do the things that God our father in heaven wants us to do.  Or to not do those things, according to our wishes. 

Actual science on this issue would require us to recreate human beings at multiple points on our proposed evolutionary path in the same environments that they were in, and then get out of the way and see what they do in terms of does the smartest guy get more girls, or are smart genes picked up over time by moving to different environments, or is there a point at which the males start helping to

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care for the children, at which the brain starts to grow and other uniquely human traits begin to develop?  This is one of those few cases where animal models can't really help, because the issue under investigation is how humans became different from the other animals, and so only human subjects will do.  Unless actual human experiments are done, this whole field is left to grasp at ideas and let others critique them, with individuals stating their opinion without being able to test it.  Not science.  Kind of like religion, except for the different beliefs with regards to provenance of knowledge. 

Anyway, the article finally gets into the issues of genetically altering apes to make them more human.

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While this couldn't definitively answer issues of how humans got to where we are, it would be very interesting, and could give some strong clues.  I think it's a great idea.  Mwa ha ha!

Thoughts on Meat and Grass

I have similar views on meat and grass. They are both great. But they are also both over-utilized. Kind of a default in meals or landscape planning. I think changes would be beneficial in both cases. Let's start with meat:

Meat comes from animals. These animals lived for a certain length of time before they were killed for their meat. During their lives, they had to eat to grow. This usually means grains, like corn, wheat, etc. How much acreage of these grain plants are used just to feed animals that will in turn feed us?
http://www.extension.org/faq/4027

The link above reviews how the numbers vary, from 2 pounds of corn per pound of cow, to 20 pounds of corn per pound of beef. In any case, I'll just say 10 pounds of corn makes one pound of beef. So a 1/4 pound burger requires 2.5 pounds of corn that the animal fed on. Obviously a guy eating corn will be responsible for less acreage of corn planted to feed him than a guy that eats beef. So for our meat we have all the processing and space required of cows, and all the processing and space of their grain feed required. Eating lots of meat is costly for the environment, as compared to eating grains.

http://www.animal-rights-library.com/texts-m/lappe01.htm

According to the previous link, 1/2 of all our harvested acreage goes to livestock feed. It also compares eating grain-fed animal meat to driving a cadillac. The quantity of land required to support meat production is one reason not to eat so much meat. I'm not a vegetarian, and I don't see any pressing need to become one, but I do think that we could cut down on the amount of meat in our diets.

My second issue with meat is the huge disconnect between the living animal and what we put in our mouths. It is my personal opinion that every person should have to kill a cow before they eat beef, kill a chicken before they eat one, etc. This makes a lot of people queasy. But seriously. People that are willing to eat dead animals should be willing to appreciate that they are responsible for killing dead animals. We need to be ok with that. I think if everyone killed an animal once or twice, or even watched a video of it, maybe people would find it easier to consume a little bit less meat. I think consuming less meat is a good idea. Especially for me, because I can be a pretty hard core carnivore sometimes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-cor1uZ2AM&feature=related

The above is a link to Overlooked: The lives of animals raised for food. May bring tears to your eyes. Anyway, I think it's a good thing to see. More and more people are decreasing their consumption of meat, and I think it helps in terms of money, health, and the environment.

As far as grass is concerned, think about it. Why do we have to have it everywhere? Why grass and not something else? It's soft underfoot, but we put in sikewalks and try not to walk on it. Some might say it looks nice. I think maybe we are raised to think this. But think about it, if you're going to have a landscape portrait on your wall, would you rather have one of grass, or plants native to your area, or other plants? You don't see many huge portraits of grass. As the matter of fact, I've never seen any. There may be grass in a portrait, but it is never the focus of the piece.

The guy in the following link thinks grass is analogous to debt. We have both because we want to have what others have: http://www.debtreductionformula.com/blog/history-of-grass-lawns/
I don't have any problems with grass. It's a good place for a picnic. It's a good place to walk bare foot on. It's a good place to run and throw balls and play. But think of all the places that have grass in them. It's not just areas that are used for these things. You see it in lots of places that people never are meant to walk on. Here at University Village, there are huge swaths of areas between parked cars and buildings, and between roads and fences, and behind buildings... places that no one wants to walk, or picnic, or play, when there are so many better areas away from the cars.

Now consider how much it costs to water all of this grass. How much time and effort it takes to mow the lawns, use fertilizer, weed killer, etc. All the digging for sprinklers. Grass gets used in places like Utah where it is too dry, and so it costs more than in other areas. And yet we do it. Because everyone else does.
When I go up to research park to the clinic on my bike, there's this tiny little patch between properties that is untended by people. At some times of the year, there are sunflowers. There are also purple flowers, white flowers, yellow flowers, and a number of green plants. There are mice there, and maybe some snakes. A number of birds are always about there too. There are bees and bugs, and all kinds of little things. At some point it will get 'developed' and all this will disappear. And it will become grass and cement. I don't think grass can compare, and cement certainly can't.