Simply Complex ...

A recent copy of Scientific American contained an article concerning the latest astronomical research on the search for ‘habitable planets’ which might be suitable for ‘life’ or which might, some day, be an alternative home for humanity. It raised the point that our sun is already past ‘middle age’ for stars of its size and type, and entering (or perhaps already in) its first decay phase. Why is that of interest? After all, we are reasonably certain we have something like 7 or more billion years before it actually ‘dies’. 

Turns out, we may have a lot less than that. The problem is that, as it ages, the sun is getting hotter, which means that the ‘sweet zone’ in which our planet sits, is actually migrating outward toward Mars. Already our planet, once thought to be safely in the centre of that sweet zone, is perilously close to the inner edge of it. Which means, in a mere half million years, our oceans will have boiled away, life will be all but extinct in any present form, and the atmosphere will be largely acidic, toxic and probably hot enough to flash water to steam. 

Other articles discussing the drift of continents, volcanism, oceanic circulation, climate change (or not) and quantum physics all convince me that scientists seem to love to do their thing in splendid isolation and with complete disregard for anything in any other field which may impact on theirs. Thus, ‘Climate Scientists’ ignore geologists providing reliable and well proven data concerning historic warm and cold periods. Information from glaciologists is also ignored, unless it accords with the ‘warming’ narrative. As for anything the astronomers say, well that’s ignored as well. 

Into this rich mix of conflicting signals and messages - made even more complex by politicians running with the bits that suit their agendas, and the masses of terminally blinkered ‘laymen’ who refuse to see anything that counters, conflicts or refutes their favoured ideology/beliefs - the quantum physicists, anti-religionists and the media and you rapidly move to a situation where the last thing anyone listens to is ‘reason’. It becomes a scrum, a slanging match of competing ideas, evidence, and argument, and, as the Book of Common Prayer puts it so eloquently, ‘the truth is not in it’. Or perhaps it is, but it is neither as simple as each competing ‘science’ claims, nor as ‘logical’ as their various adherents think.

One of the great misconceptions in the ‘media’ and thus the wider public, is the difference between ‘theory’, ‘hypothesis’ and ‘reality’. A ‘theory’ is something that has been conclusively established, by observation, by hard evidence and by repeated re-examination, experiment and confirmation from numerous sources and vast amounts of research. Thus, the theory of Tectonics, is established by measurement, examination of rock samples, observation of subduction and eduction zones and by evidence gathered from analysis of the chemistry of rocks, gases from volcanoes and so on. Climate Change, on the other hand is still in the hypothesis category, simply because the ‘hard’ proof is proving elusive, and while there is historic and geological evidence to prove that climate changes, what is not ‘proved’ or agreed is what causes it. The media, and here I include the Internet, conflates everything, so any ‘new’ paper that catches the attention is trumpeted as ‘proof’ or ‘conclusive’ when often it is anything but.

And then there is astro-physics and quantum physics. Both branches of mathematics, and both heavily reliant on mathematical models to test and ‘prove’ their theories. Their ‘hard’ evidence comes from telescopes, satellites, photographs, the lander on Mars and now the ESA satellite and lander on a comet, and the Large Hadron Collider. These are the branches of science that always put me in mind of the Wizards in Sir Terry Pratchett’s books. More particularly in the group that inhabit the High Energy Magic building at Unseen University, and who probably wouldn’t recognise ‘reality’ if it attacked them. Thus one can marvel at the paper produced recently by a group of quantum physicists that ‘proved’ (using computer models) that out entire universe is a hologram. 

Quantum Physicists marvel at the fact that some of their (modelled) particles apparently defy Newtonian Physics, and some may even defy Einstein’s theory of Relativity. According to them our universe is a 3-D projection originating in a 4-D Universe, itself a projection from a 5-D Universe, etc., etc., and presumably ours ‘projects’ a 2-D Universe somewhere, and that … These are the guys who get super excited when they can smash an atom and find bits they’ve never seen, which cannot possibly be seen, and which can only exist independently for moments of time we can’t even begin to measure (though I’m sure someone has named them). Sometimes reading about the ‘latest’ revelation in this field, or in genetics and other ‘microscope’ or ‘modelling’ branches of science, one gets the impression that the writers are standing so close to their subject, and so focused on the minutiae, they cannot see the larger world, and sometimes the reality, around them. 

Science is exciting, it is informing us of wonders even our most recent forebears couldn’t have imagined, and it is both exciting and terrifying. Exciting because we are, to abuse a phrase from a more famous author, we are catching glimpses of the Divine, but it is terrifying for the same reason because some of what we are now seeing defies logic, or raises so many more questions we cannot yet answer it suggests we may be better off not poking a stick into these things.

Returning to the American Scientist article briefly, the finding that the sun has got hotter, and the ‘sweet zone’ is migrating past us, it raises a serious question about Climate Change. If, as is now predicted, in less than 500,000 years, we will be sitting on a nearly barren lump of rock being scorched by a slowly swelling and overheating sun, precisely how will we protect ourselves and maintain ‘life’? The answer in the article, is that our survival depends on migrating away from here before that date, yet it seems that no one is interested in that option. There does not seem to be a single body (and as far as I’m concerned the UN would be the worst possible body to do it) that is looking at anything longer than the next five, ten, fifty or hundred years, and all of them are doing so from purely the perspective of ‘how do we keep the voters sweet, the money flowing, and stay in control’.

As I said at the outset, none of the sciences seem to put their data together and see the bigger picture, or indeed, consider what another discipline can tell them that may mean adjusting their own hypotheses. The response when one suggests it (even as a lowly ‘fire investigator’ looking at a complex fire event with ‘specialists’ and ‘experts’ from other scientific disciplines) is, “Ah, outside my field. Not relevant.” So I read in various places that the Tera tons of ice covering the Antarctic continent ‘will be gone in less than a hundred years’ and that the Arctic will be ‘ice free’ within ten, twenty, … take your pick. All claims made by scientists and activists whose purview is restricted to the evidence of their own particular discipline/ideological beliefs and ignoring records from ice cores and geologists that there may be a cycle to this. There is outright denial in some quarters of the fact that in the period 900 - 1200 AD, the Greenland islanders kept cattle, something that is impossible today.

We are constantly told that storms and floods are a result of climate change, yet any engineer will argue that more paving, more roof surface and building in flood plains will all result in greater flow of water into rivers, faster, and more dangerously than even fifty years ago. We are told sea levels are ‘rising’ in places like Manhattan, yet a geologist will tell you that the weight of the buildings etc., on the island is depressing the crust beneath the island, so it is a moot point as to whether the sea level is rising, or the land sinking. We have the same effect in Southern Britain where the land is sinking and Scotland rising slowly as a result of the crust adjusting from no longer being covered by almost a mile thick ice sheet.

The one thing in the universe everyone seems to agree on (except perhaps the adherents to some of the new ‘religions’ of ‘science’ and ‘climate’ who are experts at neither) is that everything is in a constant state of change. Nothing is static, so instead of, as some campaign so passionately for, trying to arrest change, we need to find more efficient ways to adapt. We need to rein in our explosive expansion of the human population and stabilise it - something we can change - and we need to find more ways of co-operating instead of competing.

Isaac Asimov once declared that if humanity is to survive, and to expand into interstellar space successfully, all nations must pool their resources and their expertise. Only then can the full human potential be realised. Only then can we successfully escape the confines of a dying planet and, perhaps, the consequences of our present hubris.

Race or Religion?

Listening to a discussion yesterday on the conflict and tensions between 'Palestinians' and 'Israelis' one of the debaters, an earnest young woman, clung to her theme that 'Jews' are simply members of a 'religious movement' and not a distinctive 'race'. Her argument is the familiar secular/humanist one that revolves around the diversity of Jewish genetics, and the relative comparison with 'Palestinian' Arabs. Both, it can be said, are 'Semitic' peoples, and therefore, it is argued, the only distinction is 'religion'. This argument misses a key element of 'Jewishness' - which is that the 'religion' does not, as Shakespeare would phrase it, 'a Jew make'.

Anyone can 'convert' to Judaism, but that does not make them a 'Jew'. To be a Jew, you have to have been born of a Jewish mother. In typically pragmatic fashion, the Jewish 'Law' of inheritance states that 'a man may have many fathers, but only one mother' and therefore inheritance is through ones mother, not your father. As the admirable programme for the BBC by Simon Sharma on the History of the Jews explains, they are a very diverse population. A true 'rainbow' nation, and Judaism (the religion) is just as diverse. It is a monumental mistake to claim they are 'just followers of a religion' and not a 'people' of distinct lineage, whatever the 'genes' indicate. Unless one is completely isolated from contact with other human tribes for, I suspect, at least a thousand years, the chances of retaining one particular 'pure' genetic lineage are pretty remote.

One has only to look at the modern human population of Europe to see this. What makes anyone English, German, French, Scottish or Swiss? Genetic samples of any population with produce matches across the entire spectrum. Does this make us all members of some Pan-European 'tribe? Are all Scots inflicted with red hair and blue eyes? Of course not, but those who argue that 'Jews' are not distinct as a racial group try to advance that argument. In fact, they are misled by their own propaganda, since whether a Jew has his most recent roots in Europe, the steppes of Russia, or the US, there are a number of particular 'markers' in their genes that link them. Once again, that simple statement of 'many fathers, only one mother' comes into play. It is something that should be far more carefully considered - especially in relation to the Jews, who, as Simon Sharma so ably points out, have been the world's 'whipping boys' since the beginning.

So, if their genes are as diverse as everyone elses' (barring the already mentioned unique markers) why is their religion such a unifying force? After all, there are probably as many Jews who do not believe or practice it, as there are those who do. Why, as Simon Sharma tells us, do even those who do not believe or regularly 'practice' the religion, still call themselves 'Jews' and why do they still mark the major festivals following the timeless rituals? That is what seems to confound the secularists, because the 'religion' is a product of the 'race'.

What we call the Old Testament is a remarkable document. Though much of it is allegoric narrative, particularly the first five books, parts are a historical narrative of folk memory, and later parts are the moral discourse on the abuse of power and wealth by the political classes that lead, eventually, to the dispersal, it is a remarkably cohesive story. It is the story of the creating, the welding together, of a people, 'The Jews', as a single unit even in a worldwide 'diaspora'. Few, if any, people on Earth have such a cohesive identity as the Jews. It is far more than their genes, and it transcends their religion, but it is a mistake to attempt to categorise the one without the other. The Bible underpins both the Jew as a race, and the 'Jew' in religion, but, once again, one has to realise that the 'religion' and the 'race' are not just intertwined, but are both badges of 'indentity'.

Yes, they are, by and large, a Semitic people, but that is simply a 'category', a 'label' for those who love to force large issues into small pigeonholes so they can ignore the more complex matters in dealing with them. That, I suspect, is why we have so many problems politically in the world today. By reducing everything to the 'lowest common denominator' those in power, and those on the peripheries who love to voice an opinion on such things, try to ignore and suppress the very real, and far more complex issues such actions are intended to hide. By denying the Jews a distinctive 'Racial Identity' the 'problem' of Israel/Palestine can be reduced to one of 'religion' and from there, the belief can be advanced, that 'religion is the cause of the conflict'.

Convenient, but far from accurate, and a major reason that no solution is likely to be found anytime soon. When those who bandy about the idea that 'being a Jew' is the same as 'being a Muslim' finally realise their assertion does not stand up to scrutiny, we may perhaps begin to find solutions to many more problems in this post 20th Century world.

Those Neanderthal Genes

Recently genetic material was recovered from some Neanderthal remains recovered at an archaeological site in Spain. It appears to have caused some excitement among geneticists since it raises some questions and, perhaps, answers others. Increasingly scientists are having to reassess their theories on this branch of humanity. It now begins to look as if they may have been a distinct, and now extinct branch of humanity. Just as there is greater ‘ethnic’ variety between distinct populations in Africa than outside it, there may have been a similar diversity elsewhere with different ‘species’ of humanity developing side by side. 

The common mythology about the Neanderthals is that they were one step in the evolutionary chain that eventually produced modern Homo Sapiens Sapiens. It also says that they were brutish, lacking in any creative skills and barely sapient. Now we know, since the DNA shows it, that they were a completely separate genus of the human family. The archaeologists have also found that Homo Neanderthalis used tools, created some wonderful ‘jewellery’ out of shells and stone beads, had clothing made of hide and even shoes. Hardly total thickos incapable of civilised behaviour.

There is considerable evidence that they indulged in some elaborate ritual behaviour. Their burials show evidence of some form of religious system. That they could organise quite complex activities is evidenced by the fact they hunted some large animals by driving them toward and over cliff faces or into gorges. One of their preferred targets being the Woolly Mammoth. What we do know about them is that there brains were larger than ours, and though this does not necessarily mean they were more intelligent, it does indicate the ability for ‘higher thought’. There ‘range’ of occupation is equally interesting, with them leaving signs of their presence across Europe, the Russian steppes and Asia. There is no trace of them in Africa and they vanished from the world around 40,000 years ago. The general hypothesis concerning their extinction is that they simply ‘lost out’ to the ‘new, improved’ humans - but we may now have to rethink that as well.

They thrived in Europe and Asia for close on 60,000 years, most of it at a time when Northern Europe was buried beneath an ice sheet. There is evidence to suggest they may even have helped our early ancestors adapt, perhaps teaching them how to make clothes, or survival skills in the cold. So, what really happened to them?

The latest thinking is that they may have simply been unable to adapt as the ice retreated and the first hunter gatherers of Homo Sapiens were followed by increasing numbers of newcomers competing for food. Now comes the interesting bit about their DNA. Modern humans carry around 3% of Neanderthal genes in our X Chromosome, but no trace of it in the Y. Even more interesting, these genetic markers are completely absent from almost all African populations. These genes are also absent in the Australian Aboriginal gene pool, suggesting that they had no contact in their migration, with the Neanderthal peoples. It seems that our distant ancestors interbred with Neanderthal women, again suggesting that Neanderthal and Homo Sapien tribal groups were in contact long enough for the genes to become part of our genome. Equally interesting is the fact it is these genes which give European and Asian peoples the lighter skin tones, hair types and colouring and the variety of eye colours we have. 

Blue, green, grey and other eye colours are not found among African populations which have not interbred with non-African populations, and neither is the fine straight hair found elsewhere. It seems the Neanderthals have left us an interesting genetic legacy. The debate seems set to become more and more interesting as our understanding of the genetics involved in the development of humans as we know them today increases. 

I foresee some lively debates and some very interesting discoveries in this field for the future. I suppose one can but speculate what the world would look like if Homo Neanderthal had survived to become the dominant species ...

Medical Dilemmas ...

Those who suffer allergic reactions are familiar with the need to take loads of antihistamines to suppress the reaction. Mine is an annual bout of battling pollen, and a month on antihistamines which always makes me wish someone would find a 'cure'. There are some supposed 'cures' but they are also high-risk and don't always work.

Some years ago I learned that Hayfever, Asthma and Eczema are all caused by the same gene defect, but it is rare for someone suffering from the first of these to develop the other two. Unfortunately, those who develop Eczema frequently also develop Asthma and it can get even more complex. Medical science focuses on treating the symptoms of these ailments, rather than treating the cause - difficult when it is caused by the bodies own defences 'reacting' to a non-infectious agent such as pollen. My own allergies are house dust and grass pollen, though I seem to be reacting to a few other species of pollen lately as well. Other folk react to animal hair, certain foods (some folk get migraines from eating chocolate) and a wide range of other 'trigger' substances.

Part of the problem, of course, is that we are basically 'Mk I' humans, and though we have adapted our environs, our genes haven't yet adapted to many of the things those adaptations have introduced. Add to that, the damage we take from various illnesses we suffer, exposure to some substances in our careers, or inadvertantly in our homes, and the cumulation means we wind up allergic to something.

Step forward the pharmaceutical industry.

While many ailments can be cured, others have to be 'managed' by palliative treatments. Like my hay fever. I dose myself with an antihistamine preparation which - most of the time - relieves the symptoms. I also resort to some 'old fashioned' practices, like flushing my nose with salt water, and, more recently, using a 'wand' type device which is inserted into the nostrils and bathes the reacting mucosa in red light. It is a case of just trying to get through the worst of the season as best one can - which is what our ancestors did for much of the time I suspect. I know many of mine resorted to becoming seafarers - no pollen at sea at least.

Now the problem with daily doses of antihistamine is that it affects more than just the parts of the system that are responding to the pollen. It affects the whole of the immune system. So, if you also suffer from some other underlying conditions, you reduce the bodies natural response to those as well. This is why I tend to 'take the meds' only when I'm already pretty desperate, which, of course, means they are much less effective. While Hayfever is very common, it isn't the focus of a great deal of research. Why? Largely because there is more money to be made in already available preparations which deal with the symptoms, than in trying to find a way to cure it.

That leads me to a recent article on treatments for cancer which is based on boosting the immune system. The problem with cancer cells is that they generate an agent which 'blocks' the immune system and prevents it from acting to destroy the cancer cell. So the discovery of that, and the development of the means to 'boost' the immune system so it does attack tumours is a major step forward. But now comes my question - how will this work for someone who needs to take an immune system suppressing agents to control - for example - Hayfever?

Perhaps it is time the pharmaceutical industry did take a look at finding ways to treat those of us who are sensitive to pollen, dust and other 'particulates'. Hayfever, Asthma and Eczema are possibly the most common allergy conditions in every population group. Yes, we are a lovely 'cash cow' for all the preparations we have little choice but to use when our 'affliction is upon us', but, since it is already known which gene causes it, and what the 'defect' looks like - why, of why, can't someone come up with a proper cure?

Could some 'researcher' reading this give it some thought please?
 

Societies in Decline

Students of the wider sweep of history are very acutely aware, I suspect, of the manner in which societies - and their attendent cultural forms and influences - rise and decline. Sometimes they are violently overthrown and even eradicated by a more aggressive neighbour. Egypt versus the Hittites, Hittites versus the Assyrians, Babylon versus Assyria, Persia versus Babylon, Greece (Macedonia) versus Persia, Rome versus Greece, versus the Carthaginians, and so on. Along the way there is often an element of 'ethnic cleansing' - Rome's Punic Wars against Carthage, and their suppression of the Etruscan civilisation, spring immediately to mind - but that is the tip of the iceberg.

In the Far East there is a similar pattern of rise and fall of societies and cultures, each one weakening one society, often by simply killing off all males. There is evidence that this happened in Britain once the Angles and Saxons began a serious settlement invasion. Recent reading I have been doing on the subject of genetics and genetic diseases suggests, for me, a possible explanation as to why we are seeing an increasing number of genetic defects in the world's populations, and why, in some groups, we seem to be seeing a form of 'regression' physically and mentally. I must stress that I am NOT a geneticist. I have NO qualification in that field and I know only what I can access online, in paper journals and books on the subject. So what I think can be dismissed by those with far more knowledge as "speculation" - but I would hope that someone, somewhere, will be kind enough to consider this, and perhaps explain to me why I am wrong - or why I'm right.

Many now accept that western society is in decline. We have lost our competitive edge as the business phrase is, and our taste for military adventures. Our response to threats such as that posed by Iran or Mr Putin's Russia, is to retreat into hand-wringing appeals to their 'better nature' and launch into a flurry of 'diplomatic activity' and horse trading until someone, somewhere, can emerge waving a bit of paper and proclaiming "peace in our time". A century ago, we'd have sent a Fleet and bombarded someone until they saw our point of view. And that is part of the problem I am about to raise. Each of those 'little' wars culled sections of the human gene pool. Until the so-called Great War of 1914 - 1919, the numbers were actually quite limited - assuming one ignores things like the French losing 10,000 of their nobility at Agincourt, or Napoleon's loss of 100,000 men retreating from Moscow. In the Great War, however, all the European nations and their colonies threw the cream of their genetic pool into the trenches and carried out a cull of it on an industrial scale.

Then we repeated the folly barely twenty years later - and this time involved the rest of the world. Add to that, the Russian Bolshevik 'cull' now estimated at more than 30 million, and the Japanese 'cull' of Chinese in Manchuria and elsewhere (estimated at around 10 million), Mao's cull estimated at 100 million, and we have a stage set for a massive restriction in genetic diversity. The impact is probably most notable in the former British Colonies and Dominions since the "European" genetic pools in these countries was quite small, and their losses during the first and second World Wars disproportionately high. However, the Germans and their allies, and the Russians and their's suffered higher losses than everyone else in this conflict, and the French probably, in proportion, most of all. So why have we not seen the collapse of their populations before this?

Part of that answer is, I think, due to the fact that post 1945, their populations have grown, expanded and to some extent been replaced, by inward migration from all over Europe, and lately, from Africa and the Near East. The loss of genetic diversity among the 'native populations' has, to some extent been masked and the effects delayed by it. In Britain, where there has tended to be less 'mobility', I would suggest that the loss of genetic material has had a more visible and insidious effect. There has been a large increase - according to one source an above average increase, in the incidence of Multiple Schlerosis, Thyroid problems, Aspergers Syndrome, Parkinsons Disease and several other genetically caused disabilities. Given that we know it requires a minimum of 2.5 million people to provide the unrelated genetic diverstiy to prevent 'inbreeding' in any population and all the problems that causes (I'd love to know who the genius was that included the ban on marrying brothers, sisters, fathers, mothers, cousins, etc., almost 3,000 years ago in the Bible), it does not take a genius to work out that a lot of this is down to 'bad genes'.

So where do they come from? Back we go to the 1914-19 and 1939 - 45 wars. All sides lost millions of young men. Young men at the height of their breeding capability, and at the point where the genetic material they carried was at its best. Then we subjected the survivors to diseases, to radiation, to chemicals and a range of conditions, stresses and diets guaranteed to cause genetic damage - and now we reap the results.

OK, so I'm not an expert. I'm not a biologist, and I'm certainly not a geneticist, but the more I read on this, the more I realise we have a serious problem. That we have compounded it by interfering in the process of 'natural selection' as well, just makes it worse. Who cannot be moved by the grief of parents who have a child whose only hope of survival at birth is a total replacement of all its organs? (There was a case of this a while ago where the NHS was sued to force them to provide it for a desparately ill baby) What does it actually achieve, given that the reason is the child's genetic blueprint is loaded with defects?

Yes, the World Population has exploded and expanded since 1945, largely due to the eradication of a range of diseases we were prone to and which the weakest members of our population gereally succumbed to. Infant mortality has fallen everywhere, more children survive to adulthood and breed, more adults survive beyond 45 years and some even breed into their sixties. All of which adds more genetic defects to the pool if the latest research saying that men over 30 are more likely to pass on defects than under that age. Children who died in their prepuberty often did so because they lacked resistance to certain common ailments, or had some defect in their systems which meant they couldn't cope with it.

For Europe, I would suggest that our gene pool was seriously weakened by the wars of the 20th Century, and though it is now diversifying again, it is simply widening the range of damaged genes we can use. As I said at the outset, I'd love to see what the real geneticists, biologists and experts say about this. So far I see and read a lot of skating round the edges, but, as far as I can see, no one is prepared to take a longer and wider look at it.

Maybe someone should.