Reverse Evolution

An interesting story for our very troubled times. In times of world-wide crippling strife and violence around the world, many a mind can wander to the hallowed halls of simpler times – at times, of eons past. Way eons past. Of times quite unknown to homo sapiens who has made his indelible marks and blazed his labyrinthine trails on this small green dot in the universe no more than 50,000 years ago.

Of times of mental or intellectual simplicities, or call it retardation for after all that is how it is called today. To times of the hominids, not yet then quite adept to walking erect and using hands with the unique opposable thumbs for a myriad of purposes. Purposes, both good and sinister.

The story below seems to tell us that those times are not quite extinct as we all would like to believe. Scientists at present can only say that this may be caused by closely-related parents handing down to their offspring faulty genes causing this evolution throwback, characterized by mental retardation and walking on all fours.

Just think if human hands continue to be specialized primarily for mobility and motility, there necessarily would be less violence inflicted on another’s neighbor using one’s resourceful digits. That would be good. Right?

Ever wondered why the police’s first priority in apprehending any criminal is to cuff the hands?

Just some crazy troubling thoughts.

The time-warp family who walk on all fours
by BEN FARMER, Daily Mail 08:31am 7th March 2006

An extraordinary family who walk on all fours are being hailed as the breakthrough discovery which could shed light on the moment Man first stood upright.
Scientists believe that the five brothers and sisters found in Turkey could hold unique insights into human evolution.

The Kurdish siblings, aged between 18 and 34 and from the rural south, ‘bear crawl’ on their feet and palms.

Study of the five has shown the astonishing behaviour is not a hoax and they are largely unable to walk otherwise.

Researchers have found a genetic condition which accounts for their extraordinary movement.

And it could provide invaluable information on how humans evolved from a four-legged hominid into a creature walking on two feet.

Two of the daughters and a son have only ever walked on two palms and two feet, but another son and daughter sometimes manage to walk upright.

The five can stand upright, but only for a short time, with both knees and head flexed.

Their remarkable story is told in a television documentary, to be screened next week, which shows scientists studying their movement, but also their struggle to fit in with modern society.

Professor Nicholas Humphrey, evolutionary psychologist at the London School of Economics, visited the family twice. He said: “It’s amazing as an example of a strange, strange aberration of human development. But their interest is how they can live in the modern world.”

The five are all mentally retarded. Their mother and father, who are closely related are believed to have handed down a unique combination of genes which result in the behaviour.

Some researchers argue the genetic fault has caused the brothers and sisters to regress to a form of ‘backward evolution’. Others believe it has led to brain damage which has allowed them to develop the walk.

Rather than walking on their knuckles, like gorillas or chimpanzees, they walk on the palms of their hands, with their fingers spread upwards.

Scientists believe this may be the way hominids moved to protect their fingers for more delicate movements.

Prof Humphrey said he thought the family had reverted to an instinctive form of behaviour encoded deep in the brain but abandoned during evolution.

He said: “I do not think they were destined to be quadrupeds by their genes, but their unique genetic make-up allowed them to be.

‘It has produced an extraordinary window on our past. It is physically possible, which no one would have guessed from the modern human skeleton.”

Study of their hands has shown they are heavily callused and have been walking like this for years.

Prof Humphrey said: “However they arrived at this point, we have adult human beings walking like ancestors several million years ago.”

The five siblings spend most of their time sitting outside the family’s basic rural home.

However, one brother travels to the local village where he engages in basic interactions with people.

The documentary, to be shown on BBC2 on Friday, March 17, is called The Family That Walks On All Fours.

Another From Google Video

Not all videos available in it's treasure cache are as controversial as the previous one. Like for example this one which shows a very adept Michael Jackson performing. Okay, so it is a smaller version of MJ.

From Google Video : A Question

Do you find this video parody offensive?

A Personal Critique On Popular Blogs and Their Commentaries

As I intimated in a couple of earlier blogs, one of my avid avocations when I get the opportunity has been to cruise around the obstacle-ridden racetrack popularly named as the blogosphere and like the proverbial fly on the wall to scan through the different entries and the often juicier commentaries allowed. And some popular ones can typically boast of upward to 200-300 comments in one post. Quite a few registering over a 1,000 comments. Very good traffic figures, indeed. If that’s the paramount target.

But personally, I find the present prevailing format quite cumbersome and exactingly confusing, no different from having to wade through thick clutter to get at the gist of where things stand. Granted most everybody in the blogosphere have ripe opinions about most issues and are avidly and readily expressing them.

But what about those who simply want to read and learn from the discussions?

Blog surfers are invited to visit some of them to get a taste first hand how at times wading through the main blog entry and the ensuing commentaries, and at times updates on the main entry, can be a very daunting task especially for visitors severely restrained by time limits or maybe suffering from some kind of attention deficit.

Especially in hotly-commented sites, when one enters in the middle of a discussion, no thanks to time constraints or time differentials, one feels no different from having stumbled into the middle of a fierce gunfight. Think OK Corral. Bullets are whizzing by every which way, not really knowing whether they hit the targets or not. Or whether they are simply stray bullets fired from a gun and not really intended to hit any target. Just shots fired.

And most riveting blog entries no doubt are floated out to stir up and to engender wholesale animated discussions on controversial or hot-button issues of the day.

How are the readers helped in their dilemmas, problems, unease, nagging questions, etc. about the differing issues that are being propounded?

Personally, I believe many are confused and none the better off than when they initially chanced upon the discussions. I know that’s how I feel at times.

Many blogs, not unlike a number of those listed on the links on the right, have simply abandoned the idea of allowing comments after their entries. Aided in their decision by the nasty development of having commentators using the ready access and space to litter with indecent, defamatory, silly, at times outrageous remarks. And there is also the universal problem of spams forcibly inserting themselves and littering blogs through comments.

Now, wouldn’t it be nicer to have some kind of order to this madness, for maximum penetration and effects?

Some organized format so that those coming in at any point of the discussion can easily grasp some sense of direction and purpose of the discussion. And in the process learn and be educated.

Many are familiar with the debate format which makes provisions for a more orderly and dispassionate discussion, analysis and assessment of different and differing issues.

I propose we make accommodations to use this format or something similar to it, incorporating such salient components as a list of “givens”, a little intro on the realities in which the question exists, a definition of terms and issues to frame and limit discussions/commentaries to relevant points, etc.

No doubt a welcomed departure from or a modest improvement on the present free-wheeling, open-thread type discussions that permeate and contribute to the gathering disorder of the entire sphere.

A healthy development for this much-touted salvific interactive medium.

The Happiness Index Revisited

Here’s a very interesting, though findings are not novel, latest report on a poll on happiness from the Pew Research for the USA. Download complete report on pdf here.

Could the findings apply to other countries as well? Why not?

Being still a nation of immigrants, it ought to be a microcosm of the population make-up of the world.

And maybe more arguable than the one where the beleaguered country of the Philippines scored highest among its more progressive neighbors?

Some very interesting correlations between certain factors such as income, religiosity, political affiliations and beliefs, etc. Now remember just correlations, meaning factors going together or found together, but not necessarily one causing the other.

And another qualifier, the survey did not measure happiness based on psychological characteristics or life events down to the individual’s level, such as being happy because of a promotion, owning a new house, or losing a boyfriend, etc.; rather the field of happiness is measured in demographic and behavioral traits.

Income and Happiness

Well, obviously our conventional wisdom about happiness not being bought by money may have to be rethought and re-aligned. Why?

Because the report shows that increasing incomes also signal increasing happiness. As incomes rise to certain levels, happiness also rises.

It is then hard to imagine how very poor sectors of a population could show significant levels of happiness as a behavioral trait.

Political Affiliation

To be applicable for our purposes we may have to replace this category with whether a person has conservative or liberal political beliefs.

For some reasons those who are conservatives show a greater percentage of being happy than those who are liberals.

Does this explain then why when one visits the different political blogs, or even those which occasionally write about local or world politics, those on the left, or more appropriately those on the hard-left, engage more in hateful, belligerent, and negative rhetoric than the other side? Remember it is just a correlation.

Religiosity

Those who are quite open about their religious faiths and attend services frequently tend to be happier than those who don’t. And even within different religious affiliations, the correlation still is that those who frequent more services are happier than those who don’t.

Discover also findings on other factors such as Marriage and Parental Status, Race and Ethnicity, Age and Gender, and Work, Education, Health, Geography, and Miscellanceous.

Finally, here’s a quote from the report about this statistical technique called multiple regression analysis:

One way to find out is by way of a statistical technique known as multiple regression analysis, which gauges the relationship between each factor and happiness while controlling for all the other factors. That analysis shows that the most robust correlations of all those described in this report are health, income, church attendance, being married and, yes, being a Republican. Indeed, being a Republican is associated not only with happiness, it is also associated with every other trait in this cluster. Even so, the factor that makes the most difference in predicting happiness is neither being a Republican nor being wealthy - it's being in good health.

The same regression analysis also finds that education, gender, and race do not have a statistically significant independent effect on predicting happiness, once all the other factors are controlled.