PERSONAL ACTIONS FOR CLIMATE CHANGE AND POLLUTION

 My FACEBOOK site includes many entries about the current knowledge of climate change and controversies related to it.  Some of the information is depressing including  many predictions.  Is there anything we can do NOW to alter the course?  There are three separate problems that  come together and the solution to each one is different.  At least some of the climate effect is related to human activity,  so at least some of the solution must be changes in human behavior.

The climate problem is dramatic warming of the earth that is the result of the changes in atmosphere.  There is evidence that some of these changes are the result of the dramatic increase in use of fossil fuels that release CO2, methane and other substances into the atmosphere.  The solution to this includes: 1) finding and utilizing alternative energy sources to replace current human fossil fuel demands for energy. 2) Arresting and/or reversing atmospheric changes and their associated temperature effects.  and 3) Human adjustment to the changes already occurring that are not reversible.

( https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2023-08-27/worried-about-climate-change-you-can-make-a-difference-heres-how

The things I can do for climate change right now are reducing my "carbon footprint" including using less energy, and sourcing my energy from renewable sources.  A typical example might be using more energy at low usage times of others.   For example, the New Yorker talks about "moving slower" (not typical for New Yorkers) since the rate of speed of all transportation uses more energy.  

( https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/to-save-the-planet-should-we-really-be-moving-slower

This also includes modes of public transportation when many people are moved together at a reduced use of energy. 

( https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/25/climate/buses-trains-ridership-climate-change.html

The idea of lowering your "carbon footprint" is not so clear.  An interactive checklist shows that the data for various personal changes is not always that significant.  It turns out that being "car free" and a diet without meat are more effective than lowering your thermostat, or car pooling.

( https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/12/15/opinion/how-reduce-carbon-footprint-climate-change.html

Installing roof top solar panels on your home will certainly lower your electricity bill,  but it will not, by itself, in aggregate over many homes,  replace other sources of electricity.  Large solar, wind, and other projects must be funded to effectively replace demand,  and deal with storage issues.

( https://www.latimes.com/environment/newsletter/2023-06-29/can-rooftop-solar-alone-solve-climate-change-heres-the-answer-boiling-point    https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/07/realestate/microgrid-solar-power-energy.html

 Climate changes do not impact all regions of the country equally.  Insurers now are able to rate houses and regions by their climate risk, and either give up writing insurance on risky homes,  or greatly increasing the cost.  This raises the question of why people choose to live in locations with high climate risk.  Some moved there without knowing.  Some cannot afford to move elsewhere.  But the long term consequences will not apply equally.

( https://firststreet.org/

 The following LA Times series addresses many of these and other issues.  Most important it keeps the issue in mind so that people can't use denial and avoidance to not deal with the unpleasant reality.  (People have been ignoring this since the 50s!)

( https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2023-08-15/climate-change-challenge

There are changes that must be done by large groups,  and this involves politics and political action.  A group of young people in Montana have sued the state about failing to protect their environment for future generations.

( https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jun/12/young-activists-held-v-montana-climate-change-first-constitutional-trial 

But at the federal level, many groups are in competition with each other for support,  rather than developing a unified voice.  

One of the effects of warming is a rise in sea level,  something that has already begun with the melting of arctic and antarctic ice.  There are two options:  spend impossible amounts of money to enclose shorelines over large areas (as in the Netherlands)  or move back away from the flooding regions.  Here again,  humans must decide what the best solutions are AS A GROUP.

( https://www.latimes.com/environment/newsletter/2023-09-21/does-california-have-what-it-takes-to-adapt-to-sea-level-rise-new-book-offers-hope-boiling-point

( https://bookshop.org/p/books/california-against-the-sea-visions-for-our-changing-coastline/19407155

 Fire in drying forests is another result.  Here the option is really only to get out of the way,  though some choose to rebuild in fire ravaged places (like Paradise CA).

Climate changes  also figure in increasing drought in sensitive areas, reducing the available water supply as a result.  

( https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10584-023-03517-0

To complicate things, one scientist points out that the targets and goals set for reducing carbon levels are not realistic and that more gradual changes are all that are possible,  with ongoing problems in climate.  He does not say we should abandon efforts,  but that the magnitude of what is needed is not doable in the current time frames.  The climate will continue to change.

( https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/04/25/magazine/vaclav-smil-interview.html

 The problem of pollution is a separate but related issue.  Human daily activities create extensive waste, both biological,  unused foods,  materials,  and the wastes of industrial production.  These pose problems of 1) magnitude/amount the amounts so great that disposing of them without other disruption is difficult. 2) Persistence: some current waste elements do not degrade back to component natural elements in fractions of human lifetimes,  so there is an untenable accumulation over time. and 3) Toxicity: many substances have long term toxic effects from which humans must be protected.

The simplest answer is don't use things that pollute.  The less you use,  the less goes into landfills or is burned.  Fashionable clothing that is discarded after it goes out of style,  intentionally, to sell more fashion,  is a great example and landfills in Africa no longer accept this waste from developed countries.  Some of the problem is persistence: the manufacture of clothing with fabrics made of artificial fibers does not degrade back to natural substances rapidly, or at all.  So "recycling" is a misnomer for some substances and plastics.  They must be burned or continue to interfere in the soil.

( https://learn.eartheasy.com/guides/the-best-eco-friendly-alternatives-for-the-plastic-in-your-life/

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/04/21/climate/plastics-recycling-trash-environment.html

PFAs are toxic long lasting substances involved in production of plastics and other materials that are distributed all over the earth at this point, are toxic to humans, and will not degrade for centuries.  They are slowly being eliminated legally but not yet everywhere.

Oddly, in a world with a high level of food production,  many are starving everyday,  and not just in under developed countries.  The effective and adequate distribution of food to avoid hunger does not occur in the US, the country with the highest GDP and collection of wealthiest persons.   And vast amounts of food are discarded every day both before sale as less desirable,  or after partial consumption.  This is a dramatic offense against nature, farming, and those who are starving everywhere.  And it contributes to pollution!!!

Ocean creatures are increasingly suffering from illnesses and disabilities because humans allow coastal waste to drain into the oceans with poor processing or none.  Making the seas our human toilets is just another form of pollution, with consequences on sea life,  and eventually back on humans.

Hiding behind these two problems is the issue of population: The human population of the earth is expanding at a rate that is not realistic for long term occupancy of the planet.  This problem impacts on the others.  The demand for energy is directly related to the  human activities that require energy input.   The production of pollution is directly related to the number of polluting humans and the types of pollution they create.  But the problem of population has two other features that are unique. The "demographic profile" of numbers against age in different groups is not the same.  Humans have finite productive lives,  so, as the profile ages, the local region of productivity is reduced.  The population becomes, in effect, non-productive and consuming.  The other issue of population is the apparent inability of human populations to adjust their birth-rate to accomodate space for other animals and plants.  The increasing numbers take over more and more earth-space for human needs and leave less for other species.  From the human economic viewpoint,  this is simply "survival of the fittest",  but from an evolutionary perspective,  other species are part of a broad ecologic evolutionary pattern,  and the excessive dominance of humans threatens to distort or damage this pattern.

( https://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/2019-4-july-august/mixed-media/human-race-sleepwalking-oblivion-nick-brandt

THE SHORT ANSWER TO THE QUESTION POSED AT THE START IS THAT EACH INDIVIDUAL CAN DO A LOT TO MODIFY CLIMATE CHANGE,  BUT UNLESS ALMOST EVERYONE MAKES THESE CHANGES THE EFFECTS WILL BE NEGLIGIBLE.  AND THE COST OF MAKING THE CHANGES IN ECONOMIC TERMS, AND IN PERSONAL COMFORT AND CONVENIENCE ARE VAST.  IT DOES NOT SEEM POSSIBLE FOR ADULT HUMANS IN DEVELOPED NATIONS TO ACCEPT THE DRASTIC ECONOMIC AND LIFESTYLE CHANGES THAT ARE NEEDED. (The illusion of solving the problem by buying an electric car ignores how the car gets charged!)

AMERICAN BISON: A LESSON IN HUMAN ANIMAL RELATIONSHIPS

Ken Burns' most recent documentary effort is "The American Buffalo" a multipart series on the depletion and reintroduction of the buffalo in the US.  He combines several messages that are relevant to 1) contemporary environmental debates, 2) the place of indigenous peoples in the future of America, and 3) the basis of human relationships to other animal species.

In the Burns style,  narrators are mixed with still and movie footage in a narrative that has a specific direction.  In this series, the narrative describes the hunting of buffalo to near extinction, and then the various efforts to protect them and rebuild the herds.  Many of the narrators are from indigenous tribes historically related to buffalo hunting.  The simplest question of the series is: should the buffalo be preserved? prevented from going extinct?  The narrative poses a strong "yes" but the basis for this is not so clear.  The animal is "symbolic of America", according to who?  The animal is essential to the "preservation of the great plains", which are now mostly plowed and planted with food grasses.  The animal is the basis of the survival of the plains indigenous tribes, who have been displaced and abandoned by their conquerors.   None of these justifications explains the peculiar efforts to prevent the extinction,  and the inconsistent efforts to do so.  The narrative does not give a convincing national or economic explanation for the preservation of this animal, which turns out to be an important point.

The contemporary environmental debate is centered around the role of fossil fuels in producing climate change, and the need to reduce and reverse this effect if possible.  Several pathways exist to enable this goal,  but none involve preserving the buffalo directly.  Other protected species are the justification for preserving and protecting "wilderness" lands from development,  but these rarely involve climate change, and never the buffalo.  Similarly,  concerns about pollution are an environmental issue that does not involve the buffalo.  Is it relevant to environmental concerns?

Indigenous plains tribes hunted buffalo as a major source of food, clothing, housing, and tools for centuries before European arrival.  Despite their intensive hunting,  buffalo herds were counted in the millions at the time of European discovery.  The animals were also a part of their religious observance,  consistent with the importance of them in survival.  The relationship between native peoples and buffalo indicates a clear mutual interdependence,  with humans more dependent on the animal than the reverse.  This is similar to the dependent relationships of other native peoples to their natural environment and resources.  Over hundreds of thousands of years,  indigenous peoples occupied the Americas without exhausting its resources or overpopulating. (Claims that native hunters were responsible for the extinction of other North American species, including horse and camel, are now disputed.)  All this came to an end with the European migration.

Europe was experiencing economic population pressures that made the discovery of new lands an apparent solution.  It did not seem to matter that the lands were sparsely occupied by other humans,  because they had low population densities, did not have modern weapons, and they turned out to be vulnerable to European diseases.  Establishing an invasion on the East Coast of North America,  and in several regions of the Caribbean and South America proved relatively easy.  The migration of poor, indentured, and slave persons for labor,  was gradually followed by others seeking opportunities not available in the European world.  (The migration of Asians was very different.)  The emphasis on farming had no place for range animals,  and Europeans had no knowledge of or interest in consuming buffalo.  Buffalo had no value for the new population.

Like beaver, otter, fox, and other fur animals,  the hunting was initially for specific use in limited applications.  But the buffalo also represented a key vulnerability for the plains peoples who were resisting European expansion.  The narrative strongly suggests that eliminating buffalo was part of the strategy of controlling the native resistance.  After the Civil War a wholesale slaughter began when hides were used for the transfer belts in industrial machines.  And later the remaining bones were ground for fertilizer.  The fundamental understanding is that Europeans viewed the animal species (and plant species like giant redwoods) as PRODUCTS.  They were important only based on market value,  or as obstacles to producing products that were of market value.  This seems obvious to any person of European descent,  but represents a very different conception of human/animal relationships to native peoples.  This issue is not limited to the buffalo,  as depletion of seafood creatures for their market value has also been extensive,  and threatens the loss of sea foods.  The example of the whale is most obvious,  as these enormous creatures were hunted and killed for their fat to make oil for lighting households!  They were saved by the discovery of oil and gas as an alternative lighting source! (Whales are still threatened today when killed as a food source by certain countries.)  The difference between the native view of animals and the European view is the difference between dependence and exploitation.   Native peoples recognized their dependence on Nature and natural substances for survival,  and that these were limited and could be over utilized and lost.  Europeans viewed these new resources as available for exploitation, and so plentiful that they could be consumed without concern for depletion.  It is difficult to know whether this reflects a difference in experiences or a different way of relating to the natural world.  The fact that Europeans were intent on discovering new lands to supplant their dwindling home resources is epitomized in the British efforts to build an extensive colonial empire managed by the East India Company and other corporate interests.  Similar efforts are noted in Spanish, Portuguese, French, and other European colonization.  New lands were viewed as solving the economic problem of scarce resources in the homeland.  So the resources of the new lands were to be exploited as needed.  The buffalo had no place in this scheme.  No Europeans ate buffalo or used its resources until minor uses were discovered.  It is very dangerous for an animal or plant to be of value to Europeans (even more so for certain minerals!),  but even more dangerous to have no value at all!  This is the lesson of the buffalo.

If there is an important role for indigenous culture in the future of American society it is to revise the relationship to the natural world.  The American obsession with fossil fuels, especially oil, has created a society in which pollution, excessive travel at high speeds,  and disregard for local community are consequences.  And the pressure to consume this energy source only speeds toward its depletion.  The pattern of the buffalo is repeated over and over.  "Conservation" is really about people learning to balance their lifestyle with the available resources for an extended future. 

The buffalo narrative also gives a message about the relationship of human and other animal species.  We are not friends.  Some animals can be domesticated to a limited degree and used for labor and food.  Most are wild creatures that require their own habitats that are not suitable for most human occupation.  This requires separating the earth into human-suitable and wild animal-suitable habitats,  with inevitable overlap.  (Zoos were once useful for educating people about animal existence.  They are now just a form of economic exploitation of animals.  The informing can be done better with wild photography.)

The buffalo story is a wonderful example of how to learn about a way of living that has been forgotten in many human cultures.  It does not say that all humans should return to indigenous ways of living.  But it tells us that we cannot view Nature as an inexhaustible resource.  We must learn to live with Nature in a balance of consumption and replenishment.  And this balance may change with changes in climate,  and the number of humans supported at any given time may change dramatically.

ON BEING JEWISH

ON BEING JEWISH

Poet Gary Snyder quotes Ezra Pound. I resent Pound’s antisemitism but the Jews he knew were all focused on getting money and power (and still are).  It is written into the origin story:  Jacob fools Isaac to get his blessing with soup,  and Esau is left out.  What happened to the hunter?  His life is never mentioned again.  None of this is “true”,  it is a myth created to support the role of being traders.  Even Ishmael, Hagar’s child has a future (in the origin of Arabs),  but not Esau.  In another myth,  Jews go out of Egypt,  reject slavery to be an independent people,  and are supported by a special god.  No archeological history supports this,  and the narratives are contradictory.  A later collection of rules and regulations, supposedly given by god, is likely the creation of authoritarian priests governing the people.  And there is the story of warrior kings,  Joshua, Saul, and David who established a land protected for a time from outside powers, until Babylon and then Rome.  Jewish history is an authoritarian culture with no basis in democracy.  You can see this in the clothing of Hassids from eastern Europe, who still wear wool coats and full hats in the LA sun.  (The Jews of ancient Israel likely wore clothing more suitable to a desert climate.) Jews fit into an authoritarian belief system, and served as advisors in Moslem empires for centuries. Many were "Trumpers" because of his promise of support for Israel.  (But they did not fit with the Spanish who were busy rooting out Protestants, Muslims, and Jews.  

The laws and traditions that are currently practiced evolved over centuries,  with origins in the middle ages,  not biblical times.  This is a positive sign that the tradition continued to grow,  but not an indication of its evolution in modern times.  Jewish culture values reading and education,  but not inquiry into independent thinking.  The Protestant reform of Christianity/Catholicism  challenged the authority of the pope (setting up an alternative authority),  and made personal commitment to god an essential tenet.  Reform Judaism of the 19th century proposed a similar change.  How do you know when your “personal relationship to god” fits with tradition,  or is some personal aberration?  There is no absolute way to decide,  and modern Pentecostal churches often focus on economic success.  The same is probably true of Reform Judaism.

Being Jewish has three components:

Jews have a belief in the maternal chromosome inheritance:  you are Jewish if your mother is Jewish.  This appears in tradition beginning in the early Christian era,  perhaps as a way of differentiating converted Christian-Jews. Modern genetic research confirms that there is a significant concentration of certain mitochondrial genes,  but these vary in Jewish sub-communities. 

Adhering to a varied collection of rules and observances. These have altered over time,  and the commitment to strict Biblical interpretation is impossible even in the most orthodox traditions.  The validity of the Torah as a holy document is undermined by scholarship that shows it is a composite of multiple origins written much later than the events it describes.  And it was not codified and canonized until the Christian era.

The cultural history of identifying oneself as Jewish. There is not one Jewish history or culture since the Babylonian era.  The variation in Jewish cultures and traditions is evidence of its vitality and evolution,  but not consistency.  Ashkenazic and Sephardic traditions are examples.

Jewish values are challenged by the relationship between Israel and the rest of the Jewish world, especially American Jews.  Israel as the Jewish homeland has no historic basis since Roman times.  Herzl's  Zionist movement was an  answer to anti-semitism in Europe (which was not confined to Jews but to other “semites”, Arabs, as well). It is an historical fantasy in which  European Jews claim a territory which they have no historical connection to, and is not be based on any legal doctrine.  Sending European Jews to Israel after WW2 was a "convenient" solution to the uprooting and disruption of the Holocaust,  which failed to return the Jews to their homes in Europe, and totally disregarded the Arab inhabitants.  The US supported the formation of a Jewish state in the nascent UN in 1949 instead of a gradual approach to a bicameral one.   The result was a war which has continued for several generations. The US supports Israel in its survival against other interests in the middle east because of a strong political influence of Jews in the US.  The contemporary situation in Israel now poses a challenge for the American Jewish community.  Other American interests in the middle east are not aligned to Israel’s goals.  Israel has become an independent military and political entity,  which sometime does not adhering to American interests.  Israel is becoming increasingly authoritarian, the orthodox in Israel have argued for a religious authority over the country since their political ascendance.  This is a rejection of the “separation of church and state”  also currently being challenged in the US.

In this season of the Holy Days,  I am trying to reassess my Jewish identity.  I have Jewish genetics, I was born to a Jewish mother.  The Bible has come to be a collection of historical stories with inconsistent guidance for current life.  It is  not the word of god or any deity, but historical traditions only partly modernized, and strict adherence to it is foolish.  My support of Israel is waning,  though I understand the basis of it becoming a theocratic state, I do not respect systems of absolute authority and do not think it bodes well for the country.  The ideal of a refuge for Jews persecuted elsewhere, and a safe homeland forever, is not consistent with the current reality.

These views affect my cultural relationship to other Jews.  The ideal of Jews as leaders with wise decisions, financial wizards, also exploits others.   Our group identity is the victims of others resentment, so we defend ourselves against the unjustified prejudices.  We never see the connection of these two traditions.  I do not like the idea of defining myself as a victim in order to be defended by my tribal group.  This always includes the reverse prejudice of others that is the basis of this group cohesion.  I  realize that my identity as a Jew is separate from the rules and traditions,  the religious authority, and also the cultural community.  I have only my own beliefs and my genetic origins.  As in other aspects of my life,  it is difficult for me to join and feel supported in groups whose values are different.   

I am Jewish, isolated, and struggling to encourage the humanity that I value as a tradition.

THE TRAGEDY OF LAHAINA

The destruction of the city and major loss of life after the fire in Lahaina Maui has been a terrible shock for the residents, and the country as a whole.  Given the distance from the mainland U.S.,  and the lack of personal experience in Lahaina by many Americans,  the extensive news coverage suggests a larger significance for this small city.

The tragedy of Lahaina began long before the fire that ravaged the town in the last week.  The chain of volcanic island tips that comprise Hawaii was settled by Polynesian explorers by the year 1000, and first visited by Europeans in 1778, when Cook visited as part of his Pacific circumnavigation,  naming the place the "Sandwich Islands" after the Earl of Sandwich, (apparently disregarding the fact that it was already settled).  The Pacific whaling trade in the early to mid 1800s produced a major change in the islands.  The ships sailed from New England, but  20% of the crews were native Polynesians(estimated).  The discovery of kerosene as a lighting fuel in the 1840s saved many hundreds or thousands of whales and slowed the whaling industry.  Hawaii was internationally recognized as an independent kingdom in 1810, but North Americans arrived to "bring Christ to the natives" and lay claim to the lands for agricultural uses by mid century.  This process was slowed by the inaccessibility of the islands, and the limited areas available for agriculture, so not until 1893 did North American and European interests create a rebellion and to depose the leader.  They appealed for annexation to the US,  which was initially denied,  but eventually accepted in 1898.  (This process is similar to the annexation of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California,  but the land was taken from Polynesians, rather than Mexico.)

Hawaii is currently the 8th smallest,  and 11th least populous state.  But this is misleading.  The effective size of Hawaii is mostly the three main islands,  even smaller.  And the population almost entirely in Oahu.  At total population of 1.4 million,  the state has the population of San Diego.  The state agricultural office estimates that ag produces $2 billion per year, about 10% of the $20 billion in tourism.  1.6 million tourists visit the state annually,  roughly 330,000 per month.  This comes to about 1 tourist for every 3-5 residents every day,  but a ratio closer to 1:1in the major tourist areas.  These numbers indicate the peculiar place the islands have in American culture.

Hawaii has been a fantasy in the American imagination at least since after WW2, everyone's version of Bali Hai.  Bali Hai is an imaginary place,  and for most visitors, going to Hawaii is also a fantasy.  Its role as a major naval and missile base,  and an economic zone for Pacific development is ignored.  A few visitors may go to the Pearl Harbor memorial,  but the goal of the visit is the "Hawaiian Fantasy" which may involve surfing lessons, snorkeling a crater, hiking a tropical trail,  seeing the active volcanoes,  or watching a "hula" dance.  (It even involves playing golf for some, as there are many courses at major resorts.)  The demands and economic return of tourism far outweigh the other activities,  and the native Polynesian population has been dwindling for years.  The islands' population is 37% Asian,  25% white, 11% Hispanic,  10% Polynesian,  and the rest mixed.  It is not a Polynesian country except in some rural areas,  and it is not Anglo despite having the union jack as part of the state flag (!).  

Lahaina was once the capital of the Hawaiian kingdom,  but Honolulu has long since overtaken it as the major city.  We visited Lahaina over 10 years ago,  and it was already dominated by a tourist strip of bars, dive shops, and fast food restaurants typical of tourism throughout the US but with Hawaiian themes.  That has only increased in the interval,  and been accompanied by resort condo development around the city, so that haoles (non-native Whites) can have their dream home here.  Hawaii is an idyllic chain of Pacific islands with a unique culture that is honored in the fantasy,  not the reality which is a resort and condo development location.

How do you plan for infrastructure in a fantasy world?  How many firefighters do you need when the population is only a few hundred until it swells by thousands of tourists?  Maui reports 164000 population but many many more tourists much of the time.   A 2/1000 rate of firefighters this would require over three hundred, not including those to cover the additional demand of tourists.  There might be a basis for even more since resources from other states or islands would not be easy to access in emergencies.  Who is going to pay for this?  Newscasters are quick to report the lack of services, alarm system response, or other deficits,  but fail to realize that Maui is a fantasy resort island that main-landers come to to escape the worries of the world.  

This issue is not unique to Hawaii or Maui.  Everywhere that tourists go to enjoy the fantasy of being outside of their everyday lives has the same development issues and economics.  Some of these places are close enough to other major urban areas tto "borrow" on the necessary additional services in emergencies.  But even this is unpredictable, as the Paradise fire showed, in CA.  The world can be a dangerous place.  Tourism is not bad.  Visiting new places allows a person to expand appreciation of others and the world.  But economically, tourism does not address the basic needs of the local society,  and does not pay for them at the rate that would be needed in emergencies.  

Would people have died in Lahaina if there were less tourism?  It seems likely that the conditions of the fire would have been destructive and lethal.  But there would have been fewer places to burn,  fewer people to die,  and perhaps more avenues for escape and more planning of resources.   Maybe or maybe not.  We will never know.

INTELLIGENCE AND EVOLUTION

Natural selection is the basis of evolution,  a basic tenet of biology.  Natural selection occurs by genetic selection in mating individuals. This theory includes the evolution of the adaptive capacity of "intelligence".  Most investigations of "intelligence" explore how this feature of brain operations developed in the course of primate evolution.   The selection of genomes as "more fit" is not absolute but related to a specific environmental parameters,  and variations in genome are selected to optimize this "fit".  

With the development of more complex behaviors and language, an associated "culture" accompanies humans from generation to generation,  and with the development of writing and more advanced methods of information storage,  it is possible to store and transmit this "culture" for the forsee-able future. "Culture" is not transmitted in the genome,  and the Lamarkian theory that behavior contributes to natural selection is rejected in evolutionary theory.  This leaves the question of whether (and how) "cultural knowledge" contributes to adaptation, and evolution.   Several theories of "cultural evolution" involving "memes" have been proposed.  It is not clear if changes in memes are efficiently selected for adaptive value.  Questions might be raised about whether one economic system is more adaptive because it is more "productive".  Does maximizing "productivity" represent the highest level of adaptive capacity,  or are other variables involved which must also be included?  Is "religion" an adaptive cognitive survival skill?  Given the extensive mass killings, historically associated with religions,  it is unclear how this promotes adaptive survival.  Is the dominance of one religion explained by "survival of the fittest"?

Science would seem to be the area of culture most clearly associated with adaptive value,  and many scientific achievements have contributed to prolonging human life.  But the relationship of science to evolution is growing more complex, and several recent achievements raise troubling questions about how evolution is influenced by scientific achievements.  These include: 1) nuclear weapons and radiation, 2) gene modifications and CRISPR, 3) cloning of organisms,  and 4) AI repurposing of cognitive activity.

Discoveries in the nuclear structure of matter are a prominent achievement of 20th century physics.  Separate from this investigation of basic knowledge,  nuclear fission and fusion reactions can release large amounts of energy, and were studied for use in creating weapons.  These weapons exist, have been used, and are relatively widely distributed in the developed countries.  Their use threatens the genetic integrity of those exposed,  and these genetic effects including later development of various cancers is well documented.  The risk of the widespread uncontrolled use of these weapons is an evolutionary threat, so it makes  sense to manage the control of their use.  Whether this is the current situation is unclear, and no formal system for preventing their unrestricted use exists,  and evidence for individual leaders with a poor reputation for appreciation of consequences who have threatened the use of these weapons raises serious questions.

There is a long history of genetic modification of plants and animals by selective breeding to improve the value of plants for human consumption, and animals as domestic assistance or for food.   This distorts the evolutionary viability of these organisms,  and usually makes the animals dependent on human management for survival.  More subtle genetic modifications are occurring as animals adapt to human urban environments.  Two more dramatic interventions are cloning and CRISPR.  In cloning,  animals (or humans) are reproduced from selected genetic material.  This is the extreme of "eugenics", not breeding for ideal offspring,  but cloning yourself to be the offspring!  The assumption that the clone would be identical to the original person takes into account only the genetic component,  and the role of environmental programming cannot be predicted in the same way and is unlikely to reproduce the same personal configuration.  The danger of cloning is its disregard for recombinant genetic variation.  Cloning an individual is the ultimate narcissistic statement that indicates the person is ideal, and no modifications in their genome are needed.  Cloning of animals (or plants) sometimes occurs in Nature,  but for more complex animals it does not,  as adaptive selection is prevented.  Most troublesome is CRISPR.  The ability to modify plants and animals by introducing genetic material by non-sexual selection methods ENTIRELY BYPASSES EVOLUTION in favor of "scientific" presumptions of better adaptive value.  Its use has been proposed for correcting single locus genome abnormalities in human illnesses,  where somatic cells can be modified,  and also proposed for as yet unachievable interventions in embryos.  The medical application seems humanitarian and does not automatically alter evolution.  But the urge to find genetic material that enhances human capacities,  and insert this to produce "ideal" embryos is a lurking danger.  Here again, bypassing the evolutionary process produces unknown non-evolutionary consequences.

AI is the ability to combine and integrate human cultural production to produce new cultural "products".  Since all human culture bypasses evolutionary selection,  it is not clear how this particular modification poses risk other than more direct cultural interventions.  In a recent opinion, Karp  has compared the development of nuclear technology to AI. (https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/25/opinion/karp-palantir-artificial-intelligence.html)  To understand the danger of AI,  one must understand that human cultural products are created by individuals.  Each person receives training from others about basic cultural memes and how to use them to participate in the social system in which he/she is embedded.  The evolutionary impact on culture depends on how cultural elements appeal to and manage the  motivations of individuals.  When this impact is mal-adaptive, the long term result is a contraction, or elimination of the culture.  Economic rewards,  sexual selection, and social support are all linked to appropriate performance of cultural behavior.  (The failure to consistently conform is usually considered "mental illness".) In more complex societies,  bureaucratic entities,  governments, corporations, etc, are given legal existence to have power to enforce and reward cultural performances.  These artificial entities may demand cultural behaviors that are mal-adaptive (that interfere with evolution).  When evolution is effective,  mal-adaptive behavior of these "artificial organisms" results is eventually selected out.   What makes robotics/AI so threatening is the possibility of creating entities that perform actions with a significant level of human intellectual capacity,  but are not regulated by human motivations. What then are they responsive to?  The current fear is that they are responsive to corporations that are not empathic to the needs of the larger society.  This is the (alleged) effect of social media corporations and other technological developments that have emerged in recent years.  But it is unclear if they are disregarding the larger society, or responding to conflicting influences  with different political interests.  (An intelligent governmental response in this country appears to be impossible due to the current technological ignorance of the political leadership.)  The danger of AI is that human intellectual capacities can be mimicked by computational devices that humans will be unable to discriminate from interacting with another human, and so will be unaware of being manipulated by some entity.  The evolutionary extreme would be humans  manipulated to "fall in love with" pornographic AI productions which distract them from human reproduction and materially alter the ability of evolution to influence natural selection.  (How much this already occurs in dating sites is unknown.)

So long as intelligence is closely linked with human motivations in individuals susceptible to social and sexual selection,   it is indirectly influenced by evolution,  including its "cultural" component.  Any intellectual activity that bypasses the evolutionary selection process threatens to alter evolutionary processes with unknown consequences!

MEDICINE AND ANTI-AGING

In an old Sunday Times magazine,(https://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/17/magazine/17antiaging-t.html) Tom Dunkel wrote about a man and his doctor working together to slow or reverse the aging process and about other organizations promoting similar treatments.  He also included rebuttal from other doctors who reject this as "quackery".  Other more recent articles describe other approaches: (https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/19/business/aging-protein-elevian.html)  (https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/08/health/taurine-supplements-aging.html)

In the context of current healthcare debates, the cost  of  elder healthcare looms large, so reducing elder disability could be helpful.  The body changes and deteriorates with age,  which can be interpreted three ways:  1) the changes are programmed into the species to eliminate those who have reproduced to make room for the next generation.  2) the changes are failures of human design which impacts  current human longevity.  or 3) "Aging" is a disease like any other and needs investigations to cure or prevent it.   The first view means aging is part of the normal evolutionary cycle that humans should do nothing to interfere with.  The second and third views support  finding ways to arrest or prevent aging by stopping or reversing the biological factors that contribute to it.  While Dr Comite is quoted in the article as distinguishing between "optimal health during life" and preventing death,  the latter is the stronger motivation for engaging in these studies.  It is interesting that this article concentrates on examples of males trying to prevent aging, and the hormonal changes women naturally experience are not discussed.  Male aging seems to be a reality that men strive to hide.  Should men do this? Certainly some of the treatments are simply placebos,  but there is clear evidence that hormone supplements have impact on the body.   But are they  effective in preventing "aging" or promote "optimal health" without undesirable side effects?   Nature seems to reduce certain hormones with age to prevent certain effects,  while worsening others.  Which consequences are preferred?

Should people have the right to choose?  And should medicine be free to research the potential consequences and develop "antidotes" to prevent them?   In short, should our scientific community explore ways to prevent the changes of aging and "optimize health" for as long as possible in the population?  This is not simply a scientific question, despite the impression given by Dunkel in the article.  It is a moral issue illustrated by the following example:  if a plant is discovered in the Amazon tomorrow which conveys eternal (or prolonged) life should it be developed and distributed to everyone at whatever cost?  If there are really vampires in the world somewhere,  should we allow ourselves to be bitten so that we can enjoy eternal life (albeit in this case only in the dark)? By framing the question this way, " optimal health" becomes "escaping death",  and the finite-ness that gives meaning to human life is gone.   The moral answer for most of us,  even with our fear of death,  would be "no.  This is not a good thing to do."  But where is the line between the two,  when does "optimizing health" become "trying to live forever".   When does improving life become attempting to prevent death which ultimately changes the meaning of life?  The urge for immortality is seen in other scientific quests:  creating a computer "upload" of the mind, so the person's "mind" lives forever.  We humans have an intense desire to prevent the loss of our "self", so that it continues eternally.

ON READING AND LITERACY

 On the occasion of the NYT examining the current controversy over books (https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/21/books/review/book-bans-humanities-ai.html) it might be useful to give some thought to reading as an activity.    Scott begins: "Everyone loves reading. In principle, anyway. Nobody is against it, right? Surely, in the midst of our many quarrels, we can agree that people should learn to read, should learn to enjoy it and should do a lot of it." This passage reflects the attitude of an educated, literate, urban intelligence, not the opinion of everyone, nor every American.  Literacy in America has evolved.  Though estimated at 80% of male adults in 1776,  this did not include slaves, or women whose rate was not documented.  Estimates claim 80% of adults by 1870 (though again women are not included), but only 20% of blacks were deemed literate in that survey.  This is reported to reach close to 100% by 1980's though it is unlikely that the estimates are correct.  Reading skills were emphasized in basic education during this period, but it is not an inherent human skill.

The evolution of speech is impossible to document precisely, but its presence is pervasive across human societies. (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1364661300014947) Estimates suggest it developed 50 to 100 thousand years ago, but this does not include reading! The ability to combine auditory signals and visual signals requires brain pathways that are not instinctual and estimates suggest that the ability to write and read languages is roughly 6,000 to 10,000 years old, a relatively new capacity!  (Perhaps auditory speech and visual symbols, petroglyphs, etc were combined and selected images linked to concepts (in pictographic languages) or sounds (phonetic ones).  Some ancient scripts persist into contemporary forms as in Chinese, Egyptian to greek, etc; others do not have a known correspondence, as in Mayan.  The importance of written language is the ability to maintain and record records of actions, and transmit information and history across generations without relying on memory-mimetic skills.  The importance of this change is discussed in detail by Abram (THE SPELL OF THE SENSUOUS).  

Culture is transmitted orally as well as in written form, but great importance attaches to the written as in religious documents.  The "bible" is a canonization of previous manuscripts, as is the "Koran".  Once established as definitive, each becomes the basis for the culture of that religion; this decision was made by a group of "experts" around 2000 years ago for "bible", and 1500 years ago for the "Koran".   A similar role is assigned to texts in other cultures.  These written texts were not universally available to "readers" in these cultures on a personal basis,  only as scarce hand written documents, shared by many users.  Moveable type printing developed in 1455 with Gutenberg's printing of the bible.  Only in the last two centuries has the writing and printing of books of skills, biography, and literature (fantasy) been readily available.  So Scott's assumptions about the universality and importance of reading reflect very recent developments in human history.

Coming from an academic, intellectual background, the importance of literacy and reading are paramount.  And so recent issues raise serious concerns. The teaching of reading in the US has deteriorated.  Students do not read as well as previous generations. This is ascribed variously to poor teaching, teaching non-phonetic methods(in a language that is inconsistently phonetic!), and the expansion of audio-visual sources of information.  Each of these may play a role,  but their significance is masked by a broader issue.  Contemporary culture has a wide range of available sources of auditory-visual information.  And students are able to create this information with or without words to share with others.  The dominance the physical-object-book generating a visual-verbal experience is diminishing.  Almost everywhere in the country,  you can overhear a conversation, often among women, about how their grandchildren are not reading enough, and spending too much time on "social media".  Many of these same women were in the generation that was transformed by radio, movies, and television; but they do not recognize the impact of those media as clearly.  McLuhan did, the cultural prophet who stated that "the medium is the message", or at least influences it.

The paradox of this de-emphasis on reading is the recent focus on restricting what books are retained by libraries and read by young people.   Just when the general youth culture is more focused on audio-visual experience,  parents and politicians are concerned, obsessed really,  about the "danger" of reading this or that book.  The typical concern of the 50s-70s was about the child/teen reading books with passages describing sexual activities in explicit language.(as in https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-06-21/huntington-beach-will-seek-to-stop-children-from-accessing-library-books-deemed-obscene-or-pornographic)  This is rarely a current concern.  Instead,  the focus is on normative content.  What feelings about oneself and one's gender are appropriate to share with others?  What feelings, attitudes, and historical information are appropriate to share which do not conform to traditional cultural norms about the country?  Elders and politicians are emphasizing the role of written communication in transmitting history, at the time when youth are ignoring it most of the time. These two aren't a coincidence.  It seems that the erosion of emphasis on written communication for a decade or so has weakened the importance of normative history in the society,  and now those who viewed that history as their history,  are shocked that others now claim a different history for the United States.  Which books are allowed becomes the basis for certifying what is the "real history".  The goal is "a campaign to win the hearts and minds of America's youth", and the supposed future history of the country.  In a time when different news media report "the facts" of an event in incompatible terms,  and a candidate and followers claim they did not lose an election despite the calculations,  defining which books "tell the true story" and are allowed, and which do not, and are prohibited, takes on a new urgency.

The sad truth is that books or written texts do not have this intrinsic validity.  Just as there are many variations of religious texts, and even several variations of the "bible" and its translations, there are many books and papers that claim to document the "truth" of the country, and its origins and current norms.  Fighting for a particular version of this "truth" and eliminating the voice of others is a necessary step in political control.  And attacking political norms is a basic technique to undermine the establishment.   Books have been swept into the political maelstrom because their writing and authors have been. Fighting for your version of the culture and the reality of a society only assures that another person will challenge this and try to oppose your views.  This is, of course, not about books, or reading, but power politics at a time when cultural norms are in transition.

Is California different? California doubles down on inclusive education as red states ban books in classrooms          Is this the future? 

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-06-21/california-doubles-down-on-diverse-lessons-in-schools-as-book-bans-happen-across-u-s