$ jlc (10,317)

That was an interesting experiment. I too have found it difficult to find accurate accounts of contemporary weather. It occurs to me that a source that did this would be appreciated by many people - perhaps this is a business opportunity.

Jan

I admit that my discussion of the archeological record mentally ended with, "Oh darn!" because it would be a lot of fun to discover that there had been a prior high tech civilization on Earth.

My personal version of what you said is that I am a scientist...and a poet. My scientific side sees chloroplast based life forms responding to high and low pressure areas; my poetic side sees dryads dancing the trees.

I actually do not find a conflict in this.

Jan

Good. 20% of the students chose 6 points and many of the comments the prof received were pro-6-points.

Let actually excellence determine the grade.

Jan

Huh. Never thought of it that way.

Jan

I think I mostly agree with salta, though woodlema has a good historical point. I can go with either the inclusionary statement of, "I own myself." or with the exclusionary statement of, "Nobody and nothing owns me." Even - and this is a bit of a stretch - Even, I can deal with people who say, "I am owned by a deity whose nature does not influence any logical or rational decision I make."

Any of these statements evidences a type of person I could get along with, though the lastmentioned is pretty far from my personal stance.

I guess what I am saying is that how someone phrases lack of ownership is less important than that they behave as if they are not owned.

Jan

We have archeological traces from that far back. We have evidence of early tool use (stone tools used to cut meat from bones) as far back as 3.4 million years, and bone cuts plus stone tools at 2.5 million years.

Modern Homo sapiens didn't evolve until about 200K years ago (we can trace this through the genetic clock); close predecessors (H. erectus) had stone tools and was similar to us at around 500K years ago - their average brain size was slightly smaller, but overlapped the lower range of modern humans. The first plausible evidence of human habitation dates from 2M years ago; the first wood and stone shelter with an internal hearth is from about 500K years ago. The first manufacturing site found is a ocher processing plant with several cement hearths in Sibudu, Africa, from about 60K ago.

So, there are remains of fragile archeological evidence (bits of bone, wood, and hide) from several hundred thousand years ago. If you wan to postulate a high tech civilization, you have to have a path of remains that go from stone to metal to technical. We have such a path, and it leads to the history we know. It is not plausible to assume that there was a prior high tech civilization when there would be massive traces of the evolution of that civilization - complex civilizations do not just spring out of a hole in the ground - plus a huge amount of evidence of the civilization itself. If we can find fragments of hide shelters from the last ice age, we would be unable to miss a starship building depot.

Jan

This is an intriguing idea and one that I recall from some old SF stories, but actually we have a pretty good diagram of human history from Miocene apes to the present day. This history is not complete, but it is at a better than 'connect the dots' stage.

Any substantial civilization on Earth would have left traces in both material goods and in genetics. We can chart the genetic migrations from tens of thousands of years ago, and the molecular clock of our genes puts limits on when we separated from our predecessors.

So there is no opportunity for our having a high tech civilization that predates our own. The closest we can get is Minoan, which may have had differential gears (certainly, the Antikythera device that dates to BC had them) and which civilization left fewer traces than we would like. We are dealing with bronze age technology, here, and not starships. It would not be possible to hide the remnants of that advanced a tech.

Pity, though - I like the thought. What we know from archeology and paleogentics can rule out a prior cycle of civilizations here on earth, and comparative genetics can show that we evolved here from earlier life forms.

I sometimes wonder where we would be now if Minoan civilization had not been destroyed. Would the Romans have had railroads? Telegraphs?

Jan

Good point.

Jan

No Herb, I think not. I think it will be the 2% - and they, the innovators, will be scattered amongst professions. Remember - the best chance we have had so far at creating an effective Warp drive came about because a young mathematician tried to figure out how the engines of the USS Enterprise worked. Roddenberry's creation of a TV SciFi series may have been our key to the stars.

No, I am not a writer but I observe that we go where inspiration leads us.

Jan

Be aware that grapefruit juice alters the function of some medications - prolongs them.

Jan

In the book, Confederates in the Attic (about Civil War reinactors), the author comments on Confederate creep: the counties at the margins of the Confederate area, which were once strongly Union, now have a 'we were/are Confederate' culture. Why is this happening? Because it is 'neat' to be the Rebel and because various media portrayals romanticized the modern Southern Rebel.

So some counter-propaganda is not unwelcome. Perhaps we will get Confederate-ebb as the marginal counties now recall that they were once proudly Union.

Jan

Reading your email has brought this subject back into the top ranks of what I am thinking. I don't know if the topic is 'ripe' yet to start a thread on, but I feel that it is getting near.

Jan

I do not see 'when' this is happening. I find it exciting, and totally to Texas' credit but I find myself a bit leery of Brigadoon banking.

Jan

The big clue is, "We know we would not be good at that role, and we avoid it." There are enough unwanted children; people should stop trying to bully couples into having them from a sense of familial duty. The only people who should have kids are the ones who love children and think that having them is the funnest thing they can imagine.

Jan

I find them interesting when they are old enough to talk philosophy with me over a brandy. This can come surprisingly early with some children (and I have no hesitation to serve them brandy or wine in such cases - I was raised European and drank liquor from the time I was a child (sips and diluted, admittedly, but I felt very grown up). I regard a person as an adult when they start behaving as one...sometimes this does not happen with my age-contemporaries.) Since several of my friends have had children, I have acquired coping mechanisms that allow me to interact with them for short periods of time before I flee in disorder.

The 111 year old woman who was studied had all of her remaining lymphocytes of a single familial strain. This news should have received more attention than it did, as it is crucial to our understanding of aging.

Jan

If I had a way of obtaining ova from an eagle and sperm from an eagle, these might be as protected as the fertilized egg - for their potential in maintaining a species. I guess that what I am fumbling around, trying to establish, is that the value might lie in the potential to reproduce, not in the fact that the egg itself is viable.

Jan

There is a rare syndrome called "XY Females". These are women who are in every respect physically female - but they cannot get pregnant. The reason they can't is because they are genetically male (but with a malfunctioning Y chromosome). When I was working in the lab there was twice that we got back a genetic result that indicated that the reason the woman was infertile was that they were XY Syndrome. In neither case did the doctor tell the woman the truth - he just counseled them to consider adoption.

I despised these decisions to deceive those women 'for their own good', and I agree that the patient should know everything that is available, in as reasonable a language as is possible, about their options and the ramifications of their choices.

And if a doctor fails to do this, then sue the bastard.

Jan, glad you got through the nuclear experience

It might go as high as 10.5, but I think it will start to decrease after that point (and some argue for 9 billion). This could be changed if we develop extreme longevity, of course.

Jan

I think you make an excellent case for my argument. People who want a child would find that lump of protoplasm cute and cuddly (well, 9 months later they would consider it cute and cuddly). But if I do not value it, then I am free to get rid of it.

It is a trash/treasure case.

Ultimately, autologous stem cells are going to provide the most benefit in most cases, because of the immunological problems with embryonic stem cells. Correcting genetic errors will be an exception until we get better at modifying the genome.

Jan

This is precisely why I should not be a mother!

I do not argue that most people consider children to be parasites (my parents loved children and would have liked a huge family), but I think of Alien whenever I consider an embryo, living inside me, sucking out my life. Blechch! And when they are born - they they ruin your life for the next couple of decades...until you can get rid of them.

But this admittedly extreme view does give me a good perspective from which to respond when people say things like, "all women want children". Uh...over here!...No, I don't.

Jan

I give you several points, but the little thumb will not cooperate...so you just get the one point for, "Other people's opinions are noise."

Jan

To me, a key point is that as a country becomes more affluent, and child mortality drops, no government intervention is needed for the birth rate to decrease. Singapore is down below 2 births per couple.

It seems that the instinct to reproduce takes into account the survival rate and population pressure.

Jan

You get a point for the big bang.

Jan

I do not call myself a Randist or Objectivist in this company, because I do not agree with many of the quotes or policies that are cited as being part of those philosophies. I am on this blog because I am an independent and rational person who has read Ayn Rand and who is wallowing in interacting with other people who have fundamentally the same perspectives as I do.

So, I am not an "-ist", but this blog is valuable to me.

Jan

Actually, as part of the consensus of ethics, a woman may not be compensated for the use of embryonic cells or organs. This is to prevent her making a decision based on economics. She is also not supposed to be informed of the possibility of using the fetal cells/organs for research or medical procedures so that she does not make the decision in light of compassion for someone else.

I do not actually agree with these policies, but I can see that they are currently necessary in order to totally divorce the decision from taint of medical scandal.

Jan