You're so special
So you think you’re unique (24 May, p 28)? Of course we are 鈥� every species is unique 鈥� but nowadays we are continually being reminded that we are nevertheless “not so special”. It’s a coded phrase designed to convey the idea that nearly all the traits distinguishing Homo sapiens from our nearest relatives have finally been satisfactorily accounted for or shown to be illusory and that, as your article put it: “The last stronghold of human uniqueness has fallen.”
The motivation behind all this may be a laudable attempt to counter creationist claims of a special creation.
But that battle can never be won by shutting our eyes to uncomfortable truths. The fact is that with respect to the most salient physiological features distinguishing humans from chimpanzees 鈥� habitual bipedalism, “naked” skin, a subcutaneous fat layer and so on 鈥� leading Darwinian scientists are, if anything, further away from any agreed explanation than they were a century ago. That is despite the fact that physiological differences are far more hard-edged and quantifiable than behavioural ones 鈥� and should be regarded as more reliable evidence. Something is clearly missing in their narrative.
The imminent bicentenary of Darwin’s birth would be an excellent opportunity to confront this spectacular failure. Instead, there is a tendency to sweep it under the carpet by refusing to talk about it. If Darwinian scientists are genuinely unaware of how many questions still remain unanswered, they are deceiving themselves. If they are aware of it, they are being disingenuous in glossing over these basic problems by distracting attention from them.
In either case it is a deplorable situation, and it is time somebody said so.
As a non-scientist, I find that merely interacting with and watching a variety of mammals and other life forms provides immediate evidence that humans are not unique with regard to intelligence. But when you wish to exploit other species 鈥� or even other races or social classes of the human species 鈥� it’s so convenient to think that you are superior.
One general assumption lives on: that humans are more intelligent than all other species to be found on the planet. We value our own species’ achievements far more highly than we value those of others, and probably do not even recognise much of what other species do. Would we recognise or appreciate any creative art of an orang-utan, any more than they would recognise or appreciate ours?
Some may find such a concept laughable. Perhaps that’s because we seem to equate power with intelligence, and assume that because we could wipe the face of the Earth clear of all life forms we must be the most intelligent. Yet a large meteorite might achieve the same end.
Where we probably are unique is in our ability to record our thoughts and knowledge in writing and other media, and in that way to build up a bank of knowledge. And we are fortunate in our physical design in that we are able to exploit our intelligence in ways that other species cannot.
The exploitation of these two skills provides power that we can exert over our fellow occupiers of this planet and the basis for the assumptions of uniqueness in other facets of intelligence.
Your editorial “A breed apart” (24 May, p 3) and the article “So you think you’re unique” are an excellent eye-opener 鈥� for the one-third of humanity brought up in the Abrahamic religious traditions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. The other two-thirds do not see anything demeaning in associating themselves with other twigs of the “tree of life”.
What a preposterous suggestion that animals may make inroads into humanity’s last bastion of superiority. We will always have an achievement that animals couldn’t possibly assault: they will never come near our ability to think we are superior.
Collinsvale, Tasmania, Australia
From Jonathan Balcombe,
Why is it so important that we be different, and what has uniqueness to do with ethical conduct (24 May, p 28)? Our linguistic and cultural sense of privilege has led us down some dark paths, including weapons of mass destruction, ethnic cleansing, factory farming, pollution and global warming. It has also fostered institutionalised abuses of so many sentient beings 鈥� tens of billions yearly in the case of cows, pigs, chickens, mice and other non-humans 鈥� even as we recognise their capacity to suffer. Our culturally sanctioned actions in the face of their acknowledged sensibilities represent one of humanity’s most unique, and bleak, traits.
On the other hand, in the space of a few decades we have condemned other forms of oppression: racism and sexism. Therein lies perhaps our most noble and hopeful attribute 鈥� the capacity to change and to do right.
Is it really “time to kiss goodbye to the idea that humans are qualitatively different from other animals” as your editorial says? Setting aside the trivial point that I haven’t seen many dolphins or bonobos reading New 杏吧原创 recently, surely one of the lessons of evolution is that a large number of small, quantitative differences can add up to a large, qualitative difference.
What the research you describe does perhaps show is that attempts to locate human difference by zooming in on individual traits are as doomed as trying to differentiate two TV images by staring at individual pixels. What is needed is a way of “gaug[ing] the impact of all those degrees of difference”, to understand better how the sum total of seemingly non-unique features can amount to such a unique result: one which led G. K. Chesterton to the conclusion that, “If it is not true that a divine being fell, then we can only say that one of the animals went entirely off its head”.
Flat for whom?
According to Lawrence Krauss, the world is becoming increasingly free of barriers to flows in trade and capital, and for this phenomenon he uses the term “flat” (24 May, p 48).
Ongoing changes to global intellectual property rights, international harmonisation of safety rules, and World Trade Organization agreements are indeed making it increasingly easy for some corporations to trade globally. Yet for many others, these same arrangements raise the barriers to financial success, or even survival.
As an example: entrepreneurs in the fields of biotechnology or human health rarely now expect that their start-up company, however successful, is going to become the new Pfizer or Genentech. Instead, their business strategy is typically to be bought out by a multinational.
Start-ups simply cannot match the clout 鈥� the weight of lawyers, the lobbying power, the marketing resources and so on 鈥� that is required to succeed more than temporarily in the system that is now emerging.
When a multinational company can, using a “free” trade agreement, reach out from one continent and squash or buy a competitor on another, the term “flat” describes no more than a set of arrangements that clears the path for a particular type of business model.
Detecting drug danger
In your report “Spot the killer” you state that “because Medicare only covers elderly citizens, Sentinel won’t identify the side effects of drugs taken by young people, such as contraceptives” (31 May, p 6).
In fact, the Sentinel initiative will also query databases of private health plans that volunteer to participate. These plans cover people of all ages, and their data will help the FDA spot safety problems in drugs and devices used by people of all ages.
Ostriches wing it
Laura Spinney describes ostrich wings as “spectacularly de trop” (17 May, p 42). I have kept ostriches for 18 years and can testify otherwise. When it is hot, they raise their wings to expose their bare upper legs to any cooling breeze; when it is cold, they lower the wings to keep their legs warm. If the sun is shining on one side, they lower the wing on that side to provide some shade.
When they run fast, ostriches can make a 90-degree turn to left or right by quickly spreading and lowering the wing on that side. If you get too close, they march towards you, rhythmically moving their wings up and down 鈥� it’s time to leave.
In courtship, the male sits on the ground and spreads his wings, exposing the white tips. He rocks his body and wings from side to side with his neck moving in the opposite direction.
When he mounts the female and lowers himself on her back he spreads his wings for stability.
The male scrapes a circular nest about 60 centimetres in diameter and 10 centimetres deep, mainly using his wings: this is quite a job in hard, dry and stony soil.
Both males and females on the nest use their wings to keep the eggs at the right temperature. Once hatched, the chicks shelter under the wings of both parents when it is raining and at night.
When they want the chicks to hide, the parents make short, flapping wing movements. If a predator comes close they distract it using the same “broken wing” tactic that plovers use.
Experience counts
Thanks to Susan Greenfield for pointing out that brain connections form in response to experience, and that personality and identity might be largely shaped by the nature of that experience (17 May, p 48). Neil Postman makes a similar point in his book Amusing Ourselves to Death, in which he points out that pre-literate societies almost certainly had near-eidetic memories, because they could not record and pass information down through the generations in any other way. With writing must have come certain mental “losses”. And then with TV…?
Another dimension that may be missing for our younger generations is the opportunity to express themselves in ways that are vital for the comfort and survival of their community.
Consider a talented shoemaker whose excellent shoes make life better for the other residents in the village. That is, a person who is honoured and needed.
In our modern day, such things as fine shoes can be made in far-off lands or by machines, and individual shoemaking talents mean nothing in the general scheme of things. The world-class practitioners are the only ones we hear from. Talk about a loss of identity for the rest of us.
Who made ET?
I don’t think any serious consideration of the possibility of contacting extraterrestrial intelligences can rule out Steven J. Dick’s scenario that they could be a type of artificial intelligence far in advance of our capabilities (31 May, p 21). But these could only have arisen from the work of intelligent biological entities similar to us.
Needs must
Working on solutions that can meet some people’s aspirations, as David Sandilands suggests (31 May, p 23), is surely a lower priority than meeting all people’s basic needs.
When everyone has something 鈥� anything 鈥� to eat is when we can address aspirations of the affluent few for meat. When everyone has somewhere to live, that is not under threat of imminent destruction by rising sea levels, then we might address aspirations of the affluent few for travelling to work by car.
An oceanic epic?
Sprinkling the oceans with powdered limestone (17 May, p 16) is at least a basis for possible remedial action to reduce atmospheric carbon dioxide. It would surely be better to pump a saturated solution of dissolved limestone into the sea rather than dropping a solid, which would require large ships capable of carrying huge amounts of rock.
If they must be used, to keep them from becoming polluters by burning heavy fuel oil such ships would have to be equipped with high-tech sails, possibly made of large flexible solar panels.
The vision of fleets of vast ex-tankers-turned-environmental-saviours cruising the oceans under acres of black sail and depositing a solution of limestone is compelling 鈥� the Carbonate Fleets of the 21st century. I feel an epic coming on.
Blood bonds
I am an anaesthetist, so cannot criticise your article “Blood doesn’t always save lives” (26 April, p 8) as thoroughly as haematologists will, but its section on “Bloodless surgery” did not give me confidence.
Following blood loss during surgery, putting the patient in a hyperbaric chamber will not “load their remaining red cells with oxygen”.
Given adequate lung and heart function, haemoglobin will be at least 98 per cent saturated with oxygen while breathing air at normal atmospheric pressure. A higher partial pressure of oxygen can add little more to red cells, though it can dissolve more oxygen in the plasma.
And far from demonstrating a profligate use of stored blood, your illustration to the article shows one of the three blood bags to be from a “cell saver”, which rescues blood lost in surgery and returns it to the patient.
Say what?
I am the only reader of New 杏吧原创 among my family and friends, and so I manage to amuse them now and then by giving short lectures on the interesting things I read. However, it worries me that I am unsure of the correct pronunciation of some uncommon words.
For example, is “oxytocin” oxy-toe-sin or ock-sighter-s’n (17 May, p 34)? Making a faux pas like that would prove to a real scientist that I’m just a pretender. How about giving us correct phonetics for the key words of a new subject too?
The editor writes:
鈥� It is pronounced oxy-toe-sin.
Applied passion
Lawrence Krauss’s plea for his daughter’s friends to turn from managing wealth to creating it (24 May, p 48) poses a stark contrast between investment banking and basic science. However, there is a partial solution to the “overdependence on wealth management” that he rightly deplores. Those who initially choose to create knowledge through basic scientific research can later move from basic to applied scientific research, using their knowledge of science and engineering to create new ideas that do impact humanity positively.
Applied science is an exciting bridge between the worlds of basic science and the creation of new products and even new industries. We have seen two of our children move from basic to applied science as life choices; and both have been rewarded with careers that have meaning. Success is not about wealth, fame or power, but about building a life based on a compelling personal commitment to something you care about. Happily, many young people today still have that passion.