Is It Time to Put Rover on the Menu?

Dressed doggies: Time to put 'em on the Menu?

Stewed Dog (Wedding Style)- Classic Filipino Recipe:

Obtain 1 medium-sized dog (euthanized)

Burn off fur over hot fire, then carefully remove the skin while still warm and set aside for later (can be used in other recipes).

Marinade meat in mixture of vinegar, peppercorn, salt and garlic for 2 hours.

Fry meat in oil using large wok over an open fire, then add onions and chopped pineapple and saute until tender.

Pour in tomato sauce and boiling water, add green peppers, bay leaf and tobasco.

Cover and simmer over warm coals until meat is tender.

(Optional): Blend in puree of dog's liver and cook additional 5-7 minutes
----


Source: 'Let Them Eat Dog: A Modest Proposal for Tossing Fido in the Oven': by Jonathan Safran Foer, in The Wall Street Journal, Weekend Journal, page A-10.



For any readers whose brain has by now gone into meltdown mode and whose eyes are bulging wildly with terror (as they clutch little Roscoe, Barney, Lassie or Rebel to their bosoms) rest easy. There is little chance of dog getting on any American menus anytime soon. The cultural milieu that regards dogs as companions, friends and more ...wouldn't allow it. At the same time it would be erroneous to conclude that Foer's piece was "tongue in cheek", it wasn't.

In a world starving for protein, Foer makes an excellent case to incorporate canines into the menu and not look back. His reasoning is as cold, calculated and rational as most of the investment articles on ETFs and hedge funds that appear in the Journal.

First and foremost, unless you are a vegetarian who never touches beef, you are already consuming someone's Rover or Fido, at least in a second hand mode. Consider: some two and a half million doggies on the loose eventually end up at the Pound, and 90% of these are euthanized annually. Ever wonder where they end up?

Ever watch the flick 'The Misfits', starring Clark Gable and Marilyn Monroe? The gist of it was a clique of cowpokes head off to Nevada to rustle up wild horses to be dispatched (for $$$) to a rendering plant....as dog food! (Marilyn's role- in her character- is to cry and whimper and otherwise try to set all the wild horsies free).

That was 1962. Now, fast forward some 35 years. The remains of millions of Rovers, as well as abandoned kitties, are being rendered in massive plants each year. The remains then end up in enormous cattle feedlots and mixed in with a mishmash of millions of tons of unnameable stuff and fed to the cattle. (See the film, Fast Food Nation, if you haven't yet)

When you consume the cattle - unless you know they are free range, and forage on plain old grains, you are eating those remains!

Foer's argument is 'why not just remove the middle men'? Why not just eat the overpopulated, abandoned (soon to be rendered) dogs and done? As Foer puts it:

"This need not challenge our civility. We won't make them suffer any more than necessary...we can all agree that if we are going to eat them, we should kill them quickly and painlessly, right? "

Foer then continues, tying the purpose to ecology on a planetary scale:

"Few people sufficiently appreciate the colossal task of feeding a world of billions of omnivores who demand meat with their potatoes. The inefficient use of dogs- conveniently already in areas of high human population should make any good ecologist blush. One could argue that the various 'humane' groups are the worst hypocrites, spending enormous amounts of money and energy in a futile attempt to reduce the number of unwanted dogs while at the same time propagating the no dog-for-dinner taboo'"

As a former Humane Society member, I recall shelling out hundreds of bucks in donations to save stray dogs, only to find out later that the Humane Society did more euthanizations than dog giveaways. That was emphatically not what my money was for. It was to find HOMES for abandoned canines, not eliminate them!

Like it or not, most of the world is in a protein crisis as much as a water crisis. Protein is still essential to proper brain development but in places like Haiti and Niger is conspicuous by its absence. At the same time, feral dogs are all over the place. Instead of malnourished kids in Haiti having to eat "mud cakes" - prepared by heating local moist mud over an open stove and flavoring it with sugar, why not cook the available dogs up and distribute the cooked meat? American temperaments no doubt rebel at the concept, but as Foer notes, that is totally a cultural emotional reaction, brought on by our peculiar habit to prefer canines as companions rather than edibles.

Why do we cook our pigs up and convert them into bacon, wieners, roasts and chops, and leave our dogs as privileged companions? (Some idiot 'Muricans even going to the extreme of taking dogs to get outfitted in clothing, or having dog birthday parties) In numerous rigorous tests, for example, pigs have been found to be just as intelligent as dogs. Pigs are the closest relatives in terms of their value in human experiments, and pig tissues- even hearts- have sometimes substituted for human. Yet we put them in vast slaughter houses, then butcher then and eat them. As George Orwell once opined (in his great novel, Animal House): "All animals are equal but some are more equal than others".

Now think of how Swine Flu began. It started in a vast factory pig farm in Mexico. Most E Coli cases have originated in huge industrial factories, wherein the cattle are carelessly butchered, as portrayed in 'Fast Food Nation'. Thus, Foer's final point that:

"There is an abundance of reasons to say no to factory-farmed meat: It is the No. 1 cause of global warming, it systematicallu forces tens of billions of animals to suffer in ways that would be illegal if they were dogs."


All of this perhaps is reason enough to agree with Foer when he says: "Dogs are practically begging to be eaten".

Which is to say, I will pass on it, thank you very much. But I won't look down my nose at anyone who is averse to factory farmed meats raised in their filth in slaughterhouses, and who opts to barbecue their Rover- rather than put him down at the local Pound..... for their neighbors to consume with that next cheese burger.

Notes from a first Evolution Lecture

Whilst pouring through old files (and trying to re-organize them) the other day, I came across a manila folder labeled 'Evolution Lecture Notes'. Curious, I opened it up to find sheets that I had used to prepare my first ever lecture on evolution - when I was teaching O-level Biology, in 1974. This was as part of my (then) Peace Corps assignment, at a secondary school in the north of Barbados

The notes were interesting and intriguing, not only for being the first used for a teaching assignment, but because I had used them to answer student questions - then, and in later years in other venues. They were also interesting in that word of my evolution teaching had spread round the school and reached the ears of two Scripture teachers. They then challenged me to a debate, which I happily agreed to. Provided they allow me double the presentation and rebuttal time - to equalize their numbers!

Anyway, the part of the notes that is likely most apropos here, for a short space, has to do with the questions that were asked and the answers I gave. I still find these answers as good then as now, but agree if I were to redo them I'd had many more details to do with the genetics and micro-biology. (The prospective redone parts are given in italics)

So let's start the ball rolling. In each case a student question is numbered and given in black, and then my response to follow.


1. Evolution states that advanced life came from non-life - how can this be?

Actually, the theory of evolution says no such thing, but this is a common error. The concept of life possibly arising from non-life is the theory (actually more hypothesis) of noogensis.

What evolution says is that incremental changes to proteins, and genetic structures are made over time which then become passed on by a process of natural selection to successive generations of an organism. The attributes passed on generally confer a survival advantage.

2. Can you give an example?

Sure! The success of natural selection is measured by the fitness (w) and the selective value (s): E.g. w = 1 – s

As an illustration, consider a German cockroach species with allele D, where D denotes resistance to the pesticide dieldrin, and d denotes non-resistance.

In the population after some defined time, let three genotypes be exhibited in the population: DD, Dd and dd. Now, on average over time let each dd and Dd individual produce one offspring, and each DD produce two. These average numbers can be used to indicate the genotype’s absolute fitness and to project the changes in gene frequency over succeeding generations.

The relative fitness (w) is meanwhile given by:

w = 1 for DD

w = 0.5 for Dd

w = 0.5 for dd

The selection values, relative measures of the reduction of fitness for each genotype, are given respectively by:

s = 1 – 1 = 0 for DD

s = 1 – 0.5 = 0.5 for Dd

s = 1 – 0.5 = 0.5 for dd

As we expect, the dieldrin-resistant genotype displays zero reduction in fitness, and hence maximum survival rate. By contrast the d- allele can be regarded as ‘deleterious’. Evolution in this case favors the replication of all those German roaches with genotype DD. Those others (dD, dd) will die out at disproportionate rates. As they die out, therefore, only the hardiest DD genotypes will remain.

Indeed, it can be shown that over successive generations of these roaches the gene frequency (of d) will decrease by:

delta q = -s p q^2 / (1 - sq^2)

where p denotes the frequency of the favored allele, and q the frequency of the "disadvantaged" or "deleterious" allele. Fixing ideas, let's say at a particular time that a gene frequency "snap shot" of the (German) cockroach population under study yields: p(D) = 0.60, q(D) = 0.40. i.e. the favored allele is reproducing at the ratio 3:2 relative to the deleterious one, d.

Assume as before that s = 0.50. A simple table can be constructed (via successive iterations of the previous formula) showing the declining gene frequency of d relative to D:

The Table has headers:

p ---- q -----q^2 -------delta q

Where the 2nd quantity is the one to keep an eye on. The first couple entries - row by row are:

0.60 ----- 0.40-----0.16----- (-0.13)

0.73-------0.27 -----(0.073)----(-0.10)

Each new (delta q) of course feeds back to reduce q in the next iteration. Thereby the loss of 'd' genes through selection is balanced by the gain of the 'D' genes that confer reproductive advantage. This example is based on a starting mutation, but others can be invoked to show how a sipmle minor adaptive change in structure and function - can directly lead to a permanent structure, e.g. the bacterial flagellum - as Watson noted.

Similar evolutionary advantage can be see with the mutations of the influenza virus, which is also why flu vaccines have to be changed each year. The influenza virus change is a perfect example of evolution in action.

3. Don't you assert a tiny probability for any given step happening?

Not at all. another misgiving and misunderstanding. As you can see using the preceding example of the German cockroach, all that is needed is for the gene frequency associated with the favored allele (in this case, DD) to constantly increase relative to the disfavored ones. This happens automatically as the less-favored die out over time, and following the table above shows this. Hence, probabilities are not fixed, say like that to achieve a royal flush in poker, but can be enhanced by the dynamics of the fitness-change.

The error of many creationists is to assume all evolutionary probabilities are fixed, and all are remote. An example often given (misplaced) is the likelihood of taking a Jet apart and having it come back together by itself. This is erroneous since the Jet is already a manufactured item. Hence if one disassembles it there is zero probability of its reconstruction unless extraneous factors are inserted. Like a team of Jet builders!

Natural selection works differently, in that certain features of living things are already selected for then their repetition is enhanced via reproduction. It is not the same at all. In fact, the increased probability is usually already set once a single simple change occurs. This usually starts with micro-evolution. Micro-evolution implies an incremental change in a small proportion of DNA.

Examples of micro-evolution include the re-arrangement of amino acids in proteins such as haemoglobin, or the altered genes for a specific genetic character in successive generations of the fruit fly. For example:

Generation I (AMINO ACID SEQUENCE): FF BBB EE DDD KK
Generation XXIII (AMINO ACID SEQUENCE): KK BBB DD DDE FF EE

(N.B. Each capital letter denotes a particular complex of ~ 10,000 arrangements of A( adenine), G(guanine) , T (thymine) and , C(cytosine)

The preceding illustration discloses re-arrangement of the amino acid sequence, by base substitution, in a succeeding generation of for fruit flies. Such re-arrangement is prima facie evidence for species micro-evolution, i.e. at the microscopic level of observation characterizing genes and amino acids.

4. Why are there no missing links?

"Missing link" is a common erroneous term. It implies there is one and only one transitional species leading from a common ape-human ancestor to humans. This is the wrong end of the stick. In fact, what we are dealing with is a series or sequence of transitional links that have occurred over the past 6-8 million years. The most recent of these finds (and most distant ancestor) was "ardis" described in an earlier blog entry. There are doubtless dozens of others in the fossil record before him -her.

Why so hard to find? Not because evolution is "wrong" but because the Earth's crust is dynamic. It is not one solid mass but composed of over 15 tectonic plates which continually shift, move and crush up against each other. It is a wonder, given that, we have managed to find any fossils. Bear in mind here: evidence of absence is not absence of evidence!

For this reason, the prima facie evidence of evolution doesn't rest on fossils alone but on genetics.

For example: ·

We know humans and chimpanzees have the exact same cytochrome- c protein sequence. In the absence of common (evolutionary) descent, the chance of this occurrence is conservatively less than 10^-93 (1 out of 10^93). Thus, the high degree of similarity in these proteins is a spectacular corroboration of the theory of common descent.

Furthermore, human and chimpanzee cytochrome- c proteins differ by ~10 amino acids from all other mammals. The chance of this occurring in the absence of a hereditary mechanism is less than 10^29. The yeast Candida krusei is one of the most distantly related eukaryotic organisms from humans. Candida has 51 amino acid differences from the human sequence. A conservative estimate of this probability is less than 10^-25.

In terms of the genetic aspect, we know from the chimp-human chromosome studies (first published in Science; Vol. 215, p. 1525, 1982 by O. Prakash and J; Yunis. ) that a remarkable homology exists between chimp and human chromosomes when heterochromatin is excluded. They found no less than thirteen IDENTICAL chromosome pairs, that included chromosomes: 3, 6-8, 10, 11, 13, 14, 19-22, and XY.


The next question was not in the original set but is added here, since it appears to have become a huge issue with the creationist crowd:

5. Doesn't the 2nd law of thermodynamics prohibit evolution? If the second law asserts everything is winding down and getting more disorderly, how can you have more orderly and advanced biological organisms?


This is directly a result of misinterpretation of the 2nd law. Strictly speaking the law states:

Entropy (the state of disorder) will tend to increase over time in any closed system.

The last part is very crucial but it is exactly the part that the creationist crowd omits, which renders their question a non-starter.

The reason is that neither the Earth nor its biological systems are "closed" systems, hence do not exhibit constantly increasing disorder.

The Earth, for example, is open to the radiant energy of the Sun and receives some 1360 watts per square meter. Plants on the Earth are likewise OPEN to solar energy, and receive it and then use it in the process of photo-synthesis. Other oganisms eat the plants and thereby incorporate that energy into themselves.

Thus, the path is cleared for higher organizational development and speciation.

We do not see a constant wind-down because all these systems are OPEN, not closed.

Hopefully, readers will find the above answers intriguing and thought -provoking.

Let the Kids Have Fun!

It's Halloween, and time for all the play spooks and goblins to come out. I have just one question about this (most popular) annual festivity : Where have all the Devils gone?

Seriously! The Wall Street Journal noted about a week ago the most popular costumes recorded by retail sales, and they ranged from "The Little Princess" (commanding nearly 49% of all those sold) to Spiderman, to Harry Potter, and Angels - but NO Devils! Where the Hell are the Devils?

In my first ever 'trick or treat' excursion alone, ca. 1953, I recall the one costume I prized most was that of a Devil, aka Lucifer. I managed to get my (reluctant Catholic) mom to craft most of it, including the pointed tail, and I found the perfect rubber mask at a Milwaukee variety store on Vliet St. The mask was a grotesque rendering of the Devil and included suitable slanted eyes, dark furrowed brows, a wicked mustache, goatee and small horns. By the time I was all set, I felt like I'd scare the bejeebers out of most of the kids ambling around the streets near Hadley St.

Didn't turn out that way! Nearly one -fourth of the trick or treaters had also adopted Devil attire! No fun!

But where are all the Devils now? Not to be seen. All we behold are the politically correct, pathetic outfits made popular by assorted commercial fare and that is mostly pop junk. But no Devil! The WSJ wouldn't even put an estimate on demonic entity costume sales, which means it was probably below 0.01%. Pathetic! Satan looks like he no longer gets any respect. Maybe he ought to sound off like the late Rodney Dangerfield!

As we know it today, Halloween (or "all Hallows eve") was derived from the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain (pronounced sow-in), “when it was believed that the ghosts of the dead returned to earth."

According to history.com:

"In the seventh century, Pope Boniface IV designated November 1 All Saints’ Day ... It is widely believed today that the pope was attempting to replace the Celtic festival of the dead with a related, but church-sanctioned holiday. ... The night before it, the night of Samhain, began to be called All-hallows Eve and, eventually, Halloween.”

Trick-or-treating evolved from English traditions of All Souls’ Day, when the poor would go house-to-house begging for food in exchange for prayers for the families’ deceased relatives. Costumes naturally became a part of this.

Needless to say, Halloween today remains the most egalitarian of holidays, because it is the one time - the one national celebration- when poor or homeless children can also take to the streets in droves, hold their little bags and hands out, and receive the bounty of the wealthier citizens without shame or opprobrium. Even costumes can still be fashioned cheaply, without having to go out and spend a bundle -especially with unemployment still at almost 10%.

What's not to like? Halloween, at least for those of us who've not yet become moral scolds, is the best time of the year - because we let kids pretend to be what they want, without rancor or belittling. The kids enjoy it, being able to make the rounds of many city streets, and return home with loot that can last for days: Snickers bars, Reece's pieces, Hershy's kisses, and even - if lucky- those fancy Cadbury almond and milk chocolate bars.

In my day, it was mostly candy corn!

At the top, a crude rendition or approximation of my devil mask.

No More Fake Meteorite Strikes!

THE BARRINGER METEOR CRATER in ARIZONA

We have already seen how many folks, albeit gullible, were inconvenienced by the "balloon boy" farce, but where it really gets nasty and reckless is when companies have to trick whole nations to promote their products. Such was the case with the recent "meteor strike" publicity stunt, in Latvia, compliments of Tele2 - a Swedish mobile phone company. (This was as reported in The Financial Times, Oct. 28, 'Companies & Markets', p. 13)

Did these jokers really think it would be cute to emulate the arrival of a 0.1 m meteorite (the term "meteor" is reserved for when it is seen in the atmosphere, though the FT story refers to "meteor strike"), to the extent of even digging out a hole over 30 feet wide and 10 feet deep? And then completing the fakery by burning chemicals at the base to create the impression of a smoldering object still around?

As the FT noted (ibid.)

"The Stockholm -based company admitted it had dug the hole and burned chemicals"

Like the balloon story, this one garnered worldwide attention. All the moreso because seldom have cameras or human eyes actually been on hand to witness and record such a momentous strike.

The last one I beheld, in Barbados some 23 years ago, occurred when a meteorite (estimated at 0.4m across) plowed into Mt. Tenantry and raised quite a ruckus. The explosive intensity alone shattered eardrums for over a mile from the site. The impact was written up in an issue of The Journal of the Barbados Astronomical Society.

However, there was no major crater left behind, so - when we investigated (a team of us from the Barbados Astronomical Society) we concluded that nearly all its kinetic energy was converted into sound, and heat. Indeed, you couldn't go near the site and a lot of trees were still burning by the time we arrived.

Needless to say, these strikes are rare- which is just as well. To see one of the biggest impacts ever, check out the Barringer Meteor Crater - shown in the photo at top, and created some 25,000 yrs. ago. The object that made this crater had a diameter of nearly 35m (prompting some to suggest an asteroid did it, not a meteorite - but the distinction is academic since it is still at the limits of the largest meteorites).

The energy was estimated to be 1000 times that of the Hiroshima A-bomb, and the crater left was 1.2 km (0.75 mile) wide and nearly 167 m or 551' deep. If such a monster meteorite had impacted a small suburb, say near Miami Gardens, FL (near Dolphin stadium) the whole region would be almost totally decimated, from the Palmetto Expressway, to way past the Broward County line.

This is another reason it isn't too classy or smart to try to invent fake meteorite hits. Fortunately, in this case, on site inspectors saw a too symmetrical crater - and figured it had to be man-made, not natural. The smoking detritus also aroused suspicion, not to mention why there was already a camera crew on hand filming it. How convenient is that? To be there within seconds of an impact?

As it has turned out, according to the FT report Tele2 has paid the price. The Latvian Interior Ministry has vowed not to do business with them, and Latvian police are evidently to launch a "formal investigation".

Faking meteorite strikes to promote a new product is not to be commended any more than faking balloon flights with a small boy inside, to try and grab a new reality TV-show.

Will All the Global "Cooling" Idiots Please Stand Up?

Seriously! You know who you are! The ones whose mouths have been wagging the past three years or so, announcing that global warming has ceased and the planet has steadily been on a cooling trek since 1998. Raise your hands, morons!

Now, new NOAA examination of existing data plus a separate AP-team investigation shows that this was all misbegotten, misuse of statistics. As per the article in today's Denver Post ('Analysts Dispute Claim that the World is Now Cooling Off', p. 8A) the real conclusion (for non-boneheads) from the NOAA itself is:

"The last 10 years are the warmest 10-year period of the modern record"

Quoting NOAA climate-monitoring chief, Deke Arndt.

Of course, anyone the least bit skeptical of the cooling gibberish could have found out this was all so much rubbish by himself, even before the new studies. They merely needed to access the source paper that started it all, which first appeared in Nature (May, 2006) written by Dr. Noel Keenlyside et al, wherein a tentative claim for monotonic global cooling since ca. 1998 was put forward. This twenty byte excerpt (minus the reading in context) then 'jumped the shark' and became embedded into the warming skeptics' arsenal of disinfo and set real global warming science education back at least a decade in my estimation.

Now, when one broaches warming anywhere, he is met with specious citations of the Keenlyside et al paper as "proof" it isn't happening. At the root of this misapprehension by the faux skeptics is misinterpretation of the data and statistical methods appearing in the paper - not at all helped by the media which have also misconstrued it.

Even Editors who fully knew the actual original source still couldn't be bothered to consult it, they opted to get their info 2nd hand (like from the 'Investor's Business Daily', or 'Drudge Report') then bloviate how global warming is wrong, or "hyped" in sundry editorials. Wrong and strong, as the saying goes.

People prone to the denial weltanschauung then read these superficial reports, missed the key core clues, and bruited it all about that they (deniers, skeptics) were right all along. Instead of taking shortcuts, skeptics could have retrieved the ACTUAL paper from NATURE! They could have studied the paper's key figure(3), the one that looks at past and (forecast) future global temperatures, "Hindcast/forecast decadal variations in global mean temperature, as compared with observations and standard climate model projections".

The first thing they’d have noted about the figure -- indeed, one major source of confusion -- is that each point represents a ten-year centered mean. That is, each point represents the average temperature of the decade starting 5 years before that point and ending 5 years after that point. Thus, the statistics for potential “cooling” could not possibly have been justifiably extrapolated beyond 1998 + 5 = 2003. Yet math and stats imbeciles all over the place have insisted it was ongoing.

This ignorance and perpetuation of such was incepted because too many simpletons- both on the net, and in the media- took the repeated gushing claims about warming "now changed to cooling" without examining the key source paper themselves. Even some vaunted “experts” at the Allexperts site, have climbed aboard this moron bandwagon., e.g.

http://en.allexperts.com/q/Astronomy-1360/2009/10/Astronomy-global-warming.htm

Second, the skeptics would have spotted the red line in the Nature publication and – if bright enough – beheld that it was the actual global temperature data from the U.K.'s Hadley Center for Climate Prediction and Research. They ought to have asked: Why does the red line stop in 1998 and not 2007? Again, it’s a running 10-year mean, and the authors use data from a Hadley paper that ends around 2003, In effect, they can't do a ten-year centered mean after 1998.

Lazy deniers, however, have parlayed this simple statistical peculiarity of the data into believing that global warming factually STOPPED in 1998!

Third, at least one genius denier might have spotted the black line in the Figure, which was actually one of the IPCC scenario projections, labelled 'A1B.' It denotes a relatively high-CO2-growth model -- but actual carbon emissions since 2000 have wildly outpaced it. A further check by skeptics of the solid green line - the "hindcast" of the authors – e.g. how well their model compared to actual data (and the A1B scenario) could also be done. The lazy morons would have seen that, if extended (in dashes) through 2010 and finally to 2025, it JOINED up with A1B! In other words, Keenlyside et al's paper actually concurs with the IPCC projection that warming will ramp up majorly past 2010!

What is dismaying to those who have done serious research is how deficient the average denier-skeptic is, and how difficult it is to impart correct interpretation of data minus the bogey of ideology which stalks every word written on global warming. Stanford historian of science Robert Proctor has referred to the trend of skeptic science sown for political or economic ends - e.g. in imparting ignorance and faux skepticism, agnotology. It is achieved primarily by sowing the teeniest nugget of doubt in whatever claim is made (and as we know NO scientific theory is free of these 100%, even such rich theories as quantum mechanics and special relativity).

The sad outcome of the agnotology dynamic in the USA, in terms of exploiting the "global cooling" baloney is an even larger segment of the public vs. 3 years ago, mostly brainwashed by the Fox-ites and right wing think tanks, now believe global warming is a "hoax". Latest figures from the Pew research Center show that now barely 57% accept standard, human-engendered warming theory, as opposed to 77% three years earlier. Add this now to the majoritiy of 'Muricans who still refuse to accept evolution and no wonder most of the developed industrial world laughs at us as uneducated hicks and rubes.

Better physics education may be needed, but I think a large dollop of critical thinking and training in scientific interpretation is also needed. In addition, it may now be time to re-implement the Fairness Doctrine that was cut in the Reagan years. Contrary to conservative political malarkey, this doctrine doesn't remove free speech, it merely allows intelligent counterpoint to whatever bald claims are made on talk radio, OR on cable TV. Especially FOX and its three stooges variety show of Glen Beck, Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly.

Is the Cosmos Fractal in Nature?

Among the recurring questions which have arisen to do with our universe, is whether it is fractal in nature. Fractals, for those unaware, are generated via a self-similarity property that enables us to compute them via repeated iterations. Fig. 1 shows the outcome of one such series of computations. One can easily see from this that the self-similarity replicating property repeats at smaller and smaller scales.

The most basic way for the cosmos to exhibit a fractal nature is in terms of its dimension. Thus, the universe may well not be four dimensional, or five dimensional, but fractal dimensional with the dimension non-integer, say between 4 and 5. (E.g. 4.2). This sounds counter-intuitive but people need to bear in mind that one of the original founders of the calculus (Leibniz) left open the possibility for a fractal operator in his derivative of a function, F(x), such that:

Given: (d/dx)^n F(x)

the value of n need not be an integer.

In the case of the cosmos at large, one will wish to examine concentric spheres of radii: R1, R2, R3....R_N and assess using these radii the density of objects within - assuming a hierarchical configuration. In the most abstract sense then, the cosmos' fractal dimension will depend on regularity between successive expansions factors k, k', such that the dimension will be:

D = (log k')/ (log k)

and one uses radii: r_n = k^n r_o

where cosmic radius r_o contains N_o objects, and r_1 contains N_1 objects, r_2 contains N_2 objects and so forth. In each r_n we assign what we call "strata" and "sub-strata" for both particles-objects and cosmic space.It's important to understand at least in a general way how the boundaries apply between sphere radii. We take a prosaic example to try to illustrate the separation of substrata-strata by radii and also by fractal dimension.

'Fluids of information' (of different information capacity) are subject to being fractionated. A nice example is after cooking a roast, say, and pouring the residual fluid into a small container. This is then put into a cold refrigerator for a day or two, then taken out. On observation, a top layer of whitish fat is seen resting atop the less dense supporting fluid - which is now a gel. In the fluid analogy model, a phase transition has occurred.

Let's carry this further. The fat has a viscosity y1, and the gravy -y1. Now, let Z denote a scalar[1] function of position through the two dimensional region separating the fluids, we have three regions in all:

--------------------------------------------------------
Z (f) = y1 (fat) FAT
Z (c) = 0 (boundary) -------------------------------
Z (g) = -y1 (gravy) GRAVY
---------------------------------------------------------

where Z (c) represents the center of the region, separating the fat from the (fatless) gravy. This two dimensional boundary is a domain wall. Not surprisingly, information and energy are interchangeable. Separations of energy, therefore indicate separations of information domains. What might these represent? In a crude way, the two information fluids are two parallel cosmi - maybe one matter, the other anti-matter. One domain might be called 'Aleph-nought', and the other (with greater information density) 'Aleph-One'. From observations of our universe, it seems that the material cosmos (the one we inhabit) is 'Aleph-One' since so little anti-matter is discernible. Aleph-nought and one are separated by fractional dimensionality.

Let us see how a general cosmic fractal dimension may be ascertained using some basic observations. Let the zeroth radius r_o = 1 pc or 1 parsec (3.26 light years). Let it possess N_o = 1 (1 object, say a star). Then we go to r_1 = 10 pc and N_1 = 100. Then, r_2 = 1000 pc, and N_2 = 10,000. If one truncates the data right here, then we can establish the expansion factor using the last two r-values:

r_2 = k^n x r_o = (1000)r_o = 10^3 (r_o)

r_1 = k^n x r_o = (10)r_o = 10^1 (r_o)

From this we determine: D = log k^3/ log k^1 = 3

Note, however, that if r_2 = 1500 pc (same objects interior) then D = 3.17 and we have a true fractal dimension. In practice, things to determine an overall cosmic density are nowhere this simple. The main problem is the ability to correctly assess the relevant objects (in this case galaxies, or galaxy clusters) interior to the respective radii. One can use a more simplified number here, which we call the average density.

For example, based on the configuration that yields D = 3.17, we work out the average density using:

= N(R_2)/ V(R_2) = (7 x 10^-7) = [3/4pi] AR^-y

Now, A is the normalizing constant = N_o/ r_o^D, and for the quantities already defined we have: A = 1

Here, (y) is the fractal density index.

Using logs we can easily calculate it to be: y = 1.747

Again, this is only intended to be instructive, not to be based on actual cosmic data. However, for comparison, we may compare it to an early estimate obtained by Vaucouleurs (SCIENCE, Vol. 167, 1970, p. 1203) for the cosmos, which was y = 1.8. It is incredible we could come so close to Vaucouleurs' estimate using basically numbers and sphere radii pulled out of thin air. This appears to show perhaps an insensitivity of the cosmic fractal dimension to any particular choice of objects N within radii r_N. Or does it? We will pursue this further in a subsequent entry.

[1] Scalar means it depends only on magnitude, not direction.

Jesus: The Augustan Hippie

An enormous effort continues to be expended on the issue of Jesus' historicity, and perhaps the most significant work done has been by long time Dead Sea Scroll scholar, John Dominic Crossan. Most of his compelling case is laid out in his 400+ page monograph: The Historical Jesus: The Life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant. But the depth of the research clearly shows his conclusion is overpowering: That no genuine divine being existed, rather a very unusual hippie persona, who evinced a disdain for all the normal customs, rituals, formalities. In other words, given the era and time, an "Augustan Hippie". (Under the reign of Emperor Augustus)

A formidable problem in researching and writing about historical personages, is that myth often becomes conflated with facts. This is especially true when the research entails exhaustive dredging up of numerous obscure scrolls, manuscripts- not to mention cross checking of sources.
That is why John Dominic Crossan's book is all the more remarkable. It shines out like a beacon, against a morass of many other comparable books with far less scholarly qualities. At the outset, let me say the book is not easy reading, in terms of mastering insights into textual analysis and their import for interpretation. For this reason one can be sure no limited minded fundamentalist will open its covers.

Which is a tragedy, since a crack of light shining into the darkened neurons of the fundies might well make them more human, as opposed to inhuman and intolerant.

My own ability to ferret out the key research done by Crossan was no doubt aided by my having attended a Jesuit-run university in New Orleans ca: 1964-67. So, I'd already taken courses in biblical exegesis, Quadriform Gospel analysis and Comparative Religion. My mind was therefore already open to the possibilities Crossan presents.

Crossan's conclusionary take on Jesus is perhaps best summarized on p. 422:

"His strategy, implicitly for himself and explicitly for his followers, was the combination of free healing and common eating, a religious and economic egalitarianism that negated alike and at once the hierarchical and patronal normalcies of Jewish religion and Roman power.

And lest he himself be interpreted as simply the new broker of a new God, he moved on constantly, settling down neither at Nazareth or Capernaum. He was neither broker nor mediator but, somewhat paradoxically, the announcer that neither should exist between humanity and divinity or between humanity and itself. Miracle and parable, healing and eating wwre calculated to force individuals into *unmediated* physical and spiritual contact with God and unmediated physical and spiritual contact with one another.
He announced, in other words, the borderless kingdom of God."

Jesus as a historical person, in other words, entirely fit within the egalitarian Gnostic scheme - as opposed to the Pauline 'god-man/Savior' theme. (The Gnostics, as biblical scholar Elaine Pagels notes, considered anyone who identified with God exactly as committing a sacrilege and blasphemy).

What or who was Jesus, at the end of the day? From the weight of Crossan's arguments and insights - not to mention the consensus of The Jesus Seminar Project- he was an extraordinary man. But a flesh and blood human nonetheless.

In Crossan's final conclusion - with which I wholeheartedly concur from everything I've seen- Jesus was a "peasant Jewish Cynic". (As Crossan points out, p. 421, a 'Cynic' embodied "a life-style and mindset in opposition to the cultural heart of Mediterranean civilization, a way of looking and dressing, of eating and living and relating, that announced its contempt for honor and shame, for patronage and clientage. ....Hippies in a world of Augustan yuppies.")

Little wonder then that Jesus' habits would infuriate not only Jewish orthodoxy but the Roman government. Leading ultimately to execution for what they'd have perceived as "subversion" of the Empire.

Geza Vermes, a scholar of ancient Judaism concurs with this take. He is a Jewish Studies professor at Oxford University. According to Vermes, Yeshua (Jesus) was crucified because he "clashed with Jewish and Roman leaders" and was regarded as a "potential threat to law and order and consequently to the welll being of the Jewish people".

They thus decided he "had to be eliminated for the common good."

Vermes goes on to note the 'spark' that ignited the hostility was probably Yeshua doing the "wrong thing" by tossing out the money changers, "in the wrong place" (the Temple). At the "wrong time" (Passover).

Vermes' (like Crossan and other researchers) thus rejects implicitly the facile explanation that the dispute involved the claim of being a unique Son of God who "exercised divine powers".
Vermes doubts seriously (as scholar Elaine Pagels of Harvard notes vis-a-vis the Gnostics) that those 'Savior' beliefs and words were part of the original message.

They were added later on, most of the additions from bastardizations of the Latin Vulgate in its transciption to the King James Bible - which is probably the worst version of the bible available- though it reads the best! As Bible scholar Bart Ehrman has pointed out in his book, 'Misquoting Jesus, (p. 209) the King James version is littered with places in which the translators rendered a Greek text derived from an earlier 12th century (Vulgate) edition "that is one of the worst manuscripts now available to us!" (Emphasis Ehrman's). As Ehrman points out, based on this, it is "little wonder modern (correct translation) editions differ from the King James". Of course, it is amusing that the literalist fundies believe this to mean their book is the supremely correct one and all other versions are wrong!

In context here, consider the claim of a miracle: Jesus “walking on water”. Prof. Hugh Schonfeld has a simple explanation for this: a mistranslation of the Hebrew word “al” which can mean “by” or “on”. So, when a scribe really wrote “walking by the water” it was mistranslated as “walking on the water”.

If one applies the (David) Hume test for miracles here, one therefore asks: Is the Schonfeld claim of mistranslation MORE or LESS miraculous than a man actually violating the law of gravity and walking on water? It doesn’t require a lot of thought, genius or effort to see that the mistranslation of a passage of the New Testament is LESS miraculous (or if you prefer, less improbable) than that a man actually, literally walked on water.

Exaggeration, probably by disciples or early biographers eager to inflate the rebel peasant Cynic into a divine entity, and God-man was also feasible. The erstwhile reason was to "convert unbelievers to faith in Jesus as the Messiah, or God" (cf. Rev. Thomas Bokenkotter, in 'A Concise History of the Catholic Church', notes, p. 17) . A simple example would be the changing of water into wine at Cana. This could easily be done using some berries common to the Mediterranean, which Jesus casually squeezed into water, making it change appearance - then by the power of suggestion convincing the witnesses it was "wine".

At the same time, Vermes - and others (Pagels, Crossan) are willing to grant that Jesus could spell bind a crowd with his words, and could "lay bare the inmost core of spiritual truth".
The central problem for the conventional Christian believer inevitably arises: how to reconcile his/her faith in a literal 'God-Man/Savior' Jesus, with the actual historical person. Who was more a radical, "liberal" freedom-fighter against the Roman state. (Again, imagine a well spoken 60s radical, like Yuppie Jerry Rubin, alive and well in the Middle East and dissing all the antiquated Jewish and Roman customs like he dissed the "establishment" in the 60s)


Crossan offers a hint ('Epilogue', p. 423):

"Is an understanding of the historical Jesus of any permanent relevance to Christianity itself? I propose that at the heart of any Christianity there is always, covertly or overtly, a dialectic between a historically read Jesus and a theologically read Christ. Christiany is always, in other words, a Jesus/Christ/ianity."


and finally (ibid.)

"This book challenges the reader on the level of formal method, material investment, and historical interpretation. It presumes there will always be divergent historical Jesuses, that there will always be divergent Christs built upon them, but above all, it argues that the structure of a Christianity will always be: this is how we see Jesus as Christ now."

For anyone with patience and a truly open mind, Crossan's research (embodied in his book) is a worthwhile excursion into the intricacies of textual analysis, and diligent comparison of ancient scrolls, sources. Its intellectual journey is breathtaking, and its conclusions even more so.
It goes without saying that it can't be everyone's 'cup of tea' because the (implied) threat to the pre-determined beliefs of many will likely overcome their ability to pursue open inquiry. One thing the fundamentalist is frightened of more than anything (maybe apart from his imagined "Hell") is open inquiry and the uncertainty that may be engendered from it.


Crossan on Christian Fundamentalists:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6f0ZHaoSnf0