scientists are the real prophets

Scientists are the real prophets of this world and their work is the real miracle. If ten million people pray for a rock to move an inch, it does not move a micron, but if one people uses his brain and moves the rock, it will move to the top of a mountain. Religion can't do anything for the people, it is the science that is the true miracle. From TVs to Cell Phones to cars and planes, we see the results of this miracle all around us and yet we still believe in religion instead of science.

robots and hopeless optimists

I think I am a hopeless optimist. I see a future where robots do all the manual labour and for the first time in its history mankind is free from manual labour and left to do the real creative work. But then, when I read in the papers how military/industrial complex is enthusiastically pursuing soldier robots, I understand that I again have been too optimistic about this animal called homo sapiens. Of course, how could I forget, we are first going to use these robots to kill each other, and then will think of better uses for them.

Aliens, Us, and Chimpanzees

If an alien race visits the earth, I don't think they will differentiate much between us and our keen chimpanzees. We are not that different! What they will report to their home planet is that among all the other animals on this planet, they have found one species that is a tool maker and has managed to build pretty advanced tools. This animal tends to be social and gathers in large groups, but apart from that is not much different from other members of its branch, the primates. It is conniving, predatory, vicious, selfish, greedy. It tends to spend most of its time fighting other members of its species over resources and is very brutal towards any living thing, including its own kind.

Why we should not expect intelligent beings in the universe

One of the latest books I have read was “A Brain for All Seasons” by William H. Calvin (University of Chicago Press- 2002). It is about the evolution of humans. I want to share some reflections on this book,

It is interesting that in 4 billion years of history of life on this planet, intelligent beings, humans, have only been around for not more than 100,000 years, which compared to that long history is just but a second. By intelligence I mean the grasp of language and the production and understanding of concepts like Arts and Philosophy and artefacts and machinery.

Bipedal apes appeared in Africa around 5 to 6 million years ago, but up to 100000 years ago they were not much more advanced than chimpanzees and gorillas. Intelligence and a big brain with capacity for thinking, memorizing the past and planning for future, appeared in one small and isolated group of these mammals only by chance. Life can and could have gone on this planet for the remaining billions of years without any intelligent beings appearing on the scene. We humans are just a chance event, not a necessity.

Some say higher intelligence is necessary for the survival of the species. But that is nonsense. In the battle of survival, bacteria and cockroaches have been much more successful than most bipedal apes, bacteria have been around for more than 2 billion years, and cockroaches for around 300 million years, and nobody could consider these animals as intelligent and thinking. Even our closest siblings in animal kingdom, chimpanzees and gorillas, have been around as long as the humans and very successful in adapting to their environment.

What I want to point out here is that higher intelligence is just a chance win in a lottery and not a necessity in evolution. And from that I conjecture that intelligent life in universe must be extremely rare and sparse, not as some sci-fi fans believe, abundant. Even if by any chance another intelligent being has appeared in another remote corner of this universe, how successful can it be in the game of survival. Apart from all the environmental changes that can bring about the doom of the intelligent animals; in the millions of years before they achieve a civilization through a slow start, at the end, even if they survive and build a civilization, they themselves can strike the death blow. In our case, who knows how longer we human beings are going to survive on this planet. By piling up weapons of mass destruction(and I am not talking about one saddam Hussein here, but the real culprits, the sole superpower ) we might very possibly annihilate ourselves in a world war(and not only ourselves, but perhaps the whole planet), because our animal brains are still ticking wrapped in a tribal and herd level, while our weapons have come a long way from sticks and stones, and will be deadlier and more advanced by the day. We might destroy our own civilization and our own race in a world war, and this destiny can befall many other intelligent beings in other planets; if there are any out there at all. Higher intelligence, the one we humans own, most probably, is just a very rare by-product of evolution, a dead-end alley, a one in a million lottery win, and not a necessary stage or a tool for survival. Life has managed without it up till now and can manage to the end, when our planet is going to perish in the formidable glow of a dying sun.

EUROPEAN SOCIAL DEMOCRACY PAYS

Linda McQuaig article in Toronto Star about the benefits of social democracy

Death and Evolution- Why should we die for the species to exist

If death was not programmed into our cells, we living things could not adapt to change so fast and would be a gonner by now. Without death evolution can't work its magic and the species that does not let it's individual members die will not last long. Death is a unique "defect" in genes that has actually resulted in the survival of the species and life on this planet.

What an irony that DEATH, which is so "traumatic" to any individual member of the species, is so good for the survival of the species.

Human Brain and the Evolution

First, there were single cells. For billions of years earth was inhibited only by single cell organisms. Then, there came multi-cell animals. Entities with a higher consciousness, aware of the world around them but acting more or less like machines. The brain in animals works more or less just to keep the community of cells they are made of; alive!

The third stage in evolution happened just recently, the human brain, with a consciousness totally separate and free from the community of cells it is made of. A brain that can think thoughts alien to the cells it is made of, thoughts that don't have anything to do with the day to day survival of the cells it is made of.

The fourth stage of evolution started 200 years ago, with the advent of the Industrial Revolution. We are still at the beginning and nobody can say what a new consciousness will arise out of the totality of the human brains that comprise the industrial societies.

That consciousness might be close to what we think of as GOD.

Public Accpetance of Evolution in Different Countries

Source: Scince Magazine and the New Scientist. Read the article HERE

Look at the position of US at the bottom of the chart. It is shocking, isn't it? I am often stunned by the public ignorance in the US.

Bush, Stem Cells and Iraq

Bush did it again. He vetoed the stem cell research bill for the second time. He is a really great man. He is so much worried for the life of cells, single cells. Who cares if millions and billions of people are going to benefit hugely from this research that needs these cells. Who cares if this research is going to save people from miseries and pains of cancer, Alzheimers and many other diseases.

On the other hand, why on earth should he worry about the death and destruction in Iraq??? The life of a single cell is much more important than the life of millions of Iraqis. On one hand he is protecting these cells, and on the other hand he does not give a damn about more than 100 people being killed each day in Iraq.

That is what I call a consistent humanitarian conscientious policy.

We Are All Parasites, But Wonderful Parasites

Apart from Plants, all other animals on this planet are just parasites; parasites on the body of plants. Plants are the only living things that produce their food directly from inanimate chemical ingredients. All the other animals depend on plants to survive and live. But what wonderful parasites are we! We are much more advanced and complex than the living things we rely upon to survive. Nearly most animals are so much more complex than plants. It seems that because plants, early on on the life of this planet, found out how to turn the sun's energy into food, just were satisfied and happy with this process and did not have the urge to evolve much. But look at any animal, the eyes, the ears, the muscles, the nerves, the brain, how complex did we become, just to survive among other parasites and beat them on our main pursuit, which is to compete to have food from the plants.

Shouldn't we worship the human brain instead of god??

My cell phone rings. I answer the call, it is from Iran. I start talking and we talk for a long time. It never stops to amaze me. I am sitting here, half a globe away and I can talk to my mother in Iran as if she is in the same room, or sitting next to me in the bus.

What is a miracle? The story of Lazarous in the bible, or this amazing gadget in my hand? This small miracle of human ingenuity that lets me talk to somebody at the other side of the globe with the click of a button?

If there is a god, it is our brain. Our magnificent and unbelievably complex brain that has made cell phones and cars out of the rocks and oil of the ground. As if with a magic wand, we have turned simple rocks in the ground into these objects. Aren't we, human beings, the real god? Why do we tend to worship other imaginary and childish objects. If it was for me, I would put an effigy of a human brain on a pedestal in any temple and tell people," if you want to pray and worship a god, at least worship the real god", yourselves.

Alcohol and tobacco worse than pot, and yet they spend billions prohibiting the pot while these two are freely available!

Saturday March 24, 2007

Alcohol and tobacco are more dangerous than illegal drugs like marijuana or ecstasy, according to a new classification of drugs published in The Lancet medical journal yesterday.

The table, drawn up by a group of leading British scientists, ranked heroin, cocaine, barbiturates and street methadone as the most harmful drugs, closely followed by alcohol in fifth place.

Tobacco was assessed to be the 9th most dangerous drug behind ketamine in 6th, benzodiazepines, which are prescription tranquillizers, and amphetamines.

Cannabis was said to be the 11th most harmful. LSD was ranked 14th and ecstasy 18th among the 20 drugs classified.

And yet our stupid governments, following the lead of the US government, spend billions of dollars fighting pot use, while drugs worse than that, like alcohol and tobacco are freely available. In the prohibition era in the US, they spent billions trying to stop people drinking. Not only did it backfire and alcohold was freely available the prohibition turned into a joke, but it also caused lots of unnecessary pain, and created huge criminal gangs that their sole purpose and sustenance was providing alcohol for the population.

Most people know how to use drugs in moderation not to harm themselves. Banning any drug is like banning knives in kitchens because a few people don't know how to use them and harm themselves or others. There are people in high places who use cocaine on a regular basis without harming their careers or life or families, and yet there are people in the street that are alcoholics and damage their lives and ruin their families. The rational way to deal with drugs is not banning them. Banning drugs just creates crime and corruption resulting from the crime. The solution is educating people how to deal with the drugs and how to use them in moderation.

Global Warming is true but no need for panic as earth has been warmer before

Global warming is true. It is now proved nearly beyond doubt that the planet is warming up. But there is no place for panic. Earth has gone through a thousand cycles of warming and cooling through its long history and sure this time also the living matter on this planet will adjust as it has done for the past 3 billion years. We should not let media turn a scientific discussion into a panic circus as they did with something like Y2K.

For example what they don't say and we should know is that the earth's climate was very warm during the Miocene (about 17 million years ago) and when forests extended up to the Arctic about 2 million years ago. On the other hand there has been 33 glacial advances (ice ages) from 1.5 million years ago to the present. The last ice age ended about 12,000 years ago. In between we have had very warm periods like the cycle we are going through now. But if the cycles are any clue, we are heading for another ice age sooner or later and will wish we would have enjoyed the warmer climes of today.

We should also know that the Arctic was warmer during the Holocene (about 5,000 years ago) by up to 5C than present. Also the Arctic was as warm during the 1920s (up until 1940) as it is today. According to the available climatic information, from 1940 through 1975 the earth's mean temperature declined by about .25C before starting to climb by approximately 0.35C from 1977 to the present.

So despite that we are in a warming up cycle now, we can adjust and there is no reason to panic like it is the end of the world.