7/28/2007
Streets of Laredo
While working on my computer this morning, I turned on my itunes and clicked on Marty Robbins' "Streets of Loredo," a song I have listened to numerous times before. It begins with such sad, mournful sounds and goes into a sad song about a young cowboy who is dying and wants a drink of cool water before he dies. The song has always been one that I have liked, as we grew up around cowboys, but this morning it struck me as so very sad that tears started pouring from my eyes. There were the lines of mothers who, throughout history, have tenderly raised their sons and kissed them good bye as they went off -- young greenhorns off to seek their fortune. Sons they would never see again. Sons they knew were likely to be foolish risk takers, sons they knew they probably would never see again. Then, there is the line of sons who died unmourned, far from home. So many lives. So much sadness.
7/25/2007
Argument #3: the importance of culture and traditions across species
I am not sure if I was successful in attempting to upload a connection to a paper entitled "Understanding culture across species". It was written by Richard W. Byrne, Philip J. Barnard, Iaim Davidson, Vincent M. Janik, William C. McGrew, Adam Miklosi, and Polly Wiessner. It was published in Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 8(8) and is available through www.sciencedirect.com
To make a long story short,
"The lack of local behavioral variation in most animals is...taken to relect cognitive simplicity and human cultures are attributed to more sophisticated or hier fidelity mechanism: imitatation, creative ideation, theory of mind, teaching dependent upon join attention or even deliberate instruction."
"Culture [however] can be exhibited by any animal with a mind that allows social learning; conversely, finding cultural variation is no guarantee of unusual cognitive capacity....Part of the excitement about culture in animals is based on culture's potential to allow access to information not available otherwise. With useful, socially learnt traditions, a local population can 'punch above its weight', and thus gain a criticasl survival advantage. Elephants can learn of the location of water sources merely by following their elders. Without this social guidance they could not survive in the Namib; with it, individuals gain valuable knowledge for nothing. If each generation adds something to what they laernt, then 'racheting' of cultural knowledge can occur--a sort of cultural comound interest."
The authors provide many additional example. However, if you have trouble with their definition of culture and tradition, please read the paper.
To make a long story short,
"The lack of local behavioral variation in most animals is...taken to relect cognitive simplicity and human cultures are attributed to more sophisticated or hier fidelity mechanism: imitatation, creative ideation, theory of mind, teaching dependent upon join attention or even deliberate instruction."
"Culture [however] can be exhibited by any animal with a mind that allows social learning; conversely, finding cultural variation is no guarantee of unusual cognitive capacity....Part of the excitement about culture in animals is based on culture's potential to allow access to information not available otherwise. With useful, socially learnt traditions, a local population can 'punch above its weight', and thus gain a criticasl survival advantage. Elephants can learn of the location of water sources merely by following their elders. Without this social guidance they could not survive in the Namib; with it, individuals gain valuable knowledge for nothing. If each generation adds something to what they laernt, then 'racheting' of cultural knowledge can occur--a sort of cultural comound interest."
The authors provide many additional example. However, if you have trouble with their definition of culture and tradition, please read the paper.
Argument #2 Traditions and Ancestors
I am not sure what you think traditions are, but if you are like my students you think they are necessarily something boring and bad. I will try to address your overstated points one by one.
POINT ONE WHY do you think that those who did NOT follow the traditions were not also successful, becoming ancestors?
1. For most of human prehistory and history our ancestors were traditional. This is evident in the archaeological and ethnographic records. In archaeology we can see that traditions endured for thousands, tens of thousands, and even millions of years. My book if full of examples.
2. These individuals reproduced -- that is why we are here. Not one of our ancestors, to be best of our knowledge ever failed to reproduce--back to the beginning of life on earth, each of us goes in an unbroken line. We cannot say with any certainty that any of our ancestors were smart, creative, or strong -- the only thing we can say with certainty is that they reproduced.
3. Traditions primarily address three things: (1) reproduction. Twere what helped females assist others in childbirth--they were the strategies honed over time. Traditions were the behaviors that encouraged a male to stay around and provide for and protect his family, in the days when such protection was essential.Traditions were the practices that protected children. (2) building and maintaining kinship relationships. Religion is about kinship, as in God the Father, you are brothers and sisters. Kinship turned conspecific threats (we know from other species that conspecifics are the ones most likely to commit infanticide) into the protectors and educators of children. (3) respect for the elders who are the holders of knowledge and the ones most likely to promote following traditions and to encourage certain social behaviors.
The point here is differential reproduction. While those who had no traditions -- and thus had to create kinship, childbirth, etc. strategies every generation would be at a disadvantage.
POINT 2. Where are your death rolls? Birth rolls? I do not buy it.
There are birth and death rolls. See prior blog. The mormon church has them. We also know that the hutterites, who are highly traditional, have the largest families today. They also care for their children and those children tend to survive, thrive, and reproduce. One has only to picture who is most likely to become an ancestor. It is more likely to be, as one example, a mother who has a number of children, who cares for and nurtures and educates them, and who can do so because she has a husband/family who give her the opportunity to do so -- as compared with a woman who waits until she is 40 and successful in business (because she is creative and intelligent), and is artifically inseminated and sends her one child off immediately to day care. Kids so raised tend to be more aggressive and less successful socially. We are a highly social species, but we LEARN how to be social. Traditions tell us how to be social. We don't hink about where we learned what we learned, but often the behaviors we have were ones practiced by our parents, who learned them from their parents. Those are traditions.
POINT 3. It WAS, I'll grant you, about cooperation in its many guises, and served some purpose, but I would say not so vital as you claim.
What is "it"? If you mean traditions, many traditions encourage cooperation; others encourage emnity. They are not all about cooperation. They are about strategies honed over time, some of those strategies encourage cooperation that probably was essential in the "warre of all against all" of Thomas Hobbes. Doesn't it make sense that if a category of individuals could readily form cooperative units, they would be much safer and better able to address an external threat than were individuals without such strategies, already developed and honed over time?
POINT 4: Yes, cooperation has fallen apart, is falling apart faster and faster, but PLEASE.....creativity hardly seems to be in the equation at all. In fact, I would claim that creativity is only really about competition when you are looking at modern art (or science grants, or the Pulitzer) MARKETS.
Clearly we are a creative species; however, for much of human history strong constraints were put on our ability to be very creative. Creativity, arguably, is about competition -- I can do it better. It also can damage kinship ties to the extent it means rejecting (and it generally does) what your parents taught you. Being very different because you reject traditions also breaks ties with others who were taught the same traditions. It also makes the elders obsolete, yet, the elders are important as those who, at least at one time, held knowledge about ways to avoid conflict, resolve conflict, to be social and maintain enduring social relationships--not the quicky ones we are so good at. We have to ASK WHY CREATIVITY WAS DISCOURAGED. My feeling is that we are so brainwashed about creativity being important that we cannot even address the question with any rigorous thought.
POINT 5: But you could wipe markets out totally, and homo sapiens would still be creative, infinitely so, now that those bounds once imposed by church and academies and whatever other repressive organizations you want to name, or simple blinkered eyesight, are no longer major forces. This is what I was saying a couple weeks ago about Picasso, who does not even rate among my favorite top 100 artists (excepting maybe his La Celestina series), LIBERATING the fine arts. K said that was bullshit. She said, if not him, someone else. But we could argue about the Great Man Theory of history until the cows come home. If not Copernicus, some other, if not Hitler, some other, if not Jesus... BALONEY. Creativity is about expanding possibilities and excitement in creating something new and excitement at seeing things in new ways and MUCH more. It is one of the VERY few things that justify our existence. Let us include love and true altruism, and I guess that's about the whole list.
It was not only the church that discouraged creativity (repressive is a political term I want to avoid). However, the church is made up of indivduals and of those individuals, the parents and grandparents were the ones most likely to discourage children from wandering too far away from traditions. Again, we have to ask WHY THEY MIGHT HAVE DONE THAT. I have to admit that words like "liberating" are a bit vague. Creativity may be about excitement, but it has its costs.
Now, what is your next argument?
However, we should remember that:
Traditions were what helped females assist others in childbirth--they were the strategies honed over time.
Traditions were the behaviors that encouraged a male to stay around and provide for and protect his family, in the days when such protection was essential.
Traditions were the practices that protected children.
POINT ONE WHY do you think that those who did NOT follow the traditions were not also successful, becoming ancestors?
1. For most of human prehistory and history our ancestors were traditional. This is evident in the archaeological and ethnographic records. In archaeology we can see that traditions endured for thousands, tens of thousands, and even millions of years. My book if full of examples.
2. These individuals reproduced -- that is why we are here. Not one of our ancestors, to be best of our knowledge ever failed to reproduce--back to the beginning of life on earth, each of us goes in an unbroken line. We cannot say with any certainty that any of our ancestors were smart, creative, or strong -- the only thing we can say with certainty is that they reproduced.
3. Traditions primarily address three things: (1) reproduction. Twere what helped females assist others in childbirth--they were the strategies honed over time. Traditions were the behaviors that encouraged a male to stay around and provide for and protect his family, in the days when such protection was essential.Traditions were the practices that protected children. (2) building and maintaining kinship relationships. Religion is about kinship, as in God the Father, you are brothers and sisters. Kinship turned conspecific threats (we know from other species that conspecifics are the ones most likely to commit infanticide) into the protectors and educators of children. (3) respect for the elders who are the holders of knowledge and the ones most likely to promote following traditions and to encourage certain social behaviors.
The point here is differential reproduction. While those who had no traditions -- and thus had to create kinship, childbirth, etc. strategies every generation would be at a disadvantage.
POINT 2. Where are your death rolls? Birth rolls? I do not buy it.
There are birth and death rolls. See prior blog. The mormon church has them. We also know that the hutterites, who are highly traditional, have the largest families today. They also care for their children and those children tend to survive, thrive, and reproduce. One has only to picture who is most likely to become an ancestor. It is more likely to be, as one example, a mother who has a number of children, who cares for and nurtures and educates them, and who can do so because she has a husband/family who give her the opportunity to do so -- as compared with a woman who waits until she is 40 and successful in business (because she is creative and intelligent), and is artifically inseminated and sends her one child off immediately to day care. Kids so raised tend to be more aggressive and less successful socially. We are a highly social species, but we LEARN how to be social. Traditions tell us how to be social. We don't hink about where we learned what we learned, but often the behaviors we have were ones practiced by our parents, who learned them from their parents. Those are traditions.
POINT 3. It WAS, I'll grant you, about cooperation in its many guises, and served some purpose, but I would say not so vital as you claim.
What is "it"? If you mean traditions, many traditions encourage cooperation; others encourage emnity. They are not all about cooperation. They are about strategies honed over time, some of those strategies encourage cooperation that probably was essential in the "warre of all against all" of Thomas Hobbes. Doesn't it make sense that if a category of individuals could readily form cooperative units, they would be much safer and better able to address an external threat than were individuals without such strategies, already developed and honed over time?
POINT 4: Yes, cooperation has fallen apart, is falling apart faster and faster, but PLEASE.....creativity hardly seems to be in the equation at all. In fact, I would claim that creativity is only really about competition when you are looking at modern art (or science grants, or the Pulitzer) MARKETS.
Clearly we are a creative species; however, for much of human history strong constraints were put on our ability to be very creative. Creativity, arguably, is about competition -- I can do it better. It also can damage kinship ties to the extent it means rejecting (and it generally does) what your parents taught you. Being very different because you reject traditions also breaks ties with others who were taught the same traditions. It also makes the elders obsolete, yet, the elders are important as those who, at least at one time, held knowledge about ways to avoid conflict, resolve conflict, to be social and maintain enduring social relationships--not the quicky ones we are so good at. We have to ASK WHY CREATIVITY WAS DISCOURAGED. My feeling is that we are so brainwashed about creativity being important that we cannot even address the question with any rigorous thought.
POINT 5: But you could wipe markets out totally, and homo sapiens would still be creative, infinitely so, now that those bounds once imposed by church and academies and whatever other repressive organizations you want to name, or simple blinkered eyesight, are no longer major forces. This is what I was saying a couple weeks ago about Picasso, who does not even rate among my favorite top 100 artists (excepting maybe his La Celestina series), LIBERATING the fine arts. K said that was bullshit. She said, if not him, someone else. But we could argue about the Great Man Theory of history until the cows come home. If not Copernicus, some other, if not Hitler, some other, if not Jesus... BALONEY. Creativity is about expanding possibilities and excitement in creating something new and excitement at seeing things in new ways and MUCH more. It is one of the VERY few things that justify our existence. Let us include love and true altruism, and I guess that's about the whole list.
It was not only the church that discouraged creativity (repressive is a political term I want to avoid). However, the church is made up of indivduals and of those individuals, the parents and grandparents were the ones most likely to discourage children from wandering too far away from traditions. Again, we have to ask WHY THEY MIGHT HAVE DONE THAT. I have to admit that words like "liberating" are a bit vague. Creativity may be about excitement, but it has its costs.
Now, what is your next argument?
However, we should remember that:
Traditions were what helped females assist others in childbirth--they were the strategies honed over time.
Traditions were the behaviors that encouraged a male to stay around and provide for and protect his family, in the days when such protection was essential.
Traditions were the practices that protected children.
Argument #1: Lines of evidence re. traditions and ancestors.
What Finnish Grandmothers Reveal about Human Evolution
Biologist Virpi Lummaa's work reveals that humans may be the best subject to study for evolutionary effects across generations
By David Biello
No animal compares to humans when it comes to studying populations over time. Easy to track and occasionally living in relative isolation, Homo sapiens is the only species that keeps detailed records. That is why biologist Virpi Lummaa of the University of Sheffield in England started in 1998 to comb through Finnish church records from two centuries ago for clues about the influence of evolution on reproduction.
"I always wanted to work on primates," Lummaa says. "But if I wanted to collect a similar data set on wild chimps, I would be struggling. I've decided to study
Research in detailed Finnish birth, marriage and death records is revealing why human women survive past fertility: they help their grandchildren survive.
another primate in the end."
The 33-year-old Finnish biologist, aided by genealogists, has pored through centuries-old tomes (and microfiche) for birth, marriage and death records, which ended up providing glimpses of evolution at work in humanity's recent ancestors. Among them: that male twins disrupt the mating potential of their female siblings by prenatally rendering them more masculine; mothers of sons die sooner than those of daughters, because rearing the former takes a greater toll; and grandmothers are important to the survival of grandchildren. "I'm trying to understand human reproductive behavior from an evolutionary perspective," Lummaa says.
Modern medicine and nutrition tend to obscure these kinds of results as well, hence the need to go back to the preindustrial Finns, before the advent of birth control and the easing of periodic famine and high child mortality rates. "It's almost a shock when you realize that 100 to 150 years ago, 40 percent of babies died before they reached adulthood," even when adulthood was defined as age 15, Lummaa notes.
"In the absence of cultural practices such as contraceptives and assisted reproduction, humans are subject to the same evolutionary forces as are other organisms," says biologist Tobias Uller of the University of Wollongong in Australia. "Given that Virpi's data is extraordinarily detailed compared to what we have available for most other animals, the human data can profitably be used to address key issues in evolutionary theory."
The evolutionary biologist has also used this historical data set to ponder the conundrum of grandmothers. That is, why human women often live long after they are able to reproduce (on average around the age of 50), unlike almost all other animals. "If your ultimate purpose in life was to create as many offspring as possible or pass off as many genes," Lummaa says, "it's kind of strange that human women stop halfway."
One possible explanation is that having a grandmother around somehow improves the reproductive potential of her grandchildren. In fact, that is exactly what the researchers found when they reviewed stats on 537 Finnish women who had a combined total of 6,002 grandchildren. Adding in data from more than 3,000 French Canadians (who had a modest 100,074 grandchildren) confirmed that having grandma around to help enabled younger women to have more children sooner and with improved chances of surviving into adulthood. "That suggests that perhaps one reason why women do carry on living is because they are able to help," Lummaa says. ONLY IF THEY ARE TRADITIONAL AND DO NOT RUN OFF TO SUN CITY TO PLAY GOLF!
Of course, studying humans requires teasing out the confounding cultural effects. For example, the Finnish data indicated that child mortality was much higher in mainland towns than on the islands of Finland's Archipelago Sea. This can be traced back to the fact that mainland women were responsible for farm work, leading to earlier replacement of mother's milk with cow's milk. "That led to infections," Lummaa notes. "In the archipelago this was not the case." Birth rates in both areas also tended to cluster roughly nine months after the period when Finns traditionally married: after the fall harvest.
Studying humans has other pitfalls, most notably that it's very easy to become involved with your subjects, Lummaa says. "We have thousands of people. I can't say I know every one of them but there are some families who pop out," she recalls. "One woman had 18 children and every single one died before adulthood while she lived into her 90s without any of these children." She adds: "If you are studying humans, you can't help feeling more connected to whatever you find out."
Lummaa is learning that first hand these days, having recently given birth to a three-month-old son, Eelis. "It's your own child, you can't have a scientific attitude," she admits, "but you are thinking, 'Well, what in the patterns I see is genetic and is it coming from the mum or dad?' I'm always trying to see my parents' traits in my son." She is thrilled, of course, though her research warns it bodes ill for her life expectancy. Premodern Finnish mothers among the Sami people (famous for their reindeer herding) who bore sons had shorter life spans than those who gave birth to daughters. This has to do with birth weight—male babies are typically larger—but also with that dreaded male hormone, testosterone. "Testosterone can compromise your immune system, it can affect your health," Lummaa says. "Boys are a little bit more costly than girls" to raise, because they drain more physical resources from their mothers. Sons also are not as likely as daughters to stick around to help their mothers out later in life.
Fortunately for Lummaa, she has the benefit of modern medicine. But "I can certainly see that it's taking a lot of energy and I'm sure it's aging me," she says, chuckling. "How on earth these women managed to give birth every year is truly amazing."
Lummaa has now turned her attention to the effect of grandfathers on grandchildren. If grandmothers improve survival odds, what do elderly males contribute? "If anything there's a negative effect," she says. This could be because of the cultural tradition of catering to men, particularly old men. "Maybe if you had an old grandpa, he was eating your food," she speculates. Or it could be that because men can continue to reproduce, they are less vested in anyone other than their own children. Another possible reason is that women can be sure that a grandchild is their genetic descendant, but it is more difficult for grandfathers. This may also have spurred them to seek second and even third wives rather than focusing on their children. "We are comparing men who married once in their lifetime[s] with men who are married several times," Lummaa says.
Lummaa is not alone in using human history to try to enhance evolutionary understanding. A recent study by ethnologist Dustin Penn of the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna and population scientist Ken Smith of the University of Utah, using Mormon church records from the 19th century, discovered that having more children upped women's chances of dying prematurely. Anthropologist Kristen Hawkes, also at Utah, reached the same conclusions as Lummaa about the utility of grandmothers after studying populations of human hunter-gatherers in Africa and South America. "It's most interesting to find out what's causing the differences between human populations," Lummaa says. "How do those general evolutionary theories actually explain the patterns we see in humans? And how much is due to other reasons?" As Lummaa says, "We've got more data than we've got time to analyze." Meaning Lummaa, her colleagues and her scientific descendants will have plenty to study until she is a grandmother herself.
Source: Scientific American
http://sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=C0D3CD91-E7F2-99DF-3D5399013D3691D5&sc=WR_20070724\
Posted by
Robert Karl Stonjek
__._,_.___
Biologist Virpi Lummaa's work reveals that humans may be the best subject to study for evolutionary effects across generations
By David Biello
No animal compares to humans when it comes to studying populations over time. Easy to track and occasionally living in relative isolation, Homo sapiens is the only species that keeps detailed records. That is why biologist Virpi Lummaa of the University of Sheffield in England started in 1998 to comb through Finnish church records from two centuries ago for clues about the influence of evolution on reproduction.
"I always wanted to work on primates," Lummaa says. "But if I wanted to collect a similar data set on wild chimps, I would be struggling. I've decided to study
Research in detailed Finnish birth, marriage and death records is revealing why human women survive past fertility: they help their grandchildren survive.
another primate in the end."
The 33-year-old Finnish biologist, aided by genealogists, has pored through centuries-old tomes (and microfiche) for birth, marriage and death records, which ended up providing glimpses of evolution at work in humanity's recent ancestors. Among them: that male twins disrupt the mating potential of their female siblings by prenatally rendering them more masculine; mothers of sons die sooner than those of daughters, because rearing the former takes a greater toll; and grandmothers are important to the survival of grandchildren. "I'm trying to understand human reproductive behavior from an evolutionary perspective," Lummaa says.
Modern medicine and nutrition tend to obscure these kinds of results as well, hence the need to go back to the preindustrial Finns, before the advent of birth control and the easing of periodic famine and high child mortality rates. "It's almost a shock when you realize that 100 to 150 years ago, 40 percent of babies died before they reached adulthood," even when adulthood was defined as age 15, Lummaa notes.
"In the absence of cultural practices such as contraceptives and assisted reproduction, humans are subject to the same evolutionary forces as are other organisms," says biologist Tobias Uller of the University of Wollongong in Australia. "Given that Virpi's data is extraordinarily detailed compared to what we have available for most other animals, the human data can profitably be used to address key issues in evolutionary theory."
The evolutionary biologist has also used this historical data set to ponder the conundrum of grandmothers. That is, why human women often live long after they are able to reproduce (on average around the age of 50), unlike almost all other animals. "If your ultimate purpose in life was to create as many offspring as possible or pass off as many genes," Lummaa says, "it's kind of strange that human women stop halfway."
One possible explanation is that having a grandmother around somehow improves the reproductive potential of her grandchildren. In fact, that is exactly what the researchers found when they reviewed stats on 537 Finnish women who had a combined total of 6,002 grandchildren. Adding in data from more than 3,000 French Canadians (who had a modest 100,074 grandchildren) confirmed that having grandma around to help enabled younger women to have more children sooner and with improved chances of surviving into adulthood. "That suggests that perhaps one reason why women do carry on living is because they are able to help," Lummaa says. ONLY IF THEY ARE TRADITIONAL AND DO NOT RUN OFF TO SUN CITY TO PLAY GOLF!
Of course, studying humans requires teasing out the confounding cultural effects. For example, the Finnish data indicated that child mortality was much higher in mainland towns than on the islands of Finland's Archipelago Sea. This can be traced back to the fact that mainland women were responsible for farm work, leading to earlier replacement of mother's milk with cow's milk. "That led to infections," Lummaa notes. "In the archipelago this was not the case." Birth rates in both areas also tended to cluster roughly nine months after the period when Finns traditionally married: after the fall harvest.
Studying humans has other pitfalls, most notably that it's very easy to become involved with your subjects, Lummaa says. "We have thousands of people. I can't say I know every one of them but there are some families who pop out," she recalls. "One woman had 18 children and every single one died before adulthood while she lived into her 90s without any of these children." She adds: "If you are studying humans, you can't help feeling more connected to whatever you find out."
Lummaa is learning that first hand these days, having recently given birth to a three-month-old son, Eelis. "It's your own child, you can't have a scientific attitude," she admits, "but you are thinking, 'Well, what in the patterns I see is genetic and is it coming from the mum or dad?' I'm always trying to see my parents' traits in my son." She is thrilled, of course, though her research warns it bodes ill for her life expectancy. Premodern Finnish mothers among the Sami people (famous for their reindeer herding) who bore sons had shorter life spans than those who gave birth to daughters. This has to do with birth weight—male babies are typically larger—but also with that dreaded male hormone, testosterone. "Testosterone can compromise your immune system, it can affect your health," Lummaa says. "Boys are a little bit more costly than girls" to raise, because they drain more physical resources from their mothers. Sons also are not as likely as daughters to stick around to help their mothers out later in life.
Fortunately for Lummaa, she has the benefit of modern medicine. But "I can certainly see that it's taking a lot of energy and I'm sure it's aging me," she says, chuckling. "How on earth these women managed to give birth every year is truly amazing."
Lummaa has now turned her attention to the effect of grandfathers on grandchildren. If grandmothers improve survival odds, what do elderly males contribute? "If anything there's a negative effect," she says. This could be because of the cultural tradition of catering to men, particularly old men. "Maybe if you had an old grandpa, he was eating your food," she speculates. Or it could be that because men can continue to reproduce, they are less vested in anyone other than their own children. Another possible reason is that women can be sure that a grandchild is their genetic descendant, but it is more difficult for grandfathers. This may also have spurred them to seek second and even third wives rather than focusing on their children. "We are comparing men who married once in their lifetime[s] with men who are married several times," Lummaa says.
Lummaa is not alone in using human history to try to enhance evolutionary understanding. A recent study by ethnologist Dustin Penn of the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna and population scientist Ken Smith of the University of Utah, using Mormon church records from the 19th century, discovered that having more children upped women's chances of dying prematurely. Anthropologist Kristen Hawkes, also at Utah, reached the same conclusions as Lummaa about the utility of grandmothers after studying populations of human hunter-gatherers in Africa and South America. "It's most interesting to find out what's causing the differences between human populations," Lummaa says. "How do those general evolutionary theories actually explain the patterns we see in humans? And how much is due to other reasons?" As Lummaa says, "We've got more data than we've got time to analyze." Meaning Lummaa, her colleagues and her scientific descendants will have plenty to study until she is a grandmother herself.
Source: Scientific American
http://sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=C0D3CD91-E7F2-99DF-3D5399013D3691D5&sc=WR_20070724\
Posted by
Robert Karl Stonjek
__._,_.___
7/24/2007
Happiness, contentment, joy
Here are some quotes for us to consider before we begin our discussion of happiness, contentment, and joy. They raise a number of questions. Does knowing happiness require knowing its opposite -- sadness? How long can we live with the intensity of any great emotion? Are these emotions "pearls of great price?"
CONTENTMENT:
"Contentment is a pearl of great price, and whoever procures it at the expense of ten thousand desires makes a wise and a happy purchase." Balguy
"Contentment is natural wealth, luxury is artificial poverty." Socrates
HAPPINESS:
Quote: I have no money, no resources, no hopes. I am the happiest man alive
Author: Henry Miller
Quote: The grand essentials of happiness are: something to do, something to love, and something to hope for
Author: Allan K. Chalmers
Quote: The supreme happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved
Author: Victor Hugo
Quote: There are as many nights as days, and the one is just as long as the other in the year's course. Even a happy life cannot be without a measure of darkness, and the word 'happy' would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness.
Author: Carl Jung
JOY:
Quote: In this world, full often, our joys are only the tender shadows which our sorrows cast.
Author: Henry Ward Beecher 1813-1887, American Preacher, Orator, Writer
Quote: I have no greater joy then to hear that my children walk in truth. [John 4]
Author: Bible Sacred Scriptures of Christians and Judaism
Quote: Tranquil pleasures last the longest; we are not fitted to bear the burden of great joys.
Author: Christian Nevell Bovee 1820-1904, American Author, Lawyer
CONTENTMENT:
"Contentment is a pearl of great price, and whoever procures it at the expense of ten thousand desires makes a wise and a happy purchase." Balguy
"Contentment is natural wealth, luxury is artificial poverty." Socrates
HAPPINESS:
Quote: I have no money, no resources, no hopes. I am the happiest man alive
Author: Henry Miller
Quote: The grand essentials of happiness are: something to do, something to love, and something to hope for
Author: Allan K. Chalmers
Quote: The supreme happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved
Author: Victor Hugo
Quote: There are as many nights as days, and the one is just as long as the other in the year's course. Even a happy life cannot be without a measure of darkness, and the word 'happy' would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness.
Author: Carl Jung
JOY:
Quote: In this world, full often, our joys are only the tender shadows which our sorrows cast.
Author: Henry Ward Beecher 1813-1887, American Preacher, Orator, Writer
Quote: I have no greater joy then to hear that my children walk in truth. [John 4]
Author: Bible Sacred Scriptures of Christians and Judaism
Quote: Tranquil pleasures last the longest; we are not fitted to bear the burden of great joys.
Author: Christian Nevell Bovee 1820-1904, American Author, Lawyer
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