It shouldn't take a genius like myself to explain why peeps wear jewelry. Jewelry is meant to make the wearer look better. But any ugly mug is still ugly even with the Hope diamond strapped on the forehead; so what do we mean by "better"? All y'all with a bit of evolution learnin' or especially with knowledge of sociobiology know that by "look better" we really mean "demonstrate reproductive value." An easier way to say that is to say that we look more rich. (There is certainly an element of style separate from monetary value of said jewelry, but this is a further demonstration of the same principle. Someone with "class" and "style" will know to wear appropriately classy and stylish adornments, as class and style are defined by whatever group of jerks that someone wants to impress. But the idea applies almost identically, so I'm just gonna talk about the value of jewelry as reflected by its monetary value. If you don't like that, go suck an egg.)
Some folks, and I won't say who, might take umbrage at the idea that jewelry is worn to make one look more rich and that one wishes to look more rich so that the desired sex will want to make whoopee with the jewel-adorned one in question.* To this I say, nuts. It should be clear enough that the more expensive a piece of jewelry is, the more attractive it is considered. "Tasteful" jewelry simply depends upon the social group (to whom the adorned will be trying to appear more attractive) and that group's definition of taste.
So who's still with me? Anyone? I'm going on anyway.
The interesting way to demonstrate this is to take a gander at the different types of jewelry worn by men and women. (The specifics to follow are necessarily for heterosexuals only, and in western culture only. The Homosexual angle on this is the same at the core, of course, but the particulars are naturally a little different. And frankly I'm not sure what jewelry the hermaphrodites are wearing these days. As for other cultures, the dynamics are again the same, but the jewelry is different and hence the details get a little muddy if I try to include everyone. Sorry, Laos.) There is a noticeable difference in the adornment of men and women. Men like fancy watches, pinky rings, and perhaps a thick necklace with something important on the end of it. Some men also like earrings, especially the younger men and also salty pirates. For men, the metal is quite important. Whether the dude in question prefers white or yellow gold, the chosen precious metal is more oft than not on prominent display. Women tend to go for more elegant and more bejeweled pieces - they like their sparklies. Certainly the precious metal that the jewel is set in is important, but less so than the actual jewel(s) itself. What does this tell us?
If you haven't been offended yet, just keep readin!
Demonstrating high reproductive value takes different paths for men and for women because reproduction is different for each sex, or so I'm told. A primary selling point for a man is the demonstration of personally accrued wealth. It is perfectly common for a female to seek out a financially successful man as he will be a better provider than a guy living in his parent's basement. Jewelry is a simple way that a male can demonstrate his worth as a provider (not to mention his apparent genetic fitness). Thusly the jewelry of males is more focused upon a display of precious metals and perhaps diamonds (but rarely any other stone). With women a demonstration of reproductive worth, according to biological science, is primarily focused upon her fertility. This is most clearly communicated by the woman's physical appearance, hence the cultural importance placed upon woman to be pretty. While one can argue that woman's jewelry is meant to enhance her beauty by making her a more valuable "prize" implying that women are property to be won or perhaps earned, I'm not going to argue that. Why I'm not even going to mention it. Try this on for size instead - the purpose of a females adornments is to draw attention to the female in question. Females compete with one another for male attention, and the more sparkly a lady is the more she will be noticed. To summerize all this - men wear jewelry for when someone looks at them while women wear jewelry so that someone looks at them.
*It is quite important to note that lookin' sexy ain't the only reason for some bling. There is also an important social demonstration of importance. This is still tied to demonstrating reproductive value, as social authority is primarily (according to sociobiology and neo-darwinism) if not universally based in...well, lookin' sexy. Heterosexual men will wear expensive watches and whatnot to impress one another. The ladies will wear all sorts of crazy shit to impress (see: upstage**) each other. These demonstrations of social worth are defined by a show of reproductive worth. If you don't believe me - nuts.
**Just a joke, ladies. Don't get your panties in a bunch.***
***Like now. See what I mean?****
****Nuts.
Sunday, March 9, 2008
Friday, March 7, 2008
Why aren't there big monsters anymore?
There was a time when dinosaurs ruled the Earth. They were truly king poo of the poo pile. But aside from the Rolling Stones, there aren't any of them left. In Australia and southeast Asia the probable source for the legendary raptor The Roc was a massive carnivorous bird. Do you know what The Roc was cookin? Us until we wiped the poor birdie out. There were once creatures in the sea that could eat small cars and would have, except that cars aren't fish flavored and also there were none. But they could have! There were insects as large as a burrito that's as large as your head. There were once rats big enough that they could be ridden around and shown off at 4H. There were centipedes as big as snakes. Even the snakes were bigger than snakes.
Now all we've got are whales and elephants and they're slowly going the way of the dodo. Why aren't there any big cool monsters anymore to terrorize Japan or that we can put in an ill fated amusement park only to learn an important lesson about trying to play God. (Important lesson: God would have a backup generator for the electric fences.) We've still got giant squid, but they don't attack our submarines near as much as we'd all like. The Earth used to be teeming with huge freakish monsters of yore. Dragons, dragons everywhere. Rodents of unusual size. Man eating mantises. Now we've got some of their bones, but none of them. Why don't monsters ever make it long on the evolutionary time scale?
There is something unusual and unique in the development of big friggin monsters. They are always highly specialized to their environments. They must be because of their massive dietary needs. Also they have trouble hiding from predators, which is why nonpredatory monsters (elephants, brontosauruses most likely) travel in herds and not individually as say a jaguar shark would. But it is more their high level of specialization that makes them vulnerable to environmental shifts. Big animals are always at the top of the food chain. Once the chain is disrupted by disease, pollution, armed rednecks, whathaveyou then the top of the chain is always wiped out.
There have been seven mass extinctions in the history of the world and we're on the verge on the eighth. Each time all the big animals don't make it. It's the meek ones that inherit the Earth each time. We've managed to wipe out the majority of the big animals that were around when human civilization showed up on the scene and made everything into a whole new scene. There are a few left, but their days are numbered. The fun factoid to add to that prognostication is that us humans - relatively speaking - are some of the largest animals on the planet. Nothing our size has ever made it through a mass extinction. But then nothing our size ever had plastic wrap and air conditioners before, so we'll probably be fine.
A brief word bout the majestic shark. Some of you might be saying, "Ho down, whoa down, SLOW DOWN! Sharks done been round for eons and they ain't been changed none by Darwin and his Devil science. What do say to that Mr. Smarty Blog? Huh? What?" To which I agree that sharks have been around for a high number of years, so high a number that I don't know what it is. And the sharks that still exist (a few of them quite large) have undergone very little evolutionary development in the past bunch of years. And after ceding that agreement I say, kiss my ass, hypothetic question asker. There used to be sharks so big they'd make you turn white. There used to be sharks that were terrifying behemoths the likes of which would definitely kick Richard Dreyfuss's ass (alright, that's not much of a claim to badassery I suppose.) But these Krakens would eat Jaws for a snack and sadly they don't exist anymore. There is an outside chance that a few remain in the depths of the ocean, but the possibility is a vanishing one. Monster sharks are a thing of the past, despite the fact that the shark is one of the most effective creations of evolution. And the big boys didn't make it because of the shifting environments in the ocean. Probably the largest factor was the disappearance of all the big sea monsters that they could eat. But science has not conclusory ruled out the possibility that the monster sharks were taken away by alien visitors, or perhaps were the alien visitors themselves and one day will return to Earth to prove that they really can bite a VW in half.
Now all we've got are whales and elephants and they're slowly going the way of the dodo. Why aren't there any big cool monsters anymore to terrorize Japan or that we can put in an ill fated amusement park only to learn an important lesson about trying to play God. (Important lesson: God would have a backup generator for the electric fences.) We've still got giant squid, but they don't attack our submarines near as much as we'd all like. The Earth used to be teeming with huge freakish monsters of yore. Dragons, dragons everywhere. Rodents of unusual size. Man eating mantises. Now we've got some of their bones, but none of them. Why don't monsters ever make it long on the evolutionary time scale?
There is something unusual and unique in the development of big friggin monsters. They are always highly specialized to their environments. They must be because of their massive dietary needs. Also they have trouble hiding from predators, which is why nonpredatory monsters (elephants, brontosauruses most likely) travel in herds and not individually as say a jaguar shark would. But it is more their high level of specialization that makes them vulnerable to environmental shifts. Big animals are always at the top of the food chain. Once the chain is disrupted by disease, pollution, armed rednecks, whathaveyou then the top of the chain is always wiped out.
There have been seven mass extinctions in the history of the world and we're on the verge on the eighth. Each time all the big animals don't make it. It's the meek ones that inherit the Earth each time. We've managed to wipe out the majority of the big animals that were around when human civilization showed up on the scene and made everything into a whole new scene. There are a few left, but their days are numbered. The fun factoid to add to that prognostication is that us humans - relatively speaking - are some of the largest animals on the planet. Nothing our size has ever made it through a mass extinction. But then nothing our size ever had plastic wrap and air conditioners before, so we'll probably be fine.
A brief word bout the majestic shark. Some of you might be saying, "Ho down, whoa down, SLOW DOWN! Sharks done been round for eons and they ain't been changed none by Darwin and his Devil science. What do say to that Mr. Smarty Blog? Huh? What?" To which I agree that sharks have been around for a high number of years, so high a number that I don't know what it is. And the sharks that still exist (a few of them quite large) have undergone very little evolutionary development in the past bunch of years. And after ceding that agreement I say, kiss my ass, hypothetic question asker. There used to be sharks so big they'd make you turn white. There used to be sharks that were terrifying behemoths the likes of which would definitely kick Richard Dreyfuss's ass (alright, that's not much of a claim to badassery I suppose.) But these Krakens would eat Jaws for a snack and sadly they don't exist anymore. There is an outside chance that a few remain in the depths of the ocean, but the possibility is a vanishing one. Monster sharks are a thing of the past, despite the fact that the shark is one of the most effective creations of evolution. And the big boys didn't make it because of the shifting environments in the ocean. Probably the largest factor was the disappearance of all the big sea monsters that they could eat. But science has not conclusory ruled out the possibility that the monster sharks were taken away by alien visitors, or perhaps were the alien visitors themselves and one day will return to Earth to prove that they really can bite a VW in half.
Thursday, March 6, 2008
Why do we want to eat candy?
Have you ever had a bacon 'n french toast sandwich? Don't forget the syrup, but then what sort of philistine would? Mmmmm. Nummins. As tasty as can be, n'est pas? And yet this glorious epicurean menagerie is a harbinger of death. Newsweek shocked us all when it revealed that 1 out of 3 American women die of heart disease. (They decided not to run the far-too-shocking story that 3 out of 3 American women die of something or other.) And a number of men out of a another number also die when their heart pops because it's all sticky with high fructose corn syrup. And those numbers would be telling if I bothered to look them up.
We love to eat fatty meats with complex carbohydrates all covered in sugar. If these foods are cardiac poison that pretty consistently kills us, why would we have evolved a tendency to enjoy them? Shouldn't the bacon and white-bread eating apes have all been easily defeated by the lean vegan-hippy apes leaving the world to their peaceful life-respecting organic ways? Maybe there is a God because, no, the vegans don't run anything significant and they certainly don't defeat anyone ever. The reason why we crave all that delicious candy can be blamed on farmers. Humans have had agriculture for nigh on 10,000 years and that is barely a mouse fart on an evolutionary time scale. Agriculture changed our world so fast that we haven't began to try to catch up with it yet. Back in the good ole days, when we were the Nomad Apes we occasionally hunted (not as much as shitty movies from the makers of Independence Day would have you think) but mostly gathered our food from the trees 'n the ground 'n caves 'n the occasional Doritos machine that had fallen into a time warp. In our gatherings we ate lots of vegetables cause that's what there was most of. It was rare that any of us would have the opportunity to munch on a pear or some Doritos, simply because they were very few and quite far between. The added boost of energy in fruit and specifically in the fruit's sugars, made it a much more highly valued food item both for its rarity and it's ability to sustain us for much longer than celery could. Meat and the very rare carbos contained even more potential energy for us. Nomad Apes would have loved bread, but all they could really hope for was once a year finding some wheat, a potato, or a bag of Cool Ranch from the year 2525 (if man is still alive). These foods are so chocked full-o-energy that they tasted great, but were available so rarely that they posed no detrimental health risks whatsoever. Agriculture facilitated human civilization, but only because these high-sugar and high-calorie foods could be mass produced allowing large numbers of people to live close together and wham - Pittsburgh. But at the cost of Pittsburgians (and rest of us in civilization) getting fat and dying of heart failure, not to mention with cavities in our teeth. The Nomad Apes lived most of their lives (which are estimated at only slightly shorter than ours) with no tooth decay and mostly never died of heart failure. 10,000 years of farmin' hasn't been enough time for us to affect millions of years of evolution. If you want a more detailed explanation of why we're fat and how agriculture is the plastic demon of the downfall of mankind, read Jared Diamond's excellent book The Third Chimpanzee.
We love to eat fatty meats with complex carbohydrates all covered in sugar. If these foods are cardiac poison that pretty consistently kills us, why would we have evolved a tendency to enjoy them? Shouldn't the bacon and white-bread eating apes have all been easily defeated by the lean vegan-hippy apes leaving the world to their peaceful life-respecting organic ways? Maybe there is a God because, no, the vegans don't run anything significant and they certainly don't defeat anyone ever. The reason why we crave all that delicious candy can be blamed on farmers. Humans have had agriculture for nigh on 10,000 years and that is barely a mouse fart on an evolutionary time scale. Agriculture changed our world so fast that we haven't began to try to catch up with it yet. Back in the good ole days, when we were the Nomad Apes we occasionally hunted (not as much as shitty movies from the makers of Independence Day would have you think) but mostly gathered our food from the trees 'n the ground 'n caves 'n the occasional Doritos machine that had fallen into a time warp. In our gatherings we ate lots of vegetables cause that's what there was most of. It was rare that any of us would have the opportunity to munch on a pear or some Doritos, simply because they were very few and quite far between. The added boost of energy in fruit and specifically in the fruit's sugars, made it a much more highly valued food item both for its rarity and it's ability to sustain us for much longer than celery could. Meat and the very rare carbos contained even more potential energy for us. Nomad Apes would have loved bread, but all they could really hope for was once a year finding some wheat, a potato, or a bag of Cool Ranch from the year 2525 (if man is still alive). These foods are so chocked full-o-energy that they tasted great, but were available so rarely that they posed no detrimental health risks whatsoever. Agriculture facilitated human civilization, but only because these high-sugar and high-calorie foods could be mass produced allowing large numbers of people to live close together and wham - Pittsburgh. But at the cost of Pittsburgians (and rest of us in civilization) getting fat and dying of heart failure, not to mention with cavities in our teeth. The Nomad Apes lived most of their lives (which are estimated at only slightly shorter than ours) with no tooth decay and mostly never died of heart failure. 10,000 years of farmin' hasn't been enough time for us to affect millions of years of evolution. If you want a more detailed explanation of why we're fat and how agriculture is the plastic demon of the downfall of mankind, read Jared Diamond's excellent book The Third Chimpanzee.
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Why do kids like playing in sand?
Many of us growing up in our idyllic, suburban childhoods filled with fresh baked apple pies and pre-9/11 carefree attitudes had the opportunity to occasionally enjoy a day on a beach or, if truly blessed, had a sandbox to call our own filled with endless possibilities of imagination and cat turds. What child couldn't spend hours sitting in a five by five box filled with sand? Why the child could dig or fill a bucket up with sand only to pour it out again. If Hot-wheels or My Little Ponies came into play, then the child could push them around and get sand jammed in the wheels or stuck in the pony hair. I recall once my pal Tad digging in his sandbox when I asked what he was looking for. Tad responded that he was digging for China. I asked what China was and Tad replied, "I think it's squishy."
Why should this be fun at all? Why do we instinctively know this to be fun? Why don't we question why plopping a kid down with some sand (especially wet sand, mind you) will amuse said kid? I mean, it's sand. It's like dirt but it washes off a little more easily. And if it's wet you can make lumps of things and then put sticks in those lumps, but when the waves come in just a little more - kiss your sticked lumps goodbye. I don't mean to degrade makin' sand sculptures, but we never really mind too much that however masterfully we've crafted them, the tide's gonna reduce them back to oblivion. And why would we mind? I mean it's just sand after all. But then why do we bother?
To explain why we play in sand requires some more controversial theory than usual. Us humans, this theory goes, are Aqua-Apes. Some small band of outsider rebel apes got separated from the rest of their apey kind and the earth trembled. This trembling caused the separation of these rebel apes onto a secret island from whence they could not escape. Now these apes feared the water - they could not swim, they could not catch fish, they were cold in the water, the palms of their hands weren't sensitive enough to locate stuff under the waves, their children and indeed even most of their adults would drown if submerged. What were they to do in their new watery/beachy hell that fate had damned them to? Were they going to give up? No, by tarnation! They were going to fight to survive! They were going to become the Aqua-Apes!! If this theory seems a little shaky to you, my fellow aqua-ape, you just haven't thought it all the way through. Thankfully Elaine Morgan has and she'll prove it to you in her books The Aquatic Ape and The Scars of Evolution.
"So, like, you're saying that we like playing in sand when we're kids, cause we were stuck on an evil island once and these apes came to save us? That's weird." No, you hypothetical jackass, you don't understand the dynamics of how human infants and children learn their social roles along with many life skills through their play. "Oh. Do the apes come from Atlantis? Is that where they get their powers?" When children play, they are learning how to become adults. Just as kittens and puppies rough-house with each other in their youth as training for defending themselves and hunting/killing prey, human kids learn to build sand-castles so they can become sand-brokers when they grow up. Or maybe it has something to do with ingraining the child to the environment so that they learn to operate in and around water as this was against the ape-child's nature. Perhaps its even more simple than that - perhaps while dad went fishing the kids had to be set in front of the TV so they wouldn't get into trouble and millions of years of sitting on beaches got us pretty bored so we learned to amuse ourselves by digging and making piles. It's probably a combination of the two, really. "So the space apes brought TVs with them from Atlantis and taught us all when we were children how to swim and how to commune with our fishy friends, so we can help Captain Planet defeat the villainous Looten Plunder and regain Neptune's scepter with the help of the sensitively-palmed Waterbearer hand given to us by the Lady of the Lake, right?" Right.
Why should this be fun at all? Why do we instinctively know this to be fun? Why don't we question why plopping a kid down with some sand (especially wet sand, mind you) will amuse said kid? I mean, it's sand. It's like dirt but it washes off a little more easily. And if it's wet you can make lumps of things and then put sticks in those lumps, but when the waves come in just a little more - kiss your sticked lumps goodbye. I don't mean to degrade makin' sand sculptures, but we never really mind too much that however masterfully we've crafted them, the tide's gonna reduce them back to oblivion. And why would we mind? I mean it's just sand after all. But then why do we bother?
To explain why we play in sand requires some more controversial theory than usual. Us humans, this theory goes, are Aqua-Apes. Some small band of outsider rebel apes got separated from the rest of their apey kind and the earth trembled. This trembling caused the separation of these rebel apes onto a secret island from whence they could not escape. Now these apes feared the water - they could not swim, they could not catch fish, they were cold in the water, the palms of their hands weren't sensitive enough to locate stuff under the waves, their children and indeed even most of their adults would drown if submerged. What were they to do in their new watery/beachy hell that fate had damned them to? Were they going to give up? No, by tarnation! They were going to fight to survive! They were going to become the Aqua-Apes!! If this theory seems a little shaky to you, my fellow aqua-ape, you just haven't thought it all the way through. Thankfully Elaine Morgan has and she'll prove it to you in her books The Aquatic Ape and The Scars of Evolution.
"So, like, you're saying that we like playing in sand when we're kids, cause we were stuck on an evil island once and these apes came to save us? That's weird." No, you hypothetical jackass, you don't understand the dynamics of how human infants and children learn their social roles along with many life skills through their play. "Oh. Do the apes come from Atlantis? Is that where they get their powers?" When children play, they are learning how to become adults. Just as kittens and puppies rough-house with each other in their youth as training for defending themselves and hunting/killing prey, human kids learn to build sand-castles so they can become sand-brokers when they grow up. Or maybe it has something to do with ingraining the child to the environment so that they learn to operate in and around water as this was against the ape-child's nature. Perhaps its even more simple than that - perhaps while dad went fishing the kids had to be set in front of the TV so they wouldn't get into trouble and millions of years of sitting on beaches got us pretty bored so we learned to amuse ourselves by digging and making piles. It's probably a combination of the two, really. "So the space apes brought TVs with them from Atlantis and taught us all when we were children how to swim and how to commune with our fishy friends, so we can help Captain Planet defeat the villainous Looten Plunder and regain Neptune's scepter with the help of the sensitively-palmed Waterbearer hand given to us by the Lady of the Lake, right?" Right.
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