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Our Trivial, Different Ways of Being Human

From Carl Sagan’s “Cosmos” (p. 283):

“We have held the peculiar notion that a person or society that is a little different from us, whoever we are, is somehow strange or bizarre, to be distrusted or loathed. Think of the negative connotations of words like ‘alien’ or ‘outlandish.’ And yet the monuments and cultures of each of our civilizations merely represent different ways of being human. An extraterrestrial visitor, looking at the differences among human beings and their societies, would find those differences trivial compared to the similarities. The Cosmos may be densely populated with intelligent beings. But the Darwinian lesson is clear: There will be no humans elsewhere. Only here. Only on this small planet. We are a rare as well as endangered species. Every one of us is, in the cosmic perspective, precious. If a human disagrees with you, let him live. In a hundred billion galaxies, you will not find another.”

Astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope have captured the most comprehensive picture ever assembled of the evolving Universe — and one of the most colourful. The study is called the Ultraviolet Coverage of the Hubble Ultra Deep Field (UVUDF) project.

The Hubble Ultra Deep Field. (Source)

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Ten Lessons on Love, from the Wise

I started teaching a new class this semester on patterns of human mating. One of our assignments was what we called “Interviews with the Wise.” I asked students to speak informally with older people, asking them what they had learned about sex, love, marriage, and relationships, and what lessons they would like to pass along to young people. We collectively came up with the questionnaire as a class. 

The interviewees ranged in age from their late 50s to their early 90s (‘older’ is always a relative term, I suppose). Most would probably be described as traditional, most were married once, but some were married a few times or none at all. Several were raised Catholic (it is New England), and we had a range of people from different ethnicities.I was very impressed with how seriously the students took the assignment, and how open their interviewees were. 

Below are some of the patterns I noticed from the interviews:

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Gordon’s Story

We had a visitor in our Patterns of Human Mating class this week, a 70-something year-old gay man named Gordon. One of our assignments is that students must speak, informally, with older people about sex, love, marriage, long-term relationships, etc., and what they’ve learned and what advice they had for young adults. This was inspired by a conversation I had a few years ago with an 83 year-old woman named Evelyn, which I found enlightening. Other than age, we weren’t looking for people from any specific demographic, or people with any orientation. We just wanted to listen to whatever wisdom and experience is out there.  

We asked around to find people to speak with, and found Gordon through a local organization that works with older adults. He kindly shared some of his life story, the progress he’s seen on acceptance on LGBT people over the course of his life, and we had a nice discussion for about 25 minutes. He then stayed for the rest of the class to hear the lecture. He even asked a few questions during the lecture, and asked if I could email him some of the studies we discussed in the class.

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Genocidal Altruists: Are We ‘Naturally’ Violent? Altruistic? Both?

This was from several months ago, but I wanted to bring it back again.

Patrick Clarkin's avatarPatrick F. Clarkin, Ph.D.

“We know that we are apes, but we cannot be classified simplistically as ‘naked apes’ or ‘killer apes’ or ‘moral apes.’…Our past is complicated; so is our present, and so will be our future.” – Paul Ehrlich (2000: 331)

“When we are bad, we are worse than any primate that I know. And when we are good, we are actually better and more altruistic than any primate that I know. ” –Frans de Waal

…..

The Eagles headed back to their cabin feeling dejected after losing a tug-of-war contest to their rivals, the Rattlers. Along the way, one of the boys noticed the Rattlers had forgotten their flag on the baseball field, leaving it unprotected. Craig and Mason soon seized it, but struggled to tear it to pieces. McGraw then presented some matches and suggested they burn it instead. The group then hung the flag’s charred remains from the…

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Being Wrong, Part 2

A (more humorous) follow-up from Part 1.

Of course, the wisdom of admitting a mistake is compromised if one keeps making them over and over again.

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“Love Will Win”

 

Refugeee Love

A young refugee couple kiss in a tent in Keleti station in Budapest, Hungary. Photograph: Istvan Zsiros. Source

From the article in The Guardian:

 “I hope every refugee finds a their place in the world, finds peace as quickly as possible,” (photographer) Istvan Zsiros says. “That everyone is happy. It’s a very difficult situation, a very complex situation.”

And he hopes his photograph might change the way people see the situation: “Love,” he says, quoting the movie Interstellar, “is the one thing we’re capable of perceiving that transcends time and space.” And, perhaps, borders.”

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Being Wrong

It gives me hope when people can admit they were wrong. There’s something redeeming about admitting that one’s judgment is fallible rather than refusing to admit error for the sake of ego.

As an example, this clip from Errol Morris’ film “The Fog of War” features Robert McNamara discussing the events of the Gulf of Tonkin incident. In it, McNamara revealed that the U.S. likely misread sonar signals that supposedly indicated an increase in Vietnamese aggression. This misinterpretation helped escalate the war, causing irreparable harm to many. The key exchange:

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Some Lessons on War and Forced Displacement

Lessons from our SSHB conference on The Human Biology of Poverty, held in Lisbon earlier this month. Thanks to Ines Varela Silva for putting together a great conference in a beautiful country.

This is not a complete list, but a copy and paste of some of the highlights from our session: 

Presentations

  • War and forced displacement: Embodiment of conflict-related experiences (Patrick Clarkin)
  • Female minor refugees: Are they underprivileged by forensic age estimation? (Bianca Gelbrich)
  • War and its effect on the changes in lifestyles: a case of Croatia (Sasa Missoni)
  • Secular trends of somatic development in Abkhazian children and adolescents for the last decades (Elena Godina)
  • Do stress biomarkers track poverty, stress, and trauma? Evaluating war-affected youth (Amelia Sancilio)
  • Refugees in Portugal: What do we know? (Cristina Santinho and Ines Varela-Silva)
  • Poster: Maya Guatemalan children in refugee camps in Mexico. How bad is their growth status? (Aya Ueno, Barry Bogin, Faith Warner and Ines Varela-Silva)

Summary of the session

Below are some reasons why our research is important and how it is relevant  for the public in general.

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The Beacon in the Terrifying Darkness

“Life is tragic simply because the earth turns and the sun inexorably rises and sets, and one day, for each of us, the sun will go down for the last, last time. Perhaps the whole root of our trouble, the human trouble, is that we will sacrifice all the beauty of our lives, will imprison ourselves in totems, taboos, crosses, blood sacrifices, steeples, mosques, races, armies, flags, nations, in order to deny the fact of death, the only fact we have. It seems to me that one ought to rejoice in the fact of death–ought to decide, indeed, to earn one’s death by confronting with passion the conundrum of life. One is responsible for life: It is the small beacon in that terrifying darkness from which we come and to which we shall return.”

― James Baldwin, The Fire Next Time

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Human Biology of Poverty Symposium

We just finished a symposium on “the human biology of poverty,” held at ISCTE-IUL in Lisbon, and sponsored by the The Society for the Study of Human Biology. It really was a great meeting, full of important research on the effects of various forms of deprivation on biology and health in different populations. The complete program can be found here.

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