I've always got my trusty blankie...

I wasn't sure I was going to be able to fall asleep last night. Every now and then, I like to watch a scary movie, always with friends so that I never have to fall asleep alone-- not that I'm ever alone in Calhoun or 6 Adams. Anyway, I couldn't even watch an entire movie, but I still managed to scare the bejeebers out of me.

The poster for Paranormal Activity

I was just being silly with a friend when we decided to search for the Paranormal Activity alternate endings on Youtube. For all those with the good sense to not watch the movie, it's about this completely average girl who is haunted by a demon, who gradually gets more and more comfortable revealing its presence within her house. It's a classic horror film: you'll scream, whimper, and maybe even wet yourself if you watched it alone. I literally only watched five minutes of the end, an ending that I've even seen before and had even read about earlier that day. I was fully aware of what was coming, but I still could not bring myself to watch Katie slit her throat with glee in front of the camera. 

I'm pretty terrified of the entire idea of demons in my house, which is I think a remnant of Victorian spiritualism. Before the turn of the 20th century, people really thought these things could happen. In class today, we talked about seances and the witnesses who truly believed that they had experienced something supernatural, something that some scientists of the day thought could be measured. I, with the immense benefit of hindsight, thought the people who believed in such silly things were crazy. I assumed that these witnesses were uneducated, that the medium was swindling her clients, and that none of this had any real consequence today. On the contrary, there were well-respected men (Alfred Russel Wallace!) in the scientific community who set about to explore these supernatural occurrences as if they were real scientific phenomena.

This spirit trumpet was manufactured in the early 1900s by
 E. A. Eckel, in Anderson, Indiana. It was used to measure
and amplify "psychic energy"

So, this whole spiritualism thing isn't completely crazy. But having deprived myself of a restful night's sleep, I thought about today's equivalent of spiritualism. Perhaps the clinical study of intercessory prayer falls into a similar category. What exactly is to be proven in the as yet methodologically questionable study? Surely, those people who believe in the power of prayer are going to do so despite the results of a clinical trial. Maybe in the future, after some incredible technological developments, intercessory prayer will become obsolete. Maybe the future citizens of the world will look back on these studies of the efficacy of prayer in the same way I viewed the Victorian studies of spiritualism-- merely a symptom of the age.

Petrie always makes everything better

For now, I shall pray that there are no demons in this house, in my bedroom, or anywhere near Cambridge. I'm heading to bed with the door open and the lights on, relying on the safety of my trusty sidekick Petrie. 

Darwin never met Nibbler or Phaedo

We finished up this week with in proper Oxford style with a Great Darwinian Debate. The proposition: this [Victorian] house proposes that Darwinism is a danger to established religion. I was on the proposing side, representing the views of St. George Jackson Mivart, who actually ended up being a pretty compelling character. An English zoologist by trade, Mivart was initially in support of Darwin’s theory of evolution when it was first published. Later, however, he became one of its fiercest critics, trying to reconcile the theory with his devout Catholic faith. In the end, he didn’t make any friends and was roundly condemned in the academic and religious communities.

St. George Jackson Mivart

Where Darwin’s and Mivart’s views diverge has to do with the matter of the soul, human reason, and our sense of morality. Darwin believed that humans evolved our cognitive abilities in the classic evolutionary sense—a useful characteristic that promoted reproductive success and thus became commonplace in the species. Mivart, however, felt that the soul was a uniquely human facet and a product of “direct or supernatural action”. If Darwinism held true, Mivart feared that any sufficiently evolved organism could develop human intellectual capabilities, contrary to the Scripture which says “God created mankind in His own image” (Genesis 1:27). The prospect of otters being able to practice and adhere to their faith sounds like a threat to established religion to me-- though a very cute one. 

Is the human soul potentially an evolutionary mechanism to promote the reproductive success of our species? Funnily enough, it’s some combination of my Catholic upbringing and biological/hard science education that’s brought me to my current conclusion—which is apt to change. Mutation is the source of variation within a species, and I simply cannot imagine that my entire consciousness is the result of what must have been numerous genetic malfunctions. Is the source of my consciousness in my genome? What genes need to be mutated to engineer a mind? It’s my Catholic School education, my desire to keep some of the inner workings of my head a special blessing that makes me believe that my mind cannot be expressed in an arbitrary string of nucleotide bases. It has to be impossible that all my thoughts (though I do believe they are the result of some physiological mechanism) evolved from the luckily non-fatal distortion of ancient mammalian genes.

Then again, I fully embrace the fact that I know nothing about consciousness or neuroscience (or anything). I am completely certain though, my brother’s cats do have some sort of cognitive abilities, usually employed while they make mischief about the house. As I’ve tried to impress upon them many times, natural selection really doesn’t work in favor of cute and edible cats. Maybe their entire existence is a testament to the failures of Darwin.

This is Phaedo, who's also got his thinking cap on

 

This is Nibbler. Don't tell me this isn't the face
of a cat who's thinking some deep thoughts

"You should not eat talking trees. Nope, nope, nope"

I’m really glad that I don’t live in the world Malthus described in An Essay on the Principle of Population where weaker members of the population are rooted out by purposefully inviting disease and famine in order to ensure that the food supply is always adequate. I am almost certain that I would not be one of the surviving members of the human race. But Darwin really took Malthus’ principles on population to heart in On the Origin of Species, embracing the idea of competition to keep population levels relatively constant. Wallace, analogously, preferred the term ‘survival of the fittest’, which does not sound so favorable to someone so un-fit as myself.

I have, in a way, been hitting the gym

And I don’t mean fitness in the “I’ve been hitting the gym” sense of the word; I mean fit in the ability to pass on favourable genetic traits. For example, I need constant access to my inhaler, and my nebulizer when that doesn’t work. I can’t eat anything I’d like for fear of having an allergic reaction, going into anaphylactic shock, and dying. Even as I write this, I’m getting over a slight cold, one of many more to come this year because it seems I am just predisposed to bacterial infection. If I was one of those squirrels I see running around Old Campus all the time at school—a sickly squirrel who couldn’t breathe, could only eat certain nuts, and needed my little burrow to be perfectly clear of allergens—I daresay I would not survive very long even amongst the friendly Yale freshmen.

So why, then, have I made it to the ripe old age of 19 years given that I am clearly not cut out for ‘survival of the fittest’ lifestyle? I fear that it’s because human civilization has stopped the forces of natural selection in its tracks. People just don’t die when they’re supposed to anymore given elaborate medical technologies—many of which I owe my existence to. These people, perhaps of a more detrimental and certainly less favorable genetic makeup, are allowed to transmit these traits to the next generation. Thus, there is no more mechanism in civilized society to get rid of detrimental traits in our population.

Ducky and Petrie-- my favorite characters from The Land
Before Time-- echoing the relationship I've got with my brother.
Can you guess which sibling is which?

So what becomes of the human race if unfavorable genetic traits are accumulating in the genome? It was Cuvier who argued that every era has a dominant class of organisms, and as evidenced by my favorite Land Before Time movies, the reptilian dinosaurs were once dominant. Clearly, the dinosaurs are no longer around, so what if the same catastrophic global fate is to befall humans? What if we are living in a fleeting age in which mammals are the dominant class?

In this case, I prefer to be an optimist. Perhaps, natural selection is acting, though in more subtle ways. No longer are physical anatomical structures acted upon, but human intellect and reason (which might have even been evolutionary adaptations themselves). Perhaps natural selection is acting such that those communities where reason and intellectual order prevails will be those that are preserved and those where reason does not reign will be eliminated. In any case, I certainly celebrated the birth of the Prince George Alexander Louis because his parents' genes are definitely some of those that needed to be passed on to the next generation.

The London Eye on the Thames lit up for the royal birth

A Civilization's Legacy

Stongehenge, in all its confusing glory!

On our way to Dorset on the southwest coast of England, we made the glorious pit stop of my life at Stonehenge. The monument which evolved between 3000 and 1600 BC is a baffling, but awe-inspiring collection of perfectly-tailored stones. But what exactly were they tailored for?

No one really knows. The ring of stones is aligned with the summer and winter solstices, so perhaps the whole monument is a grand sundial. Historians also believe that Stonehenge could have been the site of ancient worshipping practices or even a burial ground given the skeletons that have been found around the site. Maybe the prehistoric peoples knew that English author Thomas Hardy would need a place for his heroine to die in Tess of the D’Urbervilles and thought the Slaughter Stone would have just looked tacky on its own.

The Slaughter Stone

The complete mystery of Stonehenge scared me a little bit. How can such a majestic monument to Prehistoric culture exist in an easily accessible part of the world and no one knows why it’s there or how it got there? Most confusing is the circle of bluestones in the interior of the ring. The nearest rock of that type is approximately 250 miles away in Wales. Moving such stones would be a job today, but am I to believe that these ancient peoples put these things on ginormous rafts in the Atlantic and carted them off to what became England? Or maybe a nice glacier came along and left them there.

What will become of all the monuments of modern human civilization? I can hardly imagine the Empire State building withstanding rust and erosion for as long as Stonehenge has. Even the Taj Mahal needed restoration after a few centuries, so who’s to say that it can last for the next five thousand years?

But while these monuments are marvelous engineering and architectural feats that spell out the supremacies of various civilizations, they are more importantly a testament to the human mind that has the capacity to imagine such structures and conceive of ways to build them. That’s why I’m glad the more valuable accomplishments of humanity are contained in writings and texts.  The real accomplishment is all the knowledge!

The creepy, but nicely scientific butterfly specimens
illustrate warning coloration to predators

Once we left Dorset for London, we were invited to see pages and pages of Alfred Russel Wallace’s personal correspondence. For those who don’t know, Wallace was the guy who published the “survival of the fittest” evolutionary theory before Darwin did, but was gentlemanly enough to share the credit (though history has much forgotten about him). Even within the samples we saw, there was a wealth of information from experimental data, to anatomical sketches, and other annotated and preserved journals. It was awesome to see his own personal collection of butterfly specimens. Even though bugs freak me out, I can still appreciate a man’s dedication to the pursuit of knowledge.

Wallace's catalogs of data

Having seen the Wallace Correspondence Project’s archives and the museums that house it, I am confident that all of humanity’s legacy won’t just be a bunch of mysterious rocks and skeletons in the ground. Yet, I don’t know what will become of the digital culture we live in now. What’s the shelf life on an email? On some level, perhaps the more commonplace digital exchanges of today will last longer than the letters I’ve seen over the past weekend, but surely it’s not the same thing as deciphering Darwin’s frankly awful handwriting. I guess I’ll just have to hope that historians of a future age will know what my password is.

Still, our legacy is the texts—in whatever form that they might exist— that contain the progress of civilization into cities and coexisting nations, from minds bound by Scripture to freethinking skeptics. Maybe I’ll contribute the weensiest bit of knowledge to the entire human compendium one day, but until then I’m content to marvel at the findings of those who have come before me.

Where Did the Doctor Go?

I see a lot of doctors. I know that every time I come home for an extended vacation there will be many specialists to see and more tests to be done. When I’m lucky, I get the prescriptions faxed to me at school and complete the tests there. The end result is that I’ve gotten pretty friendly with my doctors: they’ve written recommendation letters for me, connected me with colleagues so that I can better observe the profession, and have been more than available to me for any questions I might have about my own health. And most importantly, all of my various doctors are know able to allay my mother’s fears and put her at ease when the need be—hardly an easy task.  

The Doctor by Luke Fildes

Yet, I know I’m the modern anomaly. Most of my friends and peers are not nearly as friendly with their doctors—someone they usually see once a year for an annual checkup and to fill out some forms for school. My brand of doctor-patient relationship is more typical of 19^th century England (though slightly more technologically advanced). Physicians of that time were locally based and could get to know an entire family over successive generations. I was particularly surprised to learn that patients often only died in the company of their doctor, who was charged with sitting the bedside vigil often with no loved ones present.

So how did we get from the 19^th century revered family doctor figure to the 21^st century doctor who practices his craft in constant fear of a lawsuit? In America, between 15,000 and 19,000 cases of medical malpractice are filed each year, with the cost totaling upwards of 50 billion dollars (most of that in unnecessary tests). People today are significantly less inclined to trust their doctor, and I simply cannot imagine why. Doctors go through some of the most rigorous training of any profession: four years of graduate education, residencies, fellowships, medical Boards Examinations, and so much more. They even swear an oath, promising to “Enter only for the good of my patients, keeping myself far from all intentional ill-doing.” So why have we become increasingly more critical of doctors in the 21^st century?

The post-Enlightenment era is marked by greater faith in the faculties of the human mind, which evolved into an intellectual independence free from religious stricture. Especially among Deists, there evolved the idea that God is a faraway entity who is no longer active in our world. This empowered the citizenry to think independently, to devise worldly solutions to those everyday problems of sanitation and disease, but also the broader questions like the age of the planet we live on. In the 21^st century, this type of intellectual independence, the freedom to answer those questions you choose to ponder without fear of spiritual fallout has pervaded the entire culture. Knowledge is no longer off limits to anyone.

While the dissemination of medical information has done wonders for healthy living, I think the widespread education has backfired in some ways. With drugs advertised on television, WedMD’s symptom checker as a diagnostic tool, and countless remedies over-the-counter, people can be their own doctors. Armed with this small amount of information, people feel more comfortable making potentially dangerous personal healthcare decisions. I’m not advocating putting absolute faith in the medical professionals because being informed never hurts; but, being informed in the proper way, by people whom you trust and who are qualified and are open to communication, is most certainly the best way to go. Still, when there isn’t open and effective communication with healthcare providers, or a comfortable relationship with one’s doctors things can go wrong. As a species, we tend to blame other people, and when it comes to healthcare it’s usually the doctors who have to deal with it—in court.

There's always one lawyer who will take my call

I hope to become a doctor and have a more familiar relationship with my patients like the local family doctor of 19^th century England. Patients are not simply waking ailments but people with family members and real concerns that need addressing. I hope to provide an emotional comfort to my patients and their families beyond the prescriptions and medical expertise. In the end though, I’m still grateful that my brother is a lawyer and will (hopefully) always have room for one more client.

---

It's hopeless... but that's okay!

Humans are pretty amazing creatures. We’ve tamed fire and managed to bend metal to our will. We’ve learned to manipulate the soil and constructed sprawling cities over it. And even though humans can destroy entire cities at will, we still possess the power to engineer new organs and save numerous lives with new medical technologies. And yet, humans are completely insignificant when it comes to the grander geological forces at work.

Hutton's Section of the Salisbury Crags--- look at those layers!

During our visit to Edinburgh, we managed to hike up Arthur’s Seat—which was once an active volcano during the Carboniferous Age. What’s really special about Arthur’s Seat, however, is the glacier that came by sometime in the last two million years, leaving behind a classic crag and tail geologic formation. Nowadays people talk about the world’s glaciers melting (which is definitely a problem), but when I think about the power it took to carve out the Salisbury Crags it makes me wonder whether the glaciers can win this battle on their own. Even more mindboggling is the fact that these processes are still taking place, but this time its happening under cities and the homes of small furry creatures. Will humans be able to stand up to the forces of glacial shift?

Hutton’s section of the Salisbury Crags is named after James Hutton, a Scottish geologist and Enlightenment thinker. According to Hutton, rock formation was a part of an ongoing process of transformation of sediment into rock under the immense pressure of the ocean and its subsequent elevation. And in his section, you can see what he means. The stratified rock at the bottom must have formed under enormous pressure to solidify in such a layered fashion. However, the igneous rock at the top is formed by the cooling of volcanic material, which is better explained by modern plate tectonics. Together, the types of rock have melded into one superstructure.

The view of Edinburgh from atop Arthur's Seat

What chance do humans stand against the unstoppable forces of plate tectonics and the shifting of the very earth we have settled upon? We have built entire civilizations upon masses of hot rock floating on more melted rock, and I’m pretty sure it’s not going to stay that way forever. The panoramic views from atop Arthur’s Peak were breathtaking, but it was alarming to see just how close civilization is to a known site of glacial butt-kicking. Maybe fear of these incredible geologic forces goes in the same category as getting hit by an asteroid and abduction by aliens, but I do think humans need to better respect the planet we’ve got. Its resources are finite and ultimately we are powerless against even the friendly oceans we play in during the summer months.

Mostly though, I think Carl Sagan is right when he says "It is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring."

Over My Dead Body

The human body has been a commodity for centuries. In the crudest form of selling the body, prostitution has been around since the ancient Greeks borrowed it from the Fertile Crescent (where it was somewhat ironically called “sacred prostitution”). Even today, economies are sustained as labor produces goods and services are traded. But it’s not only living bodies that can be commodified. Dead bodies, despite the taboo attached to them, were hot items in nineteenth century Scotland. The Enlightenment brought with it a fervent passion for learning and discovery, and nineteenth century Scottish anatomy schools had a particularly hands-on approach. How else were the pioneers of surgical training, John and William Hunter, to train their students? Even the Murder Act of 1752, which held that the bodies of murderers were to be dissected and anatomized, simply could not meet the insatiable demand for fresh dead bodies.

A lecture at the Hunterian anatomy school, Great Windmill Street, London; Wellcome Library

So the “Resurrection Men” took to the graves of those recently buried. The corpses were exhumed and taken “Up the close and down the stair” as the Scottish ditty goes for preparation and use by the students of anatomy. In order to prevent the theft of corpses, some folks even employed mortsafes to serve as sort of protective cages around the graves. William Burke and William Hare even started killing people to provide popular anatomy lecturer Robert Knox with the bodies he needed to teach (Knox subsequently had to relocate to London).

A Mortsafe lock on a Scottish grave to prevent theft

As I learned more about the lengths people took to ensure a proper burial, I was struck by how dedicated people were to being forever contained in a wooden box until your flesh gives way to decomposition. I understand the religious aspiration of wanting to meet one’s Maker intact for ultimate judgment, but surely any benevolent Maker can see the merits of using one’s body to serve those still alive. Similarly, a benevolent God would surely accept all honorable souls into heaven in their most beautiful form--- not simply the one you’ve got at the Gates.

At some point, preserving your body in its pristine state when you can no longer use it must become selfish. During the Scottish Enlightenment, there was a huge demand for corpses so as to better learn surgical techniques and understand the underlying physiology. Certainly, the training of surgeons (and perhaps even modern day organ donation) is a noble enough to warrant the donation of an otherwise useless body. And what happens to the soul? Does the soul not remain intact even if the body mutilated? What exactly does it mean to be made in the “image and likeness of God?”

I admit that the personal detachment I hold for the generic dead body gets a little murkier when I think of loved ones’ corpses, but I still think there is something to be said for self-sacrifice for posterity’s sake. The Enlightenment failed to sufficiently delineate the mind from the vessel that carries it. This notion is particularly noticeable in Hume’s Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion: “Our ideas reach no further than our experience.” No offense Hume, but surely my imagination and uniquely human ability to empathize mean that my ideas do indeed expand beyond personal experience.

David Hume, the father of modern Skepticism

In this way, the human body becomes more horcrux-like. Once the ability to think and reason is lost, so is the most important facet that makes us human. There’s only potentially a religious soul left, whose judgment should not depend on a pristine carrier. So why not leave the empty vessel behind for the pursuit of knowledge?