…an epic adventure that began with one simple question: Why does my foot hurt? In search of an answer, Christopher McDougall sets off to find a tribe of the world’s greatest distance runners and learn their secrets, and in the process shows us that everything we thought we knew about running is wrong. [...] For centuries [the Tarahumara] have practiced techniques that allow them to run hundreds of miles without rest and chase down anything from a deer to an Olympic marathoner while enjoying every mile of it. Their superhuman talent is matched by uncanny health and serenity, leaving the Tarahumara immune to the diseases and strife that plague modern existence.

So aside from that quote from the inside flap of the dust jacket, I’m not going to go on about the barefoot running.  I’m not going to harp on that.

I am (however) going to harp on a certain apparent contradiction.  Or if not a contradiction, then at least an intractable, difficult-to-reconcile inconsistency between points raised in the text.

It hit me around page 243, right around the time that chapter 28 was wrapping up.  What hit me was:  there seem to be two different messages about what the “good stuff” to eat is.

But let’s back up for a moment here.

Throughout the text, the message seems to lean toward vegetarianism.  The Tarahumara don’t seem to eat much meat; every time McDougall describes their diet, it’s mostly beans and pinole—and aside from a mention of a soup with beef broth, I can’t find another place where they consume an animal product.  There is a passage where Scott Jurek’s diet is described, and how the coaches of his youth insisted on “lean meat” for muscle development but how as an adult he had stripped down his intake to be bean proteins and raw veggies and the complex carbohydrates from stuff like uncooked oats.  Then there is Dr. Ruth Heidrich’s “simple rule” as espoused to McDougall:

…if it came from plants, she ate it; if it came from animals, she didn’t.

In other words, everyone seems to go vegetarian.  Or vegan.  Or “raw”.

And this is a pretty consistent thread in the overall narrative, right up until chapter 28.

When we get to chapter 28, McDougall starts to talk about the human animal as a running animal, and there is a substantial discussion on the advantages of bipedalism and quite a bit of speculation on the evolutionary arc that led to the success of Homo sapiens as a species.  McDougall focuses on a hypothesis by David Carrier that Homo sapiens turned into this explosive success because persistence hunting gave them improved access to food (i.e., meat)—and persistence hunting would not be possible without a biology that makes endurance running easy.

If I’m following the text correctly, then the basic idea is this:  (1) Homo sapiens and Neanderthal are competing for resources.  (2) Homo sapiens has a more efficient means of running and can use this efficient running to execute this “persistence hunting”—which basically means that they run their prey to exhaustion.  (3) This strategy somehow permits easier access to food year-round.  (4) Not only that, but the improved access to meat provides a concentrated high-protein food source that allow for rapid brain development and an otherwise improved probability of long-term survival.

So… running gave us better access to meat which was crucial for our species’ evolution and long-term.  And yet we argue that a vegetarian diet is the ultra-marathoner’s ace-in-the-sleeve? …the key to longevity and beating cancer etc.?  But the meat is what got us here in the first place?

Hmm…?

Now before anyone goes all Michael Pollan on me, bear in mind that what I find obnoxious here is that there doesn’t seem to be much effort to reconcile these conflicting ideas.  Page 244 rolls around and it isn’t about diet anymore; diet becomes about running, and running is what carries the narrative.

So instead we’re left wondering:

• Is the meat just a gateway?  Break on through the big-brain barrier and you don’t need it anymore?  Or, as much?
• Did it really not have anything to do with the meat, but instead more to do with the improved strategy combined with Homo sapiens omnivorousness?  Because if the speculation is true and Neanderthal really was exclusively a carnivore, then there’s another advantage we would have right there.  (Which minimizes the importance of the easy-access meat.)
• Do we need to divorce the arguments?  Is the vegetarianism “right” for the runner’s diet?  And the meat is more to do with the brain development?  (That doesn’t sound right to me at all.)

I’m sure there are more questions to be spawned as I continue to meditate on this.  But as it is not nearly reconciled in the text, I suppose I’ll have to work to reconcile it on my own.

I close the covers of The Elegant Universe with powerfully mixed feelings. On the one hand, Brian Greene gives us a lucidly-written layman’s-terms explanation for high-concept modern physics, providing an excellent survey of 20th century science and painting a vivid picture of a promising strategy for reconciling the discrepancies in the otherwise dominant theories. On the other hand, about half-way through the text, it devolves into (what feels like) a navel-gazing vanity project that fails to connect that promising strategy with the target audience (i.e., the layman that actually gives a damn about modern science).

To be clear: the first third of the book is a remarkable accomplishment. Brian Greene is a cogent writer with a wonderful pedagogical streak that is able to produce a clear image of some otherwise hard-to-decipher concepts in modern physics. Because of The Elegant Universe, I feel like I now have a fairly good understanding of the core concepts underlying Einstein’s theories of special and general relativity, and quantum mechanics (e.g., Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle). Greene is also able to give a decent explanation regarding how these theories break down when you try to “merge” them (e.g., like when you come up with “infinite energy” and/or “infinite mass” and/or “infinite probabilities” through calculations of black holes or the Big Bang).

This first third of the book is very accessible, very enjoyable, and very informative. Engaging, fascinating, and extremely powerful.

Somewhere during that potent 130-150 pages, Greene remarks (something to the effect of): You cannot be said to fully understand something until you can explain both its system and significance to a complete stranger. (Not a quote, but I’m sure you know what I’m getting at…)

And with that statement does Dr. Greene undermine the remaining two-thirds of the book. After introducing string theory, after explaining that it is a strategy with the potential to marry relativity and quantum mechanics, after getting you (the lay-reader) excited that you too will have some insight into the critical significance that is superstring theory — he glosses over some math (which doesn’t really feel like physics after that first 120 pages) and more/less asks you to “bear with me here, trust me…”

EXAMPLE: after introducing the concept of strings, the text rushes into a discussion of 6-dimensional “curled up” Calabi-Yau manifolds without really giving a good way of visualizing that whole mess.

EXAMPLE: after 2 or 3 chapters about string theory where Greene is introducing it and discussing how it might reconcile relativity and quantum mechanics, he starts to segue into reconciling aspects of string theory with itself — looping back (like its own subject strings) on itself in a perverse recursion full of mathematical adjustments and jargon.

EXAMPLE: in the midst of discussing how this New Science, and where you expect it to loop back on the promised explanations for the Old Science, Greene veers off into a series of anecdotes about “this one time at Harvard…” and/or “once at Princeton we stayed up all night and…” — which really just seemed a little gratuitous.

By the time I realized what was happening, my attitude was already tainted. Perhaps I could have extracted more of the science if my cynicism hadn’t kicked in so virulently and so early on in the reading. Perhaps spending more time with the end-notes will prove fruitful. Or perhaps on a future, subsequent follow-up reading I will discover that I was right the first time and we have 150 or so pages of incredible science writing and the remainder is chintzy vanity project.

RATED FOR HYPE: ★★★★★
RATED FOR STYLE: ★★★☆☆
RATED FOR SCIENCE: ★★☆☆☆

A version of this review was originally published on Goodreads.com.

I still don’t understand this whole hybercube/tesseract thing but I sure am fascinated by it.  And let’s face it, that animation is wickedly mesmerizing.

Meanwhile, with a more critical approach, you will find that you cannot get Robert Wright’s The Moral Animal out of your head: it is insightful, intellectually rigorous, even-handed, and at times palpably funny. Plus, you will find that it informs a great many (all?) of the human discourse (verbal or otherwise) that you encounter daily — how certain traits and behaviors came to be and the functions they serve. 

Don’t ask about their intentions though; we need to remember that evolution is goal-less, after all. Put most succinctly: 

We are built to be effective animals, not happy ones.

What Robert Wright sets out to do with The Moral Animal is to take Darwin’s life and oeuvre (primarily The Origin of Species), frame them with two other important contemporary writings (John Stuart Mill’s Utilitarianism and Samuel Smiles’ Self-Help), and use that lens to execute a thorough analysis and discussion of Darwinism and evolution, how human civilizations evolved as a consequence of “reciprocal altruism”, and capsulize all of this as the basis for what Wright calls evolutionary psychology. Wright’s choice of style is an interesting one and reminds me vaguely of Hofstadter’s Gödel, Escher, Bach; its meticulous and technical scientific discussions of biology, genetics, and evolution are interspersed with nearly whimsical narratives that detail the life and times of Charles Darwin. For every page that cites Robert Trivers or Richard Dawkins, there is another that quotes Darwin’s personal correspondence or illustrates the backdrop of Victorian society. Wright’s is an interesting and compelling approach that makes that text very engaging and approachable. Which is not to suggest that the material is easy to follow; Wright does not shy away from getting denser and heavier as the work progresses — there were many instances were I found that I needed to double-back over certain passages to “get it”. 

Again, for as dense and technical as much of Wright’s writing is, he throws himself whole-heartedly into the text and makes the material come to life. There is something strangely erotic about his in-depth scientific analysis of mate competition, cuckoldry, and evolutionary strategizing. There is something perversely amusing about his apples-to-oranges comparisons of Darwin and Freud. There is something appropriately voyeuristic about reading letters from Darwin to friends and seeing how they reflect elements of his own theories. 

In many ways, Wright’s eloquent prose is currency for getting us through some very challenging material. As I have already discussed, there is the implicit challenge of reading technical literature. More so however, is the explicit challenge that Wright lays out early in the text: that we all carry a great deal of cultural baggage that sets us up to reject the logical conclusions posited by Darwinism and evolutionary psychology. Wright spends the first half of the text building up to the discussions that give the book its title. By the time we get to “Part Three: Social Strife”, it is no small wonder why Wright keeps circling back on the example of bluegill sunfish and the equilibrium between “nest builders” and “mate poachers”. The animal kingdom seems to contain not a more succinct microcosm of industry versus opportunism, of cost/benefit economies and stability through constant adjustments in strategy. 

The cornerstone of the second half of The Moral Animal is reciprocal altruism, a theory introduced in the early 1970s by Robert Trivers. Wright gives reciprocal altruism the thorough treatment: he describes how it may (must?) have evolved, the benefits it bestows on an organism, how reciprocal altruism gave rise to human societies and civilizations, and the feedback loop between society and biology (i.e., meme and gene) as mediated through the extremely complex manifestation of reciprocal altruism in human beings. At first glance, Wright’s exposition may appear cynical and determinist: even “on our best behavior”, we are just a product of our genes — even agape presumes a pay-off in the form of a more “loving” and stable society for our offspring. Swing such a cynical evaluation around to the other end and you are using these postulates for justification of extramarital affairs, for rape and for genocide, or for whatever other Twinkie Defense you might conjecture. Wright is very conscious of this and tries to be very delicate and deliberate in his treatment of all this; he even goes so far as to label it “postmodern morality” and he summarily eviscerates these conclusions as damaging and naïve. Wright suggests that if anything “separates” humans from animals, it is self-reflection, the capacity that we have to evaluate our actions (and the actions of others) and consequently judge those actions. Wright asserts that even if the content of our judgments (and our abilities to make those judgments) are evolved tendencies, that we can on some level make choices about the “rightness” of a given action; that our memes and genes interact and we express agency in our evolution. 

Of course, he also appears to caution us that there is a great deal of cultural transmission going on in human evolution right now and that meme transmission is fragile and tenuous even under the best conditions. Hyperbolic though it may sound, Wright appears to suggest that we are one catastrophic event away from being free agents in the game of evolution. 

Underlying all of this is the assertion that reciprocal altruism is a non-zero-sum game where each player (i.e., the genes that are making efforts through the organism to reproduce) functions as a kind of accountant of favors. Each organism is playing life and evolution as a game where sometimes the best move is to take a short-term loss, where sometimes the best move is to take a little more than what you’re owed but not as much as you could exploit. In a way, this is a hopelessly romantic view of evolution — that even despite the ubiquitously short half-life of any pleasure, that an organism might still “choose” a small short-term sacrifice for a greater long-term gain. In reading the entirety of Wright’s argument however, it is certainly reasonable to assume that this is a pragmatic trait, that it’s a complexly evolved response system for economies of scarcity — that there is in fact nothing romantic about charity or sacrifice or romance or the outlaw exploiter. Mechanistically, we are all cogs in the perpetual motion machine of evolution’s equilibrium. And as such, our morals (or lack thereof) are the motions of that machine balancing itself. 

I could see how some, perhaps many might find this thought is unsettling. With his re-telling of Darwin’s tale, Wright illustrates a Copernicanian re-centering of humankind, its origins, and even its humanity. As mentioned above, it can be easy to carve out portions of this hypothesis and serve them in cynical isolation. Taken as a whole, it is a strong composite view of humankind’s genetic and cultural make-up, the forces that drove us to where we are, and the agency we may express over our destiny.

Review originally published on GoodReads.com.

Nice one, babe. Green robes and all.

Via afoundobject.

The above image will not be appearing in this NowPublic.com story. When I first saw the request, I was a bit flattered. Neat, I thought. Then I read the story and thought Hmm… seems to miss the point.

In the spirit of the Creative Commons license that I use for my Flickr’d photos however I figured that it would be okay anyway as long as they gave the due attribution. And I followed that up with my rebuttal.

The photo will not appear on the site however because they require folks to register as users first.

Did I hear someone say Totally Weaksauce?

In any event, my rebuttal would go something along these lines:

Regardless of how many resources it takes to produce either vehicle, the H2 (on the road) produces far more CO tonnage than the Prius. The argument that you’re going to drive a mile-for-mile more environmentall-friendly vehicle in the H2 is a garbage argument. Especially when they start adding the “miles to the life of the vehicle” aspect in there. 300,000 mile life expectancy on the H2? Highly doubtful when driving habits are factored in.

That being said, my rebuttal should scarcely be taken as a pro-Prius argument. Between the Sudbury-mined nickel, the on-going debates about battery disposal, and the not-quite-resolved high-voltage hazards posed to first responders, it seems silly for me to bother mentioning drivers’ habits again. Those Priuses trucking along on the highway at 85mph with a single occupant? Yeah, those guys are getting their fuel economy returns in a big hurry.

As usual: walk if you’re close enough, public transport if you’re not, and ask your friends and co-workers about rideshare options.

Giving free solo trips in the commuter lanes has successfully clogged up those commuter lanes that were intended to ease traffic. Also, the way stickers are allocated was flawed — it was based on when new hybrid owners received their license plates in the mail. There’s no guarantee when plates will arrive — often, it could take as long as three months. Perhaps the DMV should’ve based it on when the car was purchased, making it clear if people qualified. Instead, when the current program ended, the DMV had 700 more applications than stickers. Some owners out there won’t be happy campers.

So my hat is off to California…  Sort of.  This practice of permitting hybrid drivers to utilize the HOV lanes is a horrifying practice and those states that are out there doing it should stop it.  While we can all be delighted that gasoline-electric hybrid vehicles typically exhibit greater (and in some cases far greater) fuel economy than your typical internal combustion engine, someone tooling around solo in one of them is still not really doing us any favors.  Just because you’re sucking less gasoline than the rest of us is a nice start.  But you’re still contributing to sprawl, still contributing to traffic, still requiring as much petrol for your tires and engine lubricants…  And what about that “other” battery that you happen to have?  And what about all the factory resources expended to manufacture your hybrid?

So if California’s goal was to introduce people to the hybrid vehicle concept…  Well, then I guess they’re getting nice checks in the mail from Toyota and Honda?  (I didn’t realize that the HOV lane was a marketing tool!)  Anyway…

The hybrid is a nice start at cutting back the carbon emissions.  But for wholesale reduction plans, nothing beats the “reduce” plan.  And there’s no quicker way to cut it back than to carpool.  Or use public transportation.  Or walk.

They noted that feeding animals for meat, dairy, and egg production requires growing some ten times as much crops as we’d need if we just ate pasta primavera, faux chicken nuggets, and other plant foods. On top of that, we have to transport the animals to slaughterhouses, slaughter them, refrigerate their carcasses, and distribute their flesh all across the country. Producing a calorie of meat protein means burning more than ten times as much fossil fuels–and spewing more than ten times as much heat-trapping carbon dioxide–as does a calorie of plant protein. The researchers found that, when it’s all added up, the average American does more to reduce global warming emissions by going vegetarian than by switching to a Prius.

This is bullshit.  Anytime I’ve seen figures like the ones that they mention above, those figures are always in reference to the large-scale commercial livestock industry.

Just like the Prius argument is riddled with its own set of special problems (e.g., you still need regular oil changes, still contribute to road congestion problems as a driver, your tires are still petrol-based, etc.), saying that “vegetarian is the new Prius” is not an environmental argument — it’s an anti-meat argument.  On its own, “switching” to vegetarianism doesn’t solve the problem.  Much of the same arguments raised here (e.g., the harvesting & distribution questions) can just as easily be applied to your out-of-season fresh fruit and vegetables.  The only real solution to that question is to go macrobiotic and buy local (if you buy at all).

I’m certainly no saint in this regard but I also don’t think that you have any business making an anti-meat argument like this if you’re not prepared to go all the way.

• Can’t wait for Correo to be ready for primetime… Can it do for mail what Camino did for the web?
• The hunt for a new mixer continues. Been scouring PSSL and Turntable Lab for “the one” and scouting out reviews whenever I can find them. Leaning heavily toward this Behringer at the moment. (Still?)
• Also: Come on people — get over it and go metric! (This should be a no-brainer…)

currently playing: Busta Funk “Funkyllenium”

When you consider that an entire plate of broccoli contains the same number of calories as a small spoonful of peanut butter, you might think twice the next time you decide what to eat.

Why 200 calories? We could have chosen any amount of calories for this project, but we wanted something that gave tangible volumes for the entire range of items. We felt that 100 calories of butter or oil would have yielded diminutive portion sizes; on the other hand 500 calories of celery would have been virtually incomprehensible.

See the rest of the feast at wisegeek.com…

Anyone care to speculate?  How could television viewing have lasting effects on the brain?  What effects might those be?  Hmm…  Someone fund a follow-up study in a [tag]neuroscience[/tag], please.

SALON: What do you do with consciousness? I mean, do you really think the mind is totally reducible to neural networks and the electro-chemical surges in the brain? Or might there be something else that goes beyond the physical mechanics of the brain?

DAWKINS: Well, once again, let’s not use the word “reducible” in a negative way. The sheer number of neurons in the brain, and the complication of the connections between the neurons, is such that one doesn’t want to use the word “reducible” in any kind of negative way. Consciousness is the biggest puzzle facing biology, neurobiology, computational studies and evolutionary biology. It is a very, very big problem. I don’t know the answer. Nobody knows the answer. I think one day they probably will know the answer. But even if science doesn’t know the answer, I return to the question, what on earth makes you think that religion will? Just because science so far has failed to explain something, such as consciousness, to say it follows that the facile, pathetic explanations which religion has produced somehow by default must win the argument is really quite ridiculous. Nobody has an explanation for consciousness. That should be a spur to work harder and try to understand it. Not to give up and just say, “Oh well, it must be a soul.” That doesn’t mean anything. It doesn’t explain anything. You’ve said absolutely nothing when you’ve said that.

So (like my title says): I ♥ Richard Dawkins. Truly one of the great living minds in science. And apparently, philosophically spot on as well.

(That one is my favorite.)

So, to honor the month, F_D will be sporting the “Boobie-Thon” badge in the sidebar. For all the right reasons? Well (honestly) no. But for enough of the right reasons.

currently playing: John Digweed “GU: Hong Kong (mix 1)”