Politician Aptitude Test

Have things changed at all since the Revolution?
Should every gun lover be permitted to carry?
Do you believe in the theory of evolution?
Do you think gays have a right to marry?

Do you think more guns make this a safer place?
Does a 2-cell zygote have more soul than a cow?
Should colleges look at an applicant’s race?
Is the climate changing with effects right now?

Do you believe in public education
Or any assistance for struggling poor
Like access to healthcare and medication?
Should we drill for oil both on- and off-shore?

Can you quote the party line each time you pander,
And not have to fallback on insight or candor?

Over-Evolved

Evolution and Its Discontents

The general idea of natural selection, Darwin's explanation for how evolution happens, is pretty simple: organisms that can't survive in a given environment don't. Moreover, organisms that can't attract mates and reproduce won't propagate, so their genetic make-up will die out after a generation. (Of course, this leaves open the question of why there are still geeks in the human population.)

So from this, you can see that interfering with this natural selection process will affect evolution. If we help weak or unfit individuals survive and reproduce, we alter the outcomes. Yet we do this all the time. That's what health care is all about.

The Republican Party, on the other hand, is opposed to universal health care. They would rather see the 99% eliminated from the gene pool, so the human race can evolve into a species that can afford health insurance.

So the political party that doesn't believe in evolution is actually doing the most to support it.

Suggestions for Further Evolution

Those who believe in evolution understand it to be an on-going process. We have not reached the culmination. We are not the ultimate organisms we can ever hope to be. So on the assumption that evolution will continue to refine our species, I’d like to make some suggestions.

First, don’t have us breathe and eat through the same openings. No good can come of that. I realize the present design is very space efficient, like a toaster-oven, but seriously, what would be wrong with adding a second set of ducts? Of course, we’d have to make do without burping, but somehow, I think the species will survive.

Similarly, let’s have separate equipment for sex and for waste elimination. Enough said?

Additional arms and hands would definitely come in handy be useful. Maybe an extra pair of each. Then we could hold a cup of coffee and a cell phone while typing. Of course some genius would probably come up with a four-handed keyboard, but that should be optional. And think of the benefits for musicians, massage therapists (“Oh yeah, right there, there, there and there.”) and boxers. (“Ooo, he got him with a lower left uppercut followed by a top right cross!”)

Toes are useful only for wearing flip-flops or for getting stubbed. I’d gladly trade those in for webbed feet, especially during beach season.

Speaking of beach season, how about the ability to eat bacon cheeseburgers and donuts without putting on weight? This business of storing energy as fat is downright atavistic. For that matter, disease in general seems pretty useless, other than for thinning the herd. Does it make sense that we’ve evolved to be able to invent the KFC Double Down sandwich, but unable to eat it?

I think that’s about it. Oh, yeah … maybe we could be a little smarter and less violent. That wouldn’t hurt.

Our Story So Far

Between 13 and 14 billion years ago, the universe arose from the cosmic explosion commonly known as the Big Bang. Things carried on for a while, and about 10 billion years later, Earth was formed. Lots of volcanic eruptions and earthquakes occurred, to the accompaniment of Stravinsky's Rite of Spring.

Once things were cool, microscopic aquatic animals appeared and then evolved into bigger ones that could eat their former colleagues. These creatures evolved over millions of years into fish, reptiles, birds, dinosaurs, mammals and lawyers.

Actual humans have only been around for a couple of million years, a pitifully small amount of time in evolutionary terms.  Yet somehow the species has managed to become differentiated into various racial and ethnic strains, professions, religious affiliations and sexual proclivities.

In particular, this process has somehow produced both me and the idiot who cut me off on the Mass. Turnpike this morning.  

She Stoops To Concur

The latest theory in evolutionary biology is that we developed our tremendous reasoning ability not to solve great problems, or to unravel the mysteries of the universe. We reason in order to win arguments.

That's right! Genuine scientists actually believe that winning arguments helps the species survive. Obviously they've never been married. Any husband or wife knows that winning an argument is not going to lead to any reproductive activity.

In a paper called Why do humans reason?: Arguments for an argumentative theory, cognitive scientists Dan Sperber and Hugo Mercier claim that reasoning ability evolved primarily as a way to win arguments. Admittedly, both of these guys are French. In France, arguing, like everything else, may be an aphrodisiac. But since primitive humans were not French (except for the cave painters at Lascaux, the Pre-Impressionists), this theory is still questionable.

The argumentative theory goes on to say that winning arguments by reasoning helps when a group of people are trying to make a collective decision. Suppose you're a cave person, and you and a bunch of other cave people are trying to decide what to do for dinner. You want seafood, but some of the others want mammoth, and still others want roots and berries. So you all have a big argument, and you, by virtue of your superior reasoning skills, convince everyone to go for seafood. Sure, you might have impressed some of the opposite sex with your persuasive eloquence, but after a heated argument, you've probably made enemies of the mammoth eaters, not to mention the root and berry fans. And just wait till the check comes!

Of course, if we did indeed evolve to argue, that would explain a lot about our politics.

The Education Thing

There's always a lot of arguing and hand-wringing on the subject of education in this country.  Are American kids dumber than kids in other countries?  Do we spend too much on education?  Or not enough?  Should we test kids more or less?  Pay teachers more or less?  And so on.

We know kids have innate learning abilities.  Eight year olds can memorize the names of 500 Pokemon, along with their powers and weaknesses, evolution, etc.  Yet they don't know the names and dates of a few dozen presidents.  They can master all the Latin spells from the two thousand pages of Harry Potter books, but not the differences among "there", "they're" and "their" (and, in some cases, "Thayer")  They can gather reams of data about human reproduction, and yet learn nothing of biology.

So how do we get kids to learn?  Simple.  Forbid it!

That's right. Make the school day all recess, and you'll find kids sneaking books onto the playground.  Lock up all the textbooks, and smugglers and dealers will emerge.  Use parental filters to block public television, and kids will crack the code.  Run news stories about how multiplication leads to the harder stuff, and everyone will want to experiment (and inhale!)

This is undoubtedly the thinking behind such moves as the Kansas Board of Education's attempts to block the teaching of evolution.  Clearly Kansas was trying to encourage students to study evolution on their own, perhaps through extra-curricular experiments.

This is also the motivation for banning books.  What could increase a book's appeal more than making it taboo?  A quick glance at a list of banned books shows that they're almost all classics!

And what about the straight-arrows who always follow all the rules?  It may sound harsh, but there are some people you just can't reach.