Surprises

.

:(

Footprints

Got into a long, protracted, and productive discussion with a friend concerning Aurignacian Cave Art. I'm not use to this being the normal sort of divisive issue, but it was productive in that I had to isolate my core princples to uphold my argument, those being:

1. That the preserved archaeological record can tell us about past human behavior and,
2. Absence of evidence is not evidence of abscence and,
3. To make worthwhile statements we must base them on "facts", which I define as a piece of evidence everyone can agree on. In other words, I may disagree with a creationist on how the Elephant standing before us came to be, but we can both be reasonably sure that there is an elephant present standing before us, and that is the "fact". Everything else is either theory or belief.

So, concerning Aurignacian Cave Art, I stated that before Aurignacian Cave Art I couldn't say if humans produced or had the ability to produce art. She argued that they could, as all humans can produce art today, so they must have been able to yesterday, and that "primitive" cultures (wherever, whoever they are) are an indication of what people lived like 100,000 years ago.

So, in sum, I realize that the driving basis for extrapolationg past known data sets (in this case our data being intricate drawings on cave walls), are largely due to affections for what we want to be true. Hitler wanted the archaeological record to reveal Aryan dominance. Malcolm X wanted the archaeological record to show a large, complex Nubian civilization. Before 1950 people wanted Neandertals to be primitive and brutish. After 1960 people wanted Neandertals to be the same species. And now, people want our ancestors to be exactly like us.

Of course, all of the above is bunk. Evolution may alow phenotypic stasis through strong selection, but it hardly ever stops. On average, each human has 1.6 new mutations in their genome... (Alcock, Freeman, 2002). Think about it, that is pretty strong genetic change. Evolution is simply this genetic change over time. The presumption that humans from 100,000 years ago were the same as us is just as ridiculous that we are the same as our parents in traits and abilities. But, hell, let's use some big numbers.

At http://www.prb.org/Content/ContentGroups/PTarticle/0ct-Dec02/How_Many_People_Have_Ever_Lived_on_Earth_.htm, Some guy runs some calculations to show that, since 50,000 BC, roughly 106, 456, 367,669 people have lived and died. This is based on rough historical estimates compounded by estimated growth rates based on known data for hunder-foraging groups of people (and here's the kicker, he uses an Adam and Eve population of 2, so the real number would be much, much higher). So, 1.6 X 106, 456, 367, 669 = 170,330,188,270.4 new mutations And that's 50,000 years ago. In context of the aforementioned argument, which my opponent suposed that humans were the same 100,000 years ago in genotype and capabilities, we must factor that other half of population. The base formula is P * (1+r)^t (P = initial population, r = rate of growth, t = unit of time). Of course this doesn't factor for carrying capacity in any given environment (substantially different for the Yanamamo of the Amazon than for the !Kung Bushmen of Southern Africa). But if any of you out there are ambitions that equation is: dP(t)/dt = rP(t)[1 - P(t)/K(t)] (P = population, t = time, K = carrying capacity). This means that bad genes (a few thousand) would move out of the genome rapidly, and good genes (let's say a few hundred) would stay in the population, while neutral repeats (Most of the 170+ billion) would be passivly spread and thus subject to Kimura's Neutral theory. Of course, we must realise that the human genome has roughly 20 - 25,000 genes, so our capacity to carry genes is limited. There will be rapid spread of these genes.

Well, off to lunch, hope this inspires some thought. We are unique and special snowflakes!

Lascaux

Saw you draw the horse across the wall again
Arrows digging into pixel sides
If you kill it here will you kill it then
Or will it just be reindeer again?

Poetically all the way down to hell
Told her on a wall I’d be back again
If I killed it there I could kill it when
All of these horses come back again

And it’s thickening, trickling
Coming down the walls again
Dreamt of something else in a beautiful tone
And stamped that little flame in the dark.

Vive

It's amazing how much the twins have grown up. I only see them once a year, and each time I'm amazed by how much they've changed. They're ten now, and I can begin to guess their personalities. Gracey will end up living through computers and technology (though there is a slight chance she may end up a jock due to her athletic abilities), Aubrey will enter high school as a goth chick, obsessed with music and appearing un-obsessed with anything. We hiked across Red Rocks today, which was frighteningly green. As Wyoming is in a drought, Las Vegas is getting unusual amounts of moisture. It even snowed this year here.

Yesterday we went through the strip. The decadence and opulence was wonderful. It's nice seeing a place with an economy. I hold my breath at the thought of returning to Wyoming tomorrow, I completely dread it. I'll apply for some geo-jobs here, but I'm equally afraid of getting them as I am afraid of being rejected. It's so late in the year, I feel that any change of plan will come as a sign of betrayal to the Dinosaur Center. Part of me wants that, but my loyalty the museum curator keeps me from fully entertaining thoughts of a summer away. I'm convinced that the dichotomy here is not Love and Hate, it is Love and Happiness. I love the Dinosaur Center, but I have been miserable for a long time, fighting to keep my research going, fighting to keep the Allosaurus excavation from continuing. But with this Navy Seal trained, I could hand over excavations to him, and that would go unhindered. Frances would be working there too, I would have brought in two to replace me. But still, I just feel dread.

It's been an odd sort of paradise. My aunt and uncle are quite financially secure, and have spend quite a lavish bit of money on me these past two days. I've eaten three meals a day, I haven't eaten so much in years. I go to bet with a full stomach, and sleep like a rock. I had insomnia before coming out here, now sleep comes wonderfully and blissfully. I wake up in the morning, and there is no sick feeling in my stomach, no daydreams of shooting myself, it's just peace. And it doesn't feel wrong, I've been able to distance myself from the hell that's been eating at me. If I could work here, I just tingle while thinking about it. I could be happy. I can stress this enough, before this trip to Las Vegas I would lay on the floor for half an hour each morning, thinking about killing myself. Not in the "I need help" sort of way, but just vivid images of me shooting myself that I couldn't control. It would creep into my head at night before I went to bed, would be my companion in the morning. But it's not here, it's a memory here. I'm sure it will return when I'm in Laramie tomorrow, but it is absent here.

Oh, and one last thing. It is awesome to completely suprise people. My two little cousins had no idea I was comming here, and threw a fit when they returned from school and saw me sitting talking to there mother. Just absoulute serendipidous joy. I got to do it again yesterday, a friend of mine from Laramie was here for a conference (she had some of her photographs published), and happens to walk all the time. She was walking in downtown Las Vegas, and the car I was riding in just happened to pull up next to her do to a random stoplight. Think of the infitesimally small chances of meeting up with this friend, from Wyoming, in a city thousands of miles away do to pure chance. I had to call out her name. When she saw me (having no idea I was in Vegas), she flipped out. People really don't know how to handle such things. There is no reaction to it expressed in the media. It does wonders for your sense of cunning.

Hah, see? I don't sound pessimistic or depressed. Part of me wants it to stay that way. The rest of me lives in the real world, which is most certainly not a full stomach and Las Vegas. But one can dream.

A funny thing happens when i get two stressed, I stop eating. Haven't been hungry in over a month. So, to overcome that obstacle, I did push ups, sit ups, ran three miles, and managed to build up a ravenous appetite. Couldn't afford much, but my two dollar meal filled me more than any in recent memory.

Life is full of little victories.