The Northwest fills my lungs, heals the pain in my chest

"The Northwest fills my lungs, y'all
you know the rest"
-Blue Scholars

A song for Seattle.

why atheists (like me!) can go to chuch, too

"As tranquil streams that meet and merge 

and flow as one to seek the sea, 

our kindred fellowships unite to build 

a community that shall be free..."
-Marion Franklin Ham

 In the study of hominid evolution, some mystery surrounds the origins of modern humans.  Anatomically modern humans appear in the fossil record around 200,000 years ago.  Human "culture," or what we associate with modern human culture (art, beads, decorative tools etc.), doesn't appear in the fossil record until around 45,000 years ago (and a brief glimpse in Africa around 90,000 years ago).  So why the discrepancy?  Why the 150,000 year gap between modern-looking humans and modern-acting humans? 

In the past, scientists suggested that humans looked modern, but the brain hadn't evolved the wiring necessary for modern behavior.  Paleoanthropologists looked at fossil endocasts searching for clues about the evolution of our brain.  Their findings, however, didn't seem to explain this lag in behavior.  Recently, UCL geneticist, Mark Thomas, found a positive correlation between population density and innovation.  Population density, they found, does not just account for the acquisition of cultural innovation, but also the loss of cultural knowledge and technology.  Essentially, there is a threshold in density that must be passed in order to retain cultural knowledge.  For example, the fall of the Roman Empire and subsequent loss of technology is associated with a significant decrease in population density.  This important study suggests that the lag between modern human form and behavior may be explained with  population density.  When people are not exchanging information, we cannot create much.

Robin Dunbar, an evolutionary anthropologist, conducted a study of scientists.  He found that groups of scientists composed of individuals with diverse backgrounds had more intellectual breakthroughs than groups of scientists with similar backgrounds. 

The quote above is from a hymn that we sing at New-Unity (see our nice congregation photo on the right).  I like it because I think it says, in a more poetic way, what Dunbar and Thomas found: we get something from each other that we cannot get on our own.   In sharing and exchanging, in working with people different from ourselves, we are able be more effective innovators, we can be more creative, we can support each other and learn from each other.  At New-Unity, we are a diverse group of individuals who choose to spend Sunday mornings with each other not because of shared beliefs, but shared values.  We value searching, we value collaboration, and we value what we uniquely get from each other. 

And on an unrelated note...here is my current favorite song

love

"I want so badly to believe that 

there is truth and 

that love is real."

-Death Cab for Cutie

As I was laying in Regent's Park last Thursday with a friend, two women approached us with a video camera.  "Hi, we are making a film and were wondering if we could interview you.  We will just ask you one question and you just need to respond with whatever comes to your mind."

"Well, what are you asking?" 

They had already set up their camera, had it pointed down at our faces, faces propped up on our hands as we lay on our bellies in the grass.  "We will ask you: What is love?  You just need to answer with whatever comes to your mind."

As much as I wanted to help make their film, I felt on the spot and, honestly, a bit unqualified to tell anyone what I think love is.  "I think I'm going to pass," I said.

"What?"

"I don't want to be interviewed, I said."

"We can give you a few minutes if you need to think about your answer..."

"No really. I don't want to be interviewed." I told them as they stood, their finger on the record button ready to go.  As they awkwardly packed up their camera and my friend and I went back to cloud gazing, I thought...what is love?  Why don't I want to answer that question?

What is love?  "a strong positive emotion of regard and affection"  I guess.....but the evolutionary anthropologist in me wants to know where that comes from, what is its purpose.  What are the proximate and ultimate causes of the emotion we call love?  My honest thought is such: Love is an emotion that was selected for in our evolutionary past because it reinforced pair bonds that encourage the parental care necessary for maximizing reproductive fitness.....I told this to my friend.  He told me it was probably better I didn't do the interview.  I would have been a downer.

Is that so depressing though? Love having an ultimate evolutionary (fitness) cause doesn't mean it isn't that thing which makes life worth living. So love has a function, a reason for being, and in turn is our reason for being. For the first time...ever?  I am feeling a peace in my core, a peace brought on, I suspect, due to balance between my scientific mind and more whimsical leanings.  I think a scientific view of the world is often coupled with a cynicism of sorts about gooey things, like love for instance.  But I don't think understanding the reasonable origins of love (just to clarify, reasonable origin=evolution), devalues it in any way.  It is still what we are all looking for; it is still what we cherish when we are so lucky to feel it; it is still what motivates us to be better, to do good, to seek connection. 


It is too late now, but I guess if I have another shot, if anyone cares to ask again "What is love?"  I would answer this: love is the emotion that reinforces the pair bonds that encourage long term parental care necessary for raising a large quantity of high quality children, thus maximizing your reproductive fitness......and isn't it a beautiful thing?