There are two realities. There’s the way things are, and then there is the way we would like them to be. We are all the star in our own show of life, but it is sobering to reflect that we have small supporting roles in all the lives around us. We would like to be the center of the universe, so we made a whole mythology to support this. God made man in His image, put the earth at the center of the universe and gave us the animals to name, making us godlike. For centuries science has been removing one bastion of specialness after another – not without resistance. First the earth wasn’t the center of the universe, then the sun wasn’t the center, then there wasn’t any center at all. At least we were still God’s special creatures.

Then along came Darwin. At least we were still way different from the other creatures – still special, and a whole cottage industry sprang up to catalogue our specialness. We’re the only one with opposable thumbs, we play, we use tools, and we have language. We are intelligent and they are not. We have subways and they don’t. There were problems with this line of reasoning. We kept finding exceptions to the rules, then like falling back in a war we would redefine the rules only to find more exceptions. Then along came Jane Goodall.

There seems to be an insecurity that if animals are raised up we are diminished in some way. I disagree. I think we are diminished if we hold to a false reality. Intelligence for me needs two ingredients:

1) Curiosity  

2) Sense of humor   

A lot of people are not intelligent by those measures.

Jane Goodall was the first one to study animals on their own turf and their own terms. She observed them using tools, like twigs to get out ants. Any animal that can use a tool is thinking in the abstract. Even crocodiles do it. They will take a twig and submerge leaving the twig above the water. A bird tries to grab the twig for a nest and the crocodile grabs the bird. They only do this during nesting season, knowing that it is a waste of time otherwise. They are inverted fishermen. Crocodiles will observe the bird’s behavior and plan accordingly.

One day a young chimpanzee was not feeling well and was trailing behind the tribe. It was teething. The mother went to a willow tree and pulled the bark off, giving it to the baby. Salicylic acid, the active ingredient in aspirin, comes from the willow. Chimpanzees know pharmacology.  This is not an isolated example. Scientists have observed primates using many kinds of herbal compounds including antibiotics and intoxicants. They also know how to use them. Some leaves are chewed, some not, some are picked at specific times. They also have cultures. Different groups know about different kinds of drugs and tools. This information is probably handed down.

These examples of animal intelligence are explored in Intelligence in Nature, a surprising and thought provoking book by Jeremy Narby. For example, you’ll never think of the term “birdbrain” the same way again. Birds such as crows display what psychologists call, “Theory of Mind” where a bird can get into another bird’s head and figure out (in the case of crows) how to deceive it. Crows are all great thieves. Crow A has a nut. He hides it while Crow B is watching then moves away from it, ignoring it until crow B goes away. Then he moves the nut to a different hiding place. In another example there are birds on the ground feeding, therefore vulnerable. They post a few sentinel birds on branches to watch for predators. If a predator comes the sentinels make a particular call and all the birds take off. But other birds can learn that call too. They make the call and clear all the other birds off to feed unmolested. A typical grey parrot from a pet shop was taught a vocabulary of over 1000 words. He knew what the words meant. He could pick out objects and colors by name, and distinguish the numbers one to six. When he had had enough work in the lab he would say “No,” and turn his back on the researcher. If you’re not looking for something you won’ find it. People assume parrots are just “parroting,” missing a chance at a much deeper relationship. It makes one wonder about parrots that tell dirty jokes. “Did you hear the one about the primate taking a selfie?”

Lest you think there is no intelligence in plants, the acanthus tree is a favorite food of giraffes. When giraffes start to feed it secretes toxins into its leaves to stop them. It also releases pheromones into the air which warn all the other acanthus trees that the giraffes are at it again. The trees that get the message pump toxins into their leaves proactively. The giraffes display their intelligence by going to new trees that are upwind of the original tree and therefore uninformed of the danger.

One of the most intriguing and disquieting examples of plant intelligence is of a parasitic plant called dodder that can walk – sort of. The parasite smells its way to vegetation that is wants to prey on, sending shoots in that direction. It will wrap a feeler around its victim, gauge the plant’s health, and only wrap its other tendrils around the victim if it is healthy enough to make it worthwhile. If the plant is sickly, dodder moves on, letting older parts of itself die off.

Plants don’t have brains, they just act that way. How can that be?  Since we think with our brains, it is hard for us to imagine other structures that would do this, but in other life forms we see learning, teaching, language, planning, deception, intent, culture, grieving, cooperative hunting, and play.

Play is a great example of intelligence. It is an activity that has more to do with delight then survival. Dolphins don’t have hands but they make do by grabbing fronds of seaweed on their fins and swimming past other dolphins who try to intercept them, like football. As you might expect, killer whales have a blood sport. They will take some penguin that they have already injured and toss it back and forth over the water, playing catch. Sea lions do the same thing with the hapless sunfish. Some people read a purpose into this like increasing hunting skills, but the more obvious reason is that the exercise of power is enjoyable, just ask a cat with a mouse – or a schoolyard bully.

Whales may also have language, we just don’t know what they are saying. Each whale has songs unique to that creature, and they like to spread their song around. The ocean is like a layer cake, with different depths having different temperature and densities. Sound made in one layer tends to be trapped there so the sound travels horizontally in that layer for hundreds, maybe thousands of miles. It’s like a party line for whales. When they feel like talking, they dive down to a deep layer of the ocean and sing to each other. Whales may also have names. Pods of killer whales have call signs unique to that pod, and they add a call sign unique to that whale, like a first name and last name. Killer whales in captivity imitate the language of the lesser dolphins. Are they trying to communicate with them? Humpbacks do. The gregarious humpback whale has been observed approaching whales of other species and imitating their song. Humpbacks have also been observed working together to protect themselves and even other species from killer whales.

As I began researching animal and plant intelligence I found myself gorging on the huge selection of scientific papers on this extensive and rapidly expanding topic. The examples seem to be as common as life itself. If you like to stretch your mind to encompass a greater, richer world, find a hammock and plunge into Intelligence in Nature. Maybe your dog will even read it to you.

The body likes fat. It likes to be fat. It rewards you for doing things that make you fat, like sleeping and eating. The body likes muscle and bone, but to a much lesser degree. Why? Fat serves as a calorie reserve for hard times, which were a lot of times when we were evolving. Fat gets you through famine. Fat is also easy to maintain. You don’t need a lot of extra calories to support those tissues. They are metabolically cheap. Fat is like an extra gas tank that doesn’t take too much energy to haul around. Muscle and bone are a calorie drain. They are expensive tissues to maintain, sucking up calories even when you are sleeping. This is one of the reasons people with a lot of muscle find it easier to keep the weight off. They draw more calories even while asleep. The body’s survival strategy has always been to trim down muscle and bone to only what you need on a day to day basis. If you don’t prove to the body that you need them, they get reduced because they cost too much in calories to maintain. Muscle does not turn into fat, but muscle can thin out, and fat can fat in.

When a person exercises they expend energy in the form of calories but they also put a strain on the muscle and bone. Body tissues are piezoelectric. That means when you put a strain on body tissues they generate an electric field. This electric field signals the cells to build more muscle and bone. As you exercise you build muscle and strengthen bone internally. If you stop, there is no more electric field and the cells stop putting on muscle and bone. Muscle and bone eventually reduce to whatever you need to get through the day. You have to exercise twice a week to maintain what you have, more if you want to build up. Muscle and bone don’t fade away to nothing because we are still exercising somewhat by dragging our bodies across the surface of the planet. Where there is gravity there is resistance. The body reinforces itself to resist strain exerted on it. The more the strain, the more the reinforcement. This x ray of the foot reveals the internal structure of the bones.

If bones were solid bone they would be stronger – and three times heavier. That’s a lot to drag around. Instead the bones are mostly hollow with fine filaments inside to reinforce them. The filaments are aligned in the best way to resist stress on the bone. Note that most of the filaments in the calcaneous (heel bone) are running parallel from the heel to the ankle, matching the lines of force on the foot when the heel strikes the ground. Even as you read this there are groups of bone cells eating away unnecessary filaments and other groups building new filaments to resist stress more efficiently. The whole skeleton is replaced every two years or so. Its unchanging appearance is but an illusion.

The astronauts don’t have this resistance and their bodies suffer for it.  Their muscles and bones start to weaken after about three days. Who needs bones in space? Despite exercising a lot most of them end up with severe osteoporosis. When they come back to earth they often have to be carried off the space capsule on a gurney. Back on earth their bodies recover, but not completely. Going to Mars sounds like fun, but unless somebody comes up with artificial gravity like the Starship Enterprise,

we aren’t going anywhere. In the year or more in space it would take to get to Mars an astronaut would turn to jello. NASA has all sorts of strategies for this problem. They have resistance equipment on the space station but it’s not enough.  Nothing beats dealing with gravity 24/7. (Those strap on electric stim machines they sell in the TV guide so you can “exercise” in the Barcalounger while eating nachos don’t work either.)

The body likes exercise somewhat. Muscle and bone is good for some things; you could run out to the candy store for example (or away from a predator). The body rewards us for exercise with endorphins and serotonin, more feel good neurotransmitters, but you have to get going. Like most people, I never want to exercise, but I know that about five minutes into it my blood is up and then it’s good, or at least ok. I always feel better afterwards. You do have to get over that initial hump though. It also takes a certain amount of discipline. Like a diet, you need to make it an integral part of your routine.  Diet and exercise are lifelong. That being the case, try to find something that you like. I like nature so for me it’s swimming, biking, hiking, and skating. Some people like dancing, some are attracted to martial arts.

If you are social, take classes or find a workout partner. Keep trying different things until you find what works for you. It doesn’t have to be huge. A twenty minute walk at a good pace three times a week does wonders. Even a little exercise, if done on a regular basis will have real effects.

The piezoelectric effect mentioned earlier is found in many materials including collagen, a major structural protein of the body. The Body Electric, by Dr. Robert Becker and Gary Selden is an excellent book for all the wonderful things electricity does in your body.

Why is it so easy to eat and so hard to work out? People invariably need no coaxing to eat. They look forward to it, consume mass quantities with gusto, and even look back on the meal with a certain fondness. One out of five people force themselves to exercise, and the other four out of five people don’t work out at all except in front of the fridge. It’s open and bend and reach and up and close and open and bend and reach and up and close, repeat. There are whole professions dedicated to help people work out. Not so with eating. You don’t find eatotonics classes where we all get together around a big table with a horribly enthusiastic cheerleader egging us on. Hard to imagine a personal eating trainer at dinner. ”O.K. O.K. That was good. Lift that fork again! C’mon! You can do it! Three more reps and we’re done.”

There are exceptions. Some people don’t eat enough and some people do work out too much, but the overwhelming tide of humanity goes the other way. When given the chance of working out or watching other people work out (sports on TV), most people will do the latter, and eat while they are doing it. Since everybody knows you are supposed to exercise and not overeat, why does the average person do just the opposite?

We are the victims of our own success. In the beginning, when the world was young it was also hungry. Humankind grew up in the East African rift valley over the last million years or so. Estimates are, to get enough food those early hunter gatherer societies would walk six or seven miles a day.

You didn’t need a coach, you had a built-in coach called hunger. Hunger is an excellent coach. Exercise was provided by the lifestyle and nobody liked it then either, so we invented ways to avoid it ultimately inventing the car. We have gotten so good at it that by now you have to schedule exercise.

People in cities that were built up after the invention of the car (cities like LA, Dallas, Phoenix) get no exercise unless they seek it out, and the general population is not in good shape. You can’t even walk around because cars require big roads and big parking lots so everything is spread out.  LA has sidewalks, but I don’t know why. My first time out there I went for a walk.  I was the only pedestrian for miles. Eventually a police cruiser started to follow me, I suppose because I was involved in the suspicious act of walking. Without a car, you can’t exist in these places. People in cities that were built up before the invention of the car (Chicago, San Francisco, and all the big eastern cities) get more exercise and the populations fare a bit better. Without cars, the cities are more dense and you can walk from place to place. Many people don’t have cars. The cities solved the problem of getting around with subways and busses, which you still have to get to. Most New Yorkers climb many flights of stairs every day just to get to work. Even so, they are hardly clocking seven miles.

Since we used to walk all over, why no urge to do it now? Simple, then as now, the internal urge was to conserve energy. Food was hard to come by and what you could depend on was sometimes it would be really hard to come by – famine. Famine was always around, and for much of the world it still is. The survival strategy then would be to get as many calories as you can whenever you can and expending as few calories as possible to do so. The ultimate expression of this universal desire is driving to the Olive Garden.

If they could figure out a conveyor belt to take you from your car to a booth they would do it. There are drive through deli’s in California where attendants put anything in your car you like. Not only do we want to eat as much as possible, we want to eat as much food with as many calories as possible. Carbohydrates (sugar, high fructose corn syrup, bread, cereal, crackers, cake, pasta, potatoes) are a great source of calories and fats (butter, cheese, oil) are even better. Too improve a carb, just add fat. Bread is improved with butter. Bread is really improved by deep frying it and rolling it in granulated sugar – churros! Pasta is improved with a cream sauce. Potatoes are improved with sour cream and butter (even better, deep fry the potatoes in oil to make fries and smother them in melted cheese!) Heck, you can even fix vegetables with fat. Salad dressings (ranch, blue cheese, creamy Italian) are more than half fat. What does asparagus need? Hollandaise sauce which is fat squared! What can we do for this broccoli? I know, lets pour some melted cheese on it. Hungry yet?

This particular desire for fats is driven by a neurotransmitter called cholecystokinin, a mouthful of a word that causes you to eat many more mouthfuls. Cholecystokinin is THE BEAST WITHIN YOU.

Plants generally don’t have fats. Animals have fats, and they want keep them. If you want a fat now you need do no more than walk into a convenience store. If you wanted a fat in the old days it would be attached to some animal who was running away from you. You’d have to sharpen a stick, make a strategy, walk even more miles then try to kill it and if it was big it just might kill you. What a pain. You can almost see Thag looking out of his cave on a winter morning at some wooly mammoth who is looking right back at him as if to say, “Just try it.” Thag turns to Mrs. Thag and says, “Can we just have pasta tonight?”

We used to need a strong incentive to hunt down those fats. Cholecystokinin is a neurotransmitter that can control your mood. The stomach releases it when you eat food with fats and that makes you feel good. Everybody has their own comfort food, and every one of those foods is laced with fat. Nobody looks at rice cakes as a comfort food. Wrap them in bacon and you are getting closer.

Not only do we have a sweet tooth, we have a fat tooth. We still have the cave man drives that we used to need to get calories, and especially fat calories, but now we can get them easily, and we do. We’ll take things that already have plenty of fat and add more fat to it. “I’ll have the double bacon cheeseburger with fries. Supersize me.” Dominos sold a lot more pizza when they doubled the cheese on it. Now they even have cheese inside the perimeter crust.

Our sweet tooth is sharpened by the bacteria in our gut. If we eat a lot of carbs, the bacteria in our gut that breaks down carbs is getting more nutrition, so it is fruitful and multiplies. Since more is better it will secrete its own hormones and neurotransmitters that make you crave even more carbs, thereby ensuring its own food supply. It’s not so much that you think with your gut as your gut often thinks for you.

If you are having a hard time accepting the idea that gut bacteria – the micribiome – are influencing your behavior this sort of thing goes on all the time. We have a dynamic and shifting relationship with the civilizations we carry within us. Various species within the intestinal biota can be “good guys” one day and “bad guys” the next, so such labels are not so useful. Think of it more like the UN. Everybody has their own agenda and sometimes these agendas coincide and sometimes they do not. If you are curious about this topic, I recommend I Contain Multitudes by Ed Yong, a fascinating walk through the various relationships within ourselves.

The body is well designed for the hardscrabble existence it evolved in. It is not good for the land of milk and honey. When you go “on a diet” you are going against the grain. One thing is certain. All extreme diets fail. Unless you want to suffer and gain weight don’t go there. They all advertise about how much weight people lose but everybody on them gains it back within a year. A workable diet is what you do eat, not what you don’t eat, and cutting out your favorite stuff will only make you want it more. Also, your body interprets extreme rationing as famine and decreases its calorie use which makes you tired and crabby. So eat what you want, just not as much as you want to. (That said, junk food is not a good idea.) Decreasing eating by a little bit is way more effective because it has to be something you can sustain forever. If you link that with moderate exercise the weight will come off. Exercise is at least as important as diet, probably more so. This is easier said than done. Behavior modification seems to be about the hardest thing in the world. Ask anyone who smokes.

My next post will address why we don’t have an exercise tooth to go with the sweet tooth and the fat tooth.

John Adams once wrote, “You’ll never be alone with a poet in your pocket.” Poetry requires a certain amount of attention that many people aren’t willing to invest. You have to slow down and read every word; feel the rhythm in your mind. The investment bears a rich return. Poetry is to the imagination like water is to life. William Blake is one of my favorites. My blog byline, “To find a world in a grain of sand” is from his poem “Auguries of Innocence” which begins:

To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour

If you never “got” poetry in school, take one more look. William Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience are very beautiful, very accessible, and very short.  Blake was a poet and a painter and an engraver. Like many artists he was never very successful, struggled his whole life. It didn’t matter. The loving care that went into all of his work is simply captivating. For his “Illuminated books” he painted and engraved his verse. If you just read the poetry, you are missing too much.  These reproductions are just the way he originally created them. For clarity, the plates are accompanied by the verse typed out. It’s a treasure. But don’t take my word for it.  Read it yourself.  On my daughter’s second day on the planet I read “Infant Joy” to her from “Songs of Innocence”:

“I have no name:
I am but two days old.”
What shall I call thee?
“I happy am,
Joy is my name.”
Sweet joy befall thee!
Pretty joy!
Sweet joy, but two days old.
Sweet joy I call thee:
Thou dost smile,
I sing the while,
Sweet joy befall thee.

For a walk on the wild side, from Songs of Experience there is “The Tyger”:

Tyger Tyger burning bright,
In the forest of the night;
What immortal hand or eye,
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies.
Burned the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare seize the fire?

And what shoulder & what art,
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when that heart began to beat,
What dread hand? & what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain,
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp,
Dare its deadly terrors clasp!

When the stars threw down their spears
And water’d heaven with their tears:
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

Tyger Tyger burning bright,
In the forest of the night:
What immortal hand or eye,
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

If you don’t want more after that, poetry is not for you. There are hundreds of editions of Blake’s work out there. Some include the illustrations, some do not. If you want to dive deeper into Blake, go to a bookstore or the library. The artwork in the various editions really needs personal examination that internet browsing does not allow. Usually you can only see the first few pages on the internet, and the delicate coloring may not come through on a screen.

All children are natural scientists and artists.  They want to explore.  They find out why things are the way they are, why things work the way they do.  Every child goes through this why stage.  I remember a glass of water cutting the sunlight into a rainbow across the kitchen table.  I stared at it.  My father explained to me that the light we see contains all those colors, but they get hidden when they blend.  I looked out into the garden with a sense of wonder, realizing that there was a whole hidden dimension out there, and now I knew about it.  It is this sense of awe in penetrating nature’s mysteries that is explored in “The Age of Wonder” by Richard Holmes.

He follows a two-hundred-year thread of reasoning, hard work and discovery that led us out of a thousand years darkness and superstition and into the amazing and terrifying world we see today. It was a fun time to study science.  We were still dealing with basics, and the basics were accessible to a curious person who worked really hard. Physicians, clergymen, naturalists and artists could unlock a deeper nature then the one we see before us.  A diligent scholar could master all the scientific fields together if he so desired. Scientists and artists are very much the same.  They are both careful observers of the world around them.  They think for themselves.  The scientist will try to figure out how the world works, and the artist will reflect that world into some new reality that will be beautiful or useful or interesting or if you are lucky, all three.  The musician /scientist who changed our view of the entire universe was William Hershel who moved to England from Germany in 1766, followed by his sister Caroline a few years later.

England was the happening place back then and if you wanted to make something of yourself, that’s where you went.  One of the things that astounds is how hard they both worked. Caroline rose at six, did “household accounts, shopping, laundry, three-hourly singing lessons, instruction in English and arithmetic, music copying, formal practice on the harpsichord, and reading out loud from English novels. By ‘way of relaxation’ she and William talked of nothing but Astronomy.” She became a successful singer, appearing as a principle solo singer in Handel’s Messiah.  He made a living composing music, putting on musical performances and tutoring musicians.  In his spare time (hard to believe they had any) he was an amateur astronomer.  Amateur has the same root as amorous, you do it because you love it.  That childlike curiosity never went away for William Hershel.  Astronomy is limited to how much you can see, and that is limited to the size of your telescope.  Owls have such big eyes because they have the same problem as astronomers, they need to see in the dark.  The telescopes of the time were limited to the size of a reflecting mirror that you could grind, about four inches.  Hershel wanted bigger eyes so with Caroline’s help he started grinding his own mirrors.   It was arduous, dangerous work, done in the cellar. Polishing the mirrors could not be stopped once begun or the mirror would be ruined. During one marathon session, he went for sixteen hours straight with Caroline feeding him as he worked.  They persevered and were rewarded. With his new telescope, he could see father out into the heavens than anyone else. He reported his findings to the Royal Society and they didn’t believe that an amateur could do that much.  But the President of the society, Sir Joseph Banks, paid him a visit just to be sure.

Sir Joseph Banks was also consumed by curiosity. He was born rich and could have lived a life of ease. Instead he wrangled a position on HM Bark Endeavor bound for Tahiti under the command of Captain Cook.  This was a wildly dangerous thing to do. A lot of those ships never came back.  The Endeavor lost half her crew, mostly to disease. While Cook surveyed Tahiti, Banks did the first field anthropology ever, studying the indigenous peoples, all before the age of 30.

This was the man who rode out to see Hershel, only to find him out on the street in front of his house with the telescope.  Banks knew enough about telescopes to be amazed when he looked through Hershel’s. The two men talked about the stars all night. At this point the story takes on an almost fairy tale quality.  Since Britain was a naval power, celestial navigation was of the greatest importance.  Whole fleets with thousands of men had been lost over the years due to navigational errors.  Better telescopes meant better star charts meant better navigation.  Sir Joseph went to King George and basically told him they had to find a way to keep Hershel in England.  George pulled a new job out of the air – Royal Telescope Maker.  Now Hershel didn’t have to struggle along, tutoring music students.  From then on, he poured his prodigious energy into making bigger and bigger telescopes until he made one forty feet long.

It was so big, aiming it was a problem.  Better to leave it and let the earth’s motion point it at a slice of the sky.  Every day it would point to a slightly different slice.  But how to keep it all straight?  He took the latitude and longitude of the earth and projected it into the sky.  This declination and right ascension is the same system we use today.  He couldn’t watch through the telescope and write down the observations and coordinates at the same time.  You need light to write and light will weaken your night vision.  Caroline to the rescue.

Caroline was a first-class mathematician.  Caroline and William formed the first astronomical team in history, with him making the observations and her writing it all down and figuring out the exact location, which turned out to be critical. They mapped the sky, night after night, month after month, year after year until they had compiled a star atlas of unprecedented accuracy.  Over the march of years, they discovered that positions of the stars were off by just a little bit from their original survey. They never would have noticed except for the care of the first set of observations.  Not only had the stars moved, they moved in different directions and at different speeds.  Hershel started to refer to the stars having “proper motion.”  The apparent motion is slight because of the truly astronomical distances involved.

It didn’t matter.  They weren’t supposed to be moving at all.  For all of time people thought of the fixed stars as something eternal, because in the short span of our lives no one would notice.  If you could live a few million years, all the constellations would fall out of joint, and new ones would appear.  Hershel wrote to the Royal Society (who were believing him now) that since the stars moved, it implied that the universe wasn’t constant, it was changing.  That implies a beginning.  That implies an end.

As William’s official assistant, Caroline was the first woman in England to have a salaried, government job. Among her discoveries were a companion galaxy to Andromeda and at least eight comets. After William died she continued their work, compiling a catalog of two and a half thousand nebulae and star clusters. This eventually grew into the New General Catalog. In 1828 she was awarded the Royal Astronomical Society’s Gold Medal for her work.

While the Hershel’s were looking up, others were looking down.

This is one of the first aerial maps. Through the clouds, you see a winding river (in red) and a village on the lower left. The adventurous and extremely dangerous first flights were under way. Everywhere in science, new inventions were allowing us to see further, better and with new perspectives. Even so, our imagination went further. Mary Shelley invented the science fiction and the Gothic horror genres at the same time with her masterpiece, “Frankenstein.” With preternatural prescience, she foresaw the dark side of man’s ambition and resourcefulness, creating things that he cannot control and all the destruction that follows. Would that she had been wrong.

These stories, and many more, fill the pages of “The Age of Wonder. ” Compliment it with “Fossils”, or maybe just lie down and look up at the changing universe.

In broadening our understanding of reality, science will often show us things that we don’t like.  Many people found the idea of a steady, eternal, unchanging universe to be comforting.  After all, to us that is what is seems to be with our limited perspective.  So, there was resistance to the idea that the universe is changing just like there was resistance to the earth being round.  Now there is resistance to evolution and global warming.  People don’t like change, and they don’t like to change their minds. It would be helpful if we could reconnect with a little humor about it instead of hurling invective.  There are over three hundred thousand species of beetles on earth.  It is a very successful design. In response to theological question, “What has your study of creation told you about the Creator?”, the biologist J.B.S. Haldane responded, “The Creator, if He exists, has an inordinate fondness for beetles.”

“Parochiality and narrowmindedness are, alas, as much a part of normal human response as generosity and expansiveness. People wall themselves within the comforts of their own profession and hurl derisive formulae at folk in other fields. Academicians brand athletes as dull lumps of brawn, succeeding only by lucky gifts of inherited muscle; athletes, in turn, dismiss academicians as effete and inept in all but their artificial world. In fact, excellence is both precious and similar in mental construction across all fields. True, both gifts of birth and a little luck never hurt, but the only common denominator is obsessive focus, mental discipline, hard work.”

So Stephen Jay Gould opens the elegant introduction to “Fossils”, by Niles Eldredge, photography by Murray Alcosser. Since science involves a close examination of nature, it helps if the nature attracts the eye.  This is the most beautiful collection of photographed fossils that I have ever seen.  Virtually every page is a stunner. But this is far more than a gorgeous coffee table book.  It is also an exposition of the evolutionary theory of punctuated equilibrium.

Charles Darwin visualized evolutionary change as a stately, gradual process whereby variation of offspring would occasionally confer an advantage over other creatures. These new and improved creatures would be fruitful and multiply, edging out their neighbors. Variation is obvious. We see it in our children, otherwise they would be exactly like us. Most variation is of no advantage so the offspring will be no more likely to succeed than any other so you get the status quo.  Useful variations will guide evolution. That’s how a fish eventually becomes a racehorse.  Q.E.D.

Not quite. Evolution turns out to be as lazy as we are. Things don’t evolve unless they must. The humble horseshoe crab hasn’t seen the need to evolve much for three hundred million years.  That’s a long time hanging out at the beach.  They go back before the dinosaurs, and they are still here.

Bacteria on the other hand are evolving so fast that we may be in trouble. Why the difference? If the environment changes creatures must adapt or go extinct. We are driving the adaptation of bacteria by creating a hostile environment.

Stephen Jay Gould and Niles Eldredge pointed out that the fossil record shows periods of stability in whole ecosystems that can run for many millions of years, punctuated by periods of great change where many lines go extinct and others change quickly, say in one hundred thousand years.  It is often the dominant species, comfortably settled in the center of their ecosystems that die out when change comes. They are so well adapted to one environment that when it changes abruptly, they can’t make it. It is the life forms living a hardscrabble existence on the edges of an ecosystem that are more nimble and can adapt faster that survive. The dinosaurs are a large example. They dominated the earth for several hundred million years and were mostly wiped out by a planetary cataclysm. A comet crashed into the Yucatan peninsula plunging the earth into darkness and freezing temperatures that would have lasted for years. Eighty percent of the species around perished. Mammals that up to then were no more impressive then rats filled the void. Were it not for that comet, the dinosaurs would most likely still be around and we never would have gotten our moment in the sun. Mammals are dominant – for now.

“Fossils” is one of those great works that both educates and delights. Trilobites almost jump out of the pages at you. Compliment it with “The Age of Wonder.” 

The only thing it is missing is galaxies. My opening picture in this essay compares a shell to a spiral galaxy. That is not in the book. I included it here because the Golden Ratio that governs the curvature of shells also governs the curvature of spiral galaxies like the Milky Way. When nature finds a solution that serves, she uses it over and over again. Scale is not a limitation.

It’s not as glamorous as Duke Ellington would lead you to believe.  I’m writing this while stuck on the A train.  I get a lot of my writing done here.  One of the only advantages of travelling on the MTA is you can tell amazing, horrible stories of trying to get home tantamount to the Odyssey – monsters included – and other New Yorkers will believe you.  But I suppose things could be worse.  I could work for the MTA, passing out the pitchforks.  You put over two million people – no, not people, New Yorkers – on a system and there are going to be surprises, many of them unpleasant.  And there you are wearing the uniform.  Over the years the conductors have used their microphone for:

1) Philosophy: “Get on or get off. It’s that simple.”

2) Advice: “If you don’t stop holding that door, you and everybody else on this train are gonna be late for work and they are gonna be mad – at you.  Now I’m fine with it.  I’m already at work.”

3) Physics lecture: “Take your foot out of the door. You weigh 150 lbs.  The train weighs 400 tons.  You will move.”

4) Mathematics instruction: “As of this morning you are all paying twenty percent more for your commute.  You should all give yourselves twenty percent more space.  There is a train right behind us.”

5) An appeal for the brotherhood of man, “Ladies and gentleman, when something goes wrong with the railroad, don’t get all in the conductor’s face.  I didn’t do it!”

6) More philosophy on the morning commute, “Ladies and Gentleman, sometimes it just doesn’t pay to get up in the morning. There is a woman gone into labor and we are not moving for some time.”

Hard to believe, but it used to be much worse.  It is those halcyon days when there were two hundred and forty violent crimes a week that photographer Willy Spiller records in all its grittiness in “Hell on Wheels.” , sadly out of print. It was a time that the MTA suffered from years of neglect and seemed to be on its last wheels.  Sounds familiar?  The city itself was falling apart.  The blackout, looting and rioting of forty years ago laid waste to great swaths of the city.  There were no man’s lands of burned out buildings and wreckage that ran for blocks and blocks.  But the city, and the subway, rumbled on.  Finding a car with air conditioning was so rare many, like me, chose to ride in between the cars where there was at least a breeze – the breeze of a dragon with halitosis.  The cars were so crowded sometimes the only way to get on and off was in between the cars.

Then then there was the graffiti. It was everywhere; covering the windows, the subway maps, the lights. I am aware of the popular mystique of graffiti as an art form, and I admit that some of the pieces were quite impressive,

but most were not,

and they did lend an air of lawlessness to the whole system.

The guns, knives, drugs, broken glass, and racial tension provided the actual lawlessness.

Then along came Koch, and rule of law was eventually restored.

Now we just have crappy service.

Far Rock A train approaching Broad Channel Island.

While you are stuck on the train it is hard to appreciate how much better for the planet your mode of commute is then driving.  The subway car I am on will one day become part of a reef.

Nonetheless this endless adventure is tiresome.  I have been stuck in the system on this hot steamy night, on one lost train after another for over two hours.  My essay is done and here I sit.

I’m not sure which is worse, a short attention span or a short memory span. The mindset we have so flavors our perceptions that two people looking at the same reality will have vastly different experiences of it.  I often awaken in the middle of the night and can’t get back to sleep.  According to present psychological theory, this is a classic sign of depression, and maybe it is.  But what if it is perfectly natural for people?  Maybe the all night sleepers are the crazy ones.  Many great artists and scientists, perhaps those with restless minds, from Benjamin Franklin to Leonardo Da Vinci to Dolly Parton, do some of their best work in the still of the night.

There is an historical record stretching back centuries indicating that night used to be so long, sleep was divided into two halves, first sleep, and second sleep, separated by an active time called “dead of night”.   The night was not really longer, but our flavor of it has dwindled away.  When I was a kid, playing hide and seek on summer nights the dark was much darker.  You could completely disappear into the shadows.  It was great.  Then the city installed more powerful streetlights and New York became “The city that never sleeps.”

Broadway, the great white way, is so named because it was the first street lit up by Thomas Edison in 1880, considered a wonder of its time.

But what was life like before that?  This is the subject of of the perspective shifting and delightful, “At Day’s Close, Night Time in Day’s Past”, by A Roger Ekirch.

Without light, there wasn’t a lot you could do, so you went to  bed – early.  Since clocks and the whole concept of breaking up the day into hours, minutes, and seconds was foreign to people’s experience  the time was marked by events. There was twilight, shutting in, dinner, first sleep, dead of night, second sleep, and dawn.

Shutting in was important because the night was a frightening and dangerous place.  People would only be out if they had to.

There was a fear of the night much greater than today.  Partly this was justified by the frequent crime.  Burglary and highway robbery were common, except in the American colonies.  But there was also a terrible fear of the unknown which we always fill up with monsters.

Now that we have lit the night in a way that allows for no shadow, we have driven the monsters into the dark realms of space.

Ekirch illuminates a wealth of nighttime activity by mining the copious journals people kept back them, as well as court records and reports on efforts to light the darkness. Then as now money mattered.  The rich could afford candles so they went blind more slowly.  The poor got by on the light of the hearth and rushes, which gave off more smoke than light.  There were many derisive comments in the journals about how candles made “the darkness much easier to see.”  On the other hand, you can do some things in the dark quite well. One French physician advised couples that the best time to conceive was after first sleep when they “have more enjoyment” and “do it better”.  Beats watching TV.  Nighttime was also a time when people could escape the scrutiny and cares of the day and let their hair down.  If you were willing to brave the dangers of going out, there were entertainments around for every class.

For many though, it must have been a time of great intimacy, telling stories or jokes to the few people in the house, with ties being strengthened through the long winters.  If you were alone, it was a time for introspection, praying, or reading, three activities that are in decline today.  If someone awakes at night now they are bound to reach for their phone and social media, the new opiate of the masses.  Now, instead of tight bonds to a few, we have very loose bonds to many.

At Day’s Close is an intriguing and beautifully illustrated look into a forgotten past.  For more research on sleep visit A.Roger Ekirch’s site.

The Live Your Legend challenge of the day is to write about why people thank you.  We all get thanked for lots of things but one thing that stands out for me is teaching.  Over the years I have had received many heartfelt thanks, sometimes running to pages, from people who had had awful learning experiences and now their perspective is changed.  One friend even told me teaching was my first, best, destiny.  I’m no superman and I can’t reach everyone but my trick is to be interesting so I can hold people’s attention and to spend a little extra time with students who are challenged.  You can go a long way by showing a little interest in what makes people tick. It’s not a glamorous job and you don’t make a lot of money, but it is very useful.  The LYL “thing” is all about knowing yourself and being useful.  I do like to be useful and this is what I am good at.

People are so distracted these days by social media and entertainment that they don’t have space to think for themselves.  I try to counter that by pointing out things in their everyday experience that they take for granted.  Maybe it will change their perspective a little bit, make them think. Everyday life can be grand and rich if you just look at it. Each day has Majesty.

Today is Wednesday because of the Viking invasions of England, culminating in the Battle of Hastings in 1066.  Their big gods were Wotan, Thor, and Frigg (Mrs. Wotan) – Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday.  Frigg is also mashed together with Venus, the Latin god of love, and Venus does look very much like an egg.  

That mashup is a good example of the whole problem with English.  Take the original old Latin with Celtic sprinkled in, add a few Viking invasions and you end up with half Latin and half Germanic. Talk about a big shaggy dog of a language.  That is why half the week is Germanic and the other half is Latin.  Satur(n)day, Sunday and Mo(o)nday are easy to spot.  Tuesday you have to go to French to figure out.  In French it’s Mardi – Mars.  Think Mardi Gras.  For a fascinating trip through the creation of this crazy tongue I highly recommend The Story of English, by Robert MaCrum, William Cran, and Robert MacNeil.

But why is our week full of planets and gods in the first place?  About 5000 years ago the Babylonians (present day Iraqi’s) were great astronomers, because without Facebook there is nothing to do but pay attention to the world around you.  They noticed that there were seven lights in the sky that moved across the fixed stars.  They must be gods! Seven must be an important number!  Still considered to be lucky.  So you can thank the Babylonians for the seven day week, and naming the days after gods/planets. In many cultures there is a mystique about names and a kind of immortality. As long as a name is said, the entity lives.  Every time you say a day of the week, you are speaking to the gods.  Pagan!

Sunday           

Monday          

Tuesday         

Wednesday 

Thursday      

Friday             

Saturday      

So why doesn’t JC get his own day.  Jesus come lately was a couple of thousand years behind the curve with all this, so he had to usurp somebody else’s day, naturally taking from the top of the list.  Apollo doesn’t seem to mind though. Ironically it’s the sun god that got us to the moon in 1969.  The Eagle landed on a Sunday.