The Groupings of Life

From the book 'Your Inner Fish: A Journey into the 3.5 Billion-Year History of the Human Body' P. 7 - 9.

"That a column of rocks has a progression of fossil species probably comes as no surprise. Less obvious is that we can make detailed predictions about what the species in each layer might actually look like by comparing them with species of animals that are alive today; this information helps us to predict the kinds of fossils we find in ancient rock layers. In fact, the fossil sequences in the world's rocks can be predicted by comparing ourselves with the animals at our local zoo or aquarium.

How can a walk through the zoo help us predict where we should look in the rocks to find fossils? A zoo offers a great variety of creatures that are all distinct in many ways. But let's not focus on what makes them distinct; to pull off our prediction, we need to focus on what different creatures share. We can then use the features common to all species to identify groups of creatures with similar traits. All the living things can be organized and arranged like a set of Russian nesting dolls, with smaller groups of animals comprised in bigger groups of animals. When we do this, we discover something very fundamental about nature.

Every species in the zoo and aquarium has a head and two eyes. Call these species 'Everythings.' A subset of the creatures with a head and two eyes has limbs. Call the limbed species 'Everythings with limbs.' A subset of these headed and limbed creatures has a huge brain, walks on two feet, and speaks. That subset is us, humans. We could, of course, use this way of categorizing things to make many more subsets, but even this threefold division has predictive power.

The fossils inside the rocks of the world generally follow this order, and we can put it to use in designing new expeditions. To use the example above, the first member of the group 'Everythings,' a creature with a head and two eyes, is found in the fossil record well before the first 'Everythings with limbs.' More precisely, the first fish (a card-carrying member of the 'Everythings') appears before the first amphibian(an 'Everything with limbs"). Obviously, we refine this by looking at more kinds of animals and many more characteristics that groups of them share, as well as by assessing the actual age of rocks themselves.

...

The order of fossils in the world's rocks is powerful evidence of our connections to the rest of life. If, digging in 600-million-year-old rocks, we found the earliest jellyfish lying next to the skeleton of a woodchuck, then we would have to rewrite our texts. That woodchuck would have appeared earlier in the fossil record than the first mammal, reptile, or even fish--before even the first worm. Moreover, our ancient woodchuck would tell us that much of what we think we know about the history of the earth and life on it is wrong. Despite more than 150 years of people looking for fossils--on every continent of earth and in virtually every rock layer that is accessible--this observation has never been made."

Does Certainty exist?

"I am certain there is too much certainty in the world." -- Michael Crichton

"The most educated person in the world has to admit he or she knows less and less ... but knows less and less about more and more." God is Not Great- how religion poisons everything P. 9

"The more I know, the less I understand
And all the things I thought I figured out, I have to learn again" - Don Henley

"… the world is funnier than you think. And the more you think about it, the funnier it gets. Close inspection reveals the ironies, contradictions, and confusions that make life interesting, but also frustrating.
...
The more man thinks, the slower he moves. Thought uncovers the limitations of his plans. Exploring the possibilities, he sees yet more potential outcomes, a greater number of problems … and he increasingly recognizes how little he actually knows.
" - Financial Reckoning Day P. 2

“You don’t know what tomorrow will bring. Every day you research and strategize about your next move. Just when you think you have a handle on things, something turns your plans upside-down. When that happens you realize you know nothing.” Oil on the Brain P. 137

Do Deficits Matter?

"I read a report by David Walker, the former Comptroller of the United States, where he was explaining the depth of the fiscal budget alone. He estimated that balancing the Federal Budget by 2040 would require actions as large as: 1. Cutting Total Federal Spending by 60%, or 2. Raising taxes to 2X today's level.

He also states, "Closing the current long-term fiscal gap based on reasonable assumptions would require real average annual economic growth in the double digit range every year for the next 75 years.

Keep in mind that: During the 1990's, the economy grew at an average 3.2% per year. So… "As a result, we cannot simply grow our way out of this problem."

Well… Now that's something to help wake you up, eh? But deficits don't matter; so don't worry about what the former Comptroller of the U.S. says… HA! You won't catch me taking that bait! David Walker is a very smart man, and has been the Lone Ranger in the Government when it comes to pointing out the problems with these deficits."

Chuck Butler in The Daily Pfennig of April 16, 2008

Obama smacks down Hillary & McCain

Taxman by the Beatles

"Should five per cent appear too small,
Be thankful I don't take it all.
'Cause I'm the taxman,
Yeah, I'm the taxman.

If you drive a car, I'll tax the street
If you try to sit, I'll tax your seat
If you get too cold, I'll tax the heat
If you take a walk, I'll tax your feet"

Proof that Women are more Responsible

"Sperms and eggs contribute equal numbers of genes, but eggs contribute far more in the way of food reserves: indeed, sperms make no contribution at all and are simply concerned with transporting their genes as fast as possible to an egg. At the moment of conception, therefore, the father has invested less than his fair share (i.e. 50 per cent) of resources in the offspring. Since each sperm is so tiny, a male can afford to make millions of them everyday. This means he is potentially able to beget a very large number of children in a very short period of time, using different females. This is only because each new embryo is endowed with adequate food by the mother in each case. This therefore places a limit on the number of children a female can have, but the number of children a male can have is virtually unlimited. Female exploitation begins here." The Selfish Gene P. 142

On Taxes

"People who complain about taxes can be divided into two classes: men and women." - unknown

How do we KNOW the things we believe?

“Each of us has life view. For most of us, our view results more from where we were born, who our parents were, and what schools we attended than a careful examination of issues. Yet our life view influences every thought we have, every word we speak, and every action we take.” - The Man in the Mirror P. 38

"That illustrates what the psychoanalysts so much emphasize -- the immensely stronger hold upon us that our very early associations have than those of later times." - Bertrand Russell

"Systematic thinking is apparently a comparatively late development in human experience; it has not played any great part in human life until within the last 3,000 years. And even today those who really control and order their thoughts are but a small minority of mankind. Most of the world still lives by imagination and passion." A Short History of the World, H.G. Wells P. 37

"We want to stand upon our own feet and look fair and square at the world -- its good facts, its bad facts, its beauties, and its ugliness; see the world as it is and be not afraid of it. Conquer the world by intelligence and not merely by being slavishly subdued by the terror that comes from it. ... We ought to stand up and look the world frankly in the face. We ought to make the best we can of the world, and if it is not so good as we wish, after all it will still be better than what these others have made of it in all these ages. A good world needs knowledge, kindliness, and courage; it does not need a regretful hankering after the past or a fettering of the free intelligence by the words uttered long ago by ignorant men. It needs a fearless outlook and a free intelligence. It needs hope for the future, not looking back all the time toward a past that is dead, which we trust will be far surpassed by the future that our intelligence can create." - Bertrand Russell

Depressing? Maybe! Maybe Not!

"... if you accept the ordinary laws of science, you have to suppose that human life and life in general on this planet will die out in due course: it is a stage in the decay of the solar system; at a certain stage of decay you get the sort of conditions of temperature and so forth which are suitable to protoplasm, and there is life for a short time in the life of the whole solar system. You see in the moon the sort of thing to which the earth is tending -- something dead, cold, and lifeless.

I am told that that sort of view is depressing, and people will sometimes tell you that if they believed that, they would not be able to go on living. Do not believe it; it is all nonsense. Nobody really worries about much about what is going to happen millions of years hence. Even if they think they are worrying much about that, they are really deceiving themselves. They are worried about something much more mundane, or it may merely be a bad digestion; but nobody is really seriously rendered unhappy by the thought of something that is going to happen to this world millions and millions of years hence. Therefore, although it is of course a gloomy view to suppose that life will die out -- at least I suppose we may say so, although sometimes when I contemplate the things that people do with their lives I think it is almost a consolation -- it is not such as to render life miserable. It merely makes you turn your attention to other things. " - Bertrand Russell

If I were a woman ...

... I would NEVER wear high heels.

and that's all I have to say about that.