Evolutionary Paleobiology and aliens

Was at a fascinating lecture by Prof. Simon Conway Morris last night, based on his book 'Life's solution: inevitable humans in a lonely universe' in which he tried to convince us that there was nothing freakishly unlikely about human evolution - that the example of convergent evolution throughout made us, or something like us, very likely. This of course flies in the face of the most popular evolutionary biologist ever - Stephen Jay Gould -he believed that at every point, if you 'ran the tape' of time again random mutation and the wondrous variousness of life would assert itself and nothing would be the same. Morris, based on others research, demonstrated that the effects of chance and history statistically diminished as time ran but that of adaption became more pronounced. He then showed lots of lovely and interesting examples of convergency to suggest that something like us was inevitable, in the environment of the earth. He then considered possible planets and the idea of aliens and suggested that intelligence was extremely likely if life emerged in other planets. Then, suddenly, at the end of the lecture he said that there weren't enough planets and we were on our own. Bang!

The reason I mention it here is that my communications class in the Design Faculty are going to be asked to start blogs as a reflective diary and he had some intriguing examples relating to vision. He was showing how the camera eye that we have evolved in several different species completely independently (the most important things are transparent cells and the ability to change light to electricity - these have evolved long before eyes) and that he felt it was the most likely solution for an intelligent being (we would need eyes of between 1 and 10 metre diameter to see as we do if we used compound 'fly eyes'). The reason the lovely little critter at the top is here is that the star nosed mole, a native of the US, has a nose with sensitive tentacles which it feels its way around with. The strange thing is that they are wired into what would be the visual part of the brain in a human. They 'see' with their 'hands'. He claimed there was an analogue of colour for them too. He also gave the example of dolphins. They have camera eyes as we do but also echo location. Their echo location connects to their visual sense. They both see and hear visually.
I kind of see sound. Not colour, just shapes.
A.R. Luria's classic 'the mind of a mnemonist' about an auto remembering person focused on how we remember best by mixing our senses: his mnemonist was seriously synaesthesic. He had to sit in a dark room to avoid the pain of more sensory input that bled into all his other senses which he would then be forced to remember forever. He was obviously an extreme case (hence the neuropsychological casebook), but is it difficult to believe that in all of us our senses are not entirely separate? That we can talk about rhythm of colour and colour of sound would seem to suggest so. When I was younger and people were trying to disparage criticism, critical thinking, and critical writing they would say 'writing about music is like dancing about architecture'. I always thought to myself 'what a great subject for dance'.

Monarcy in the UK

So racist rants by muslim clerics demand a suspension of the normal rules of democracy? Why not pass a law banning incitement to racial hatred like most of the civilised world? Because much of the tory party, BNP, and allied loyalist parties speaches would be similarly viewed by an impartial court perhaps?

It's good to see that at last democracy is reasserting itself in Britain. No Tony, everything has not changed. You are not your master. You cannot make a clean break with human rights. Your hold on your party and the media is too fragile to allow you down the road to totalitarianism. I hope. Shoot to kill policies were unthinkingly approved by the media - or at least they were so frightened by the fruits of dissent in the US after terrorist attacks that they were cowed into silence - but at last after weeks of police lies, disinformation, leaks, and dirty tricks the press is beginning to reassert the normal rights of democracy.

Here's a thought: people in the UK can never have a proper foundation to a democratic state, a proper sense of citizenship, a proper foundation to the defence of human rights, a sensible balancing of the rights and needs of its citizens until they are citizens rather than subjects. Abolish the monarchy in the UK. Get a constitution which legislation will have to be tested against. I know the judges have tended to do this against the unwritten constitution for the last 15 years but this labour government is doing its best to assert the primacy of the executive branch of government at the expence of the other two. Take the conduct of government out of the shadows and let people know what is going on. How else do you expect people to vote and take part?

Later, how exactly the opposite process is taking place in Ireland and the US. We are becoming subjects to our executive branch of government. I went to a football match a while ago and had the indignity of having to listen to the 'Taoiseach's march'. What? When did he become a ceremonial figurehead? And of course in the US they have 'in god we trust' written everywhere, and flags, and pictures of their beloved leader. Quite like a third world dictatorship really. Funny how the most republican of parties in the most republican of countries is forgetting what a republic is and how it differs from an oligarchy. You don't inherit the leadership in a republic. We owe the leader no more respect or reverence than any other public servant dependent on our pleasure. You cannot commit a sacriligious or blasphemous offence in a republic - whether that be to the flag, the institutions or offices of the state, or to some established religion. Republics are the result of the intelligent design of the people: all other foundations for the state are the result of exploitation.