A reply

There was this news story at digg about the relation between beauty and health. I found this very interesting and relevant. I’ve always held such view and felt it’s somewhat accepted and a given, but this study made me double check whether it was premature for me to do so when research was still underway and many more.

Anyway, some of the comments, as usual, put me off. One of my pet peeves is when people dismiss a study or opinion of an expert as obvious, stupid and pointless, among others. It’s utterly disrespectful to the people who spent years of studying and researching about that subject. At one particular comment, which said (not in a rude way) that the study is pointless, annoyance got better of me that I wrote an entire treatise in reply. I exaggerate of course.

Yeah, you’re a genius. You can judge how relevant a study is by just sitting on your couch so these scientists with years of education, not to mention research, should sit by your side and scribble hastily as you recite your infallible words of wisdom.

A few things that have annoyed “lately”

This post is two months overdue, so I have forgotten many details of my gripes. So, yeah, lately my ass. :p

3. Evolutionary explanations
While I agree that many biological issues are firmly grounded on evolution, I am starting to think that such and such “evolutionary explanation” is being overused. There is a difference, I believe, between a direct evolutionary result and a side-effect of such; while some features of the human anatomy may have arose out of evolutionary necessity, some may have risen simply because the choice was there. It is one thing to say that the pleasure of sex is an incentive for humans (and macroscopic species in general) to reproduce, and another to claim that women’s breasts evolved as the front-version of the ass. I make no claim about the latter being false, but without any basis, the claim is simply ridiculous.

My point is that a lot can be fitted in the evolutionary framework using the most resourceful methods, but that doesn’t mean they are the right interpretations. So pulling an evolutionary perspective out of your ass every time is not the way to go; there must be a prior evidence/reason, other than simple logical plausibility.

Quote 2

“And because, in all the galaxy, they had found nothing more precious than Mind…” – Arthur C. Clarke, 2010: Odyssey Two

Quote 1

“Health is beauty, and the most perfect health is the most perfect beauty.” – William Shenstone

What a prescient idea! William Shenstone has (whether deliberately or not) touched upon the evolutionary explanation of romantic love and mating, nearly a century before the publication of Darwin’s big book.

It is small observations like this that I would like to discover. i.e., unconvential (perhaps, even true) ideas way ahead of its time even without scientific explanation, but simply by pure reason and observation. This reminds me of Democritus, who uttered a statement (scientific, no less) that rings to this day: “Nothing exists except atoms and empty space; everything else is opinion.”

Note: from now on, posts about a certain quote I stumbled upon shall be entitled “Quote X”, because I’m tired of writing “By whoever” or coming up with some creative title when I think I’m overusing it.

The Manifesto (because I am pretentious)

1. Humans are just like any matter, powered by energy and bound by the four fundamental forces.

2. The difference between animate (i.e., living) and inanimate matter is the former being a system that could resist the changes in certain environments and maintain the essence of its existence for a considerable period of time by utilizing external resources, all on its own.

3. Humans are unique among the animate for their ability to fully recognize their own, and infer their surroundings’, existence.

The elegance of evolution

Regarding that title, I am one of the last people who would ever utter that. But I just did: I realized today how simple yet beautiful the theory of evolution is. Whether its core principles are true or not (hmmm, I’m being too lenient here. Maybe I should just cut the crap and just say it has a high probability of being true), it remains that it’s one of the most powerful theory devised (that I know of).

The theory is simple: every living thing on earth came from a common ascendant, their differences due to the changes in genetic traits (which involved increasing complexity) over a long period of time brought about by environmental changes. At the core of evolution also lies the concept of natural selection, that the species that could adapt most efficiently to the environment will survive. The key here is survival; the ultimate goal of every specie is to pass their genes to their offsprings so that their kind may live on.