For the past year, my television watching has been limited to public stations. No problem... PBS is normally what I choose to watch even though I now have access to satellite TV (a lot of it is mindless garbage in my opinion--even Discovery Channel, The History Channel and TLC have little to offer these days). I get (probably overly) excited, especially, about science programs like NOVA, which airs on PBS. I plan my day so that I will be home when it’s on and have time to take it all in.
Earth from Space, which aired in June 2013, was a NOVA program that really impacted me. It describes how satellites both give us a view of earth from space and enable us to “see” life-sustaining processes normally invisible to the naked eye. This is made possible by either reading or emitting waves that are outside of the visible spectrum of light. Viewers are able to visualize how the earth’s temperature is regulated by ocean currents, how the Sahara Desert nourishes the Amazon half a world away, how annual ice fluctuations in the arctic create an underwater brine “waterfall,” and the scale of earth’s magnetic field. As this was my first exposure to such knowledge, I was blown away by how our technology has improved our vision and understanding of how our planet supports diverse life in diverse environments.
Here’s an excerpt from the script:
NARRATOR: As a major engine, driving the world’s ocean currents, Antarctica helps protect Earth’s climate from wild swings in temperature. The constant, dependable circulation of the oceans around the globe and the relatively stable temperatures it produces, have made Earth a hospitable planet. Long-term stability provided time for life to flourish and complex animals and plants to evolve. And this is how a process that began with Antarctic ice continues to sustain our world.
Remember learning about the electromagnetic spectrum in high school? Waves of various lengths are arranged from long (radio waves) to short (gamma rays) and visible light is represented by a very small segment of this line. Visualizing the spectrum’s entire length from LA to NY, this visible section would be the size of a dime. There is so much information that our eyes have not adapted to see, but luckily, we have adapted large brains which innovate the technology to read this information in indirect ways.
For example, satellites can help us “see” the inner structure of a hurricane by bouncing microwaves off of raindrops. How neat is that?
On the lower end of the electromagnetic spectrum, just below the visible color red, infrared images detect heat and can measure water vapor rising off the oceans surface, a process marking the beginning of a tropical storm.
Microwaves emitted by satellites can penetrate through clouds to detect ice year-round. This kind of information is quite valuable for studying climate change over the years.
But the coolest part of the program to me was the precision of measurement some of our technology is capable of, and what it reveals. Using a piece of equipment called Jason, a satellite dedicated to oceanographic data collection, we are able to bounce radar off the surface of the ocean to measure it’s height within millimeters, revealing shape of sea floor. This kind of information reveals processes we never could have imagined, such as a super-colossal underwater “waterfall.” This occurs when water freezes around the South Pole; the salt is ejected because it doesn't freeze, then sinks to the sea floor as it is denser than the surrounding water.
Here is another excerpt from the script:
NARRATOR: Combining data from satellites and undersea instruments, scientists can reconstruct what is happening, hidden beneath the ice. What they learn is astounding. One trillion gallons of salty brine plunge down through the Weddell Sea every hour—a torrent equivalent to the volume of 500 Niagara Falls. The brine spreads out towards the edge of the Antarctic continental shelf and then falls into the chasm revealed by Jason. A vast submarine waterfall plummets downward. The cold, dense brine falls slowly, silently, into the abyss, two miles down to the ocean floor below. It will not resurface for hundreds of years.
Did you catch the number trillion (1,000,000,000,000)? A million is hard to imagine, let alone a billion. Well, a trillion is equal to a million millions, or a thousand billions. So, one trillion gallons of brine tumbling into the chasm per hour. We still don’t know where it goes when it falls, but we are a big step closer to understanding our planet. And this is just one of the many discoveries satellites have made! I cannot do the program justice in a short blog post... please, go watch it yourself! For me at least, there is little more thrilling or breathtaking than getting a glimpse at what is happening just beyond the horizon of our understanding.
Spring has sprung in southern Oregon and the wasps are dancing under the eaves. While I had planned to discuss the possibility of insects sustaining the ever-growing human population, I recently remembered a wasp story from my travels in New Zealand. I may post about bugs as food later on, but in the meantime, you can check out Megan Miller’s TED Talk about insects as a food source here.
This is from a weekly email I sent to family and friends while traveling. I was living and working on a pear orchard in Motueka at the time, located in the northern coastal region of the South Island: A few out-of-the-ordinary events have occurred, one of which I have to share because it is probably the freakiest phenomenon I have ever discovered in the natural world. For a few days I had heard a whining buzz near the sink in the kitchen and eventually discovered the source: a black bee-like insect hanging out on the over-sink water heater. There is a transparent gauge running up the front of the tank displaying the amount of water inside, which showed it was about half-full. Upon closer examination, the bee seemed to be covering a small, square opening near the top of the gauge with yellowish mud-like "stuff." I was a bit weirded out by this invasion, so I grabbed the noisy bee with an oven mitt and put her outside. I then studied the yellowish square and thought that maybe the bee was making a home there. I didn't know what I might find inside, but some dark curiosity overcame me and I began to unblock the hole to take a peek... until I unearthed a black, hairy leg poking out of a corner. I backed away, though I wasn't sure if I had imagined this or not. I didn't really want to surprise a bee and get stung (I am one of those people who reacts badly, puffing up like a blowfish). Still, I wasn't done experimenting, so I decided to implement a more indirect course of action. When the water heater is filled, the gauge directly fills with it; my plan was to unblock the yellow seal on top of the gauge by slowly filling the tank, thereby avoiding direct contact with whatever was inside. I turned on the water and watched as it began to creep up the gauge (I proceeded cautiously so there wouldn’t be an explosion out of the hole in the top). Despite my care, this still happened. The water flow stopped briefly before all the contents of the nest came spewing out at once. Some of it went into my hair, which is horrible, considering what was inside. Spiders. Intact, adult orb web spiders (Eriophora pustulosa).
I expected maybe some more bees or pupae, but not this. They were not enclosed in any casing or nibbled on... they all appeared freshly-dead. Many of them were a green, shimmering color with long back legs. I learned I had disturbed the nest of a mason wasp (of the family Eumeninae), a species native to New Zealand. They make a whining sound as they process the nesting material (mud) and are sort of black in color.
Why all the dead spiders? Well first of all, they weren't dead. Yeah. They were alive, but unable to move having been paralyzed by the mama wasp. It gets better: she places the immobile spiders in various compartments of her nest, each housing an egg (often placed under the skin or directly on the spider(s)). When her eggs hatch, the larvae begin to eat the spiders, starting with the non-vital bits in order to keep them alive and fresh for as long as possible. This behavior of stockpiling food is known as mass provisioning.
Had I experienced this story without any knowledge of science or understanding of the natural world, I might think that this wasp was pure evil, possessed by some kind of sick demon. From a human perspective, it seems pretty messed up for a living creature to be eaten alive while paralyzed. But if this process isn't amazing, I don't know what is. This creature has evolved to survive in this unique way on a planet where food is uncertain. I'm fortunate to live in an age where information is so readily available that I can actually look up this phenomenon and figure out what is going on. We can all explore the world right in front of our eyes between the tools of science and a willingness to understand that everything in nature has a niche. For an observation to be written off as "too wondrous for mortal understanding" would do this planet a great disservice, as lack of understanding leads to uninformed decisions that harm life, human or otherwise. At the same time, to assume that something that seems "evil” to humans--like being paralyzed and eaten alive--is also “evil” by nature, would also be misled. May we all reflect on our own niche: the part we play in the environment in which we live, with the resources we have, and appreciate the wonder that is all around us without rash judgement.
From September 2008 to June 2009 I attended massage school and shortly thereafter received a license to practice in the state of Oregon. It was the best life decision I have ever made for several reasons: I acquired a skill that enables me to make money while attending college. My awareness of my body and my health was heightened, deeply impacting my overall well-being. I learned how stress and pain can negatively impact one’s life and I gained the tools to relieve stress and pain in others. I memorized in detail almost every muscle and every bone of the human body and was taught the specific qualities of connective tissues and how to physically heal them. Lastly, I developed a passion for assessing, treating, researching and appreciating the complex structure (anatomy) and amazingly intricate function (physiology) of the human body. My kinesiology (the study of movement) instructor was particularly influential. He began each session with simple movements (Chi Gong) with the intention of helping the class calm our nervous energy, open our joints and bring our awareness to our bodies. Although these exercises lasted only five to ten minutes, I recall that it improved my learning capabilities, helping me to focus on the muscles we were palpating and memorizing that day (and importantly, to retain this information). His knowledge about muscle tissue, movement, synergism and antagonism, structure, posture, injury and healing was astounding and inspiring. When I learned that he offered private Kung Fu lessons, I asked whether we could start as soon as school was out. In the following months, he taught me how to find my center of gravity and focus my attention on my body by practicing various Monkey Kung Fu stances, walks, kicks, punches and movement patters. We stretched, we meditated, we breathed, we moved. It was an amazing experience, one that I will never forget, and was also by far the most physically challenging exercise I have ever done. It was also mentally challenging. He asked me one day, while sitting on the grass, to bring my attention to my spine. I was not sure how to do that, because as far as I knew, I never had. Maybe I hadn’t thought about it before. Maybe I didn’t think it was possible. Feel my spine? Isn’t it just... there? He told me that just as you can tune in to the breath simply by becoming more aware of it, you can tune in to the spine, feeling space open between the vertebrae as you breathe, and tracking the movement as it travels through the bones from base to crown. He guided me patiently, suggesting I start by aligning my hips over my sitz bones (if you are sitting now, you can feel them against your seat). After making sure the hips are rotated neither forward (making the lumbar spine, or low back, curve) or nor backward (as would be the case while slouching), he said, guide your attention to the sacrum (the upside-down triangle at the base of the spine). Gently move the hips once from side to side. Allow the side-to-side movement to travel up the spine to your the base of the skull, all the while imagining a string coming out of the top of your head, drawing you upwards. Why do this? Why take time to become aware of the body? Or the breath? Why stretch, move, meditate? Although some of what I've said so far may reek of “woo,” I am posting about it today because there are compelling, scientifically validated benefits to practices like yoga and meditation. Some I mentioned above, such as enhanced learning and memory, decreased pain, better ability to pay attention, lower levels of stress and increased quality of life (happiness). But it doesn’t stop there. These practices are known to help depression, anxiety disorders and insomnia, aid in emotional regulation, boost the ability to take different perspectives (empathy and compassion) and even slow down age-related decline. According to neuroscientist Sara Lazar, the underlying mechanism behind such changes is neuroplasticity (basically, the capability of the brain to change). When we perform meditative or yogic activities, our neurons communicate in unique ways that bring about these benefits which can be measured via detectable amounts of gray matter in various areas of the brain measured by MRI. To me, this is incredibly cool! By taking time every day to bring mindfulness to the body, whether by stretching or focusing awareness on the breath (or meditating on an image or feeling), I am building up “brain muscles” to help me navigate difficult situations, learn something interesting faster, balance my emotions and have more compassion towards others. The easiest way, if all of this is new to you, is to simply close your eyes and breathe, feeling the air moving in and out of the mouth, nose, throat and lungs. You know one other way to become more aware of the body? Get a massage. If you can’t afford it, ask an independent therapist if they are willing to do a trade (surely there is some skill you can offer him/her). Trade massages with your partner. Give and receive foot or hand massages with family members. Get your cat to walk on your shoulders. Touch has many benefits as well, but that is for another post. Science "has your back" in this case, and plus, it feels amazing.
I used to think that humans were not animals. Clearly, I thought, we are set apart by the ability to wield language, develop technology, realize the self and contemplate our imminent death. In addition, I believed that humans were superior to animals because of the ability to have compassion and make moral decisions whereas "animals" were essentially mindless, inferior, incapable of emotions like love or envy and unable to communicate complex ideas or feel pain in the same way that a human does.
And yet, the similarities are striking. Both humans and animals have bodies, need to eat, fit into the food chain, depend on the sun and plants to live, relate to or compete with other animals... if humans are not animals then what are they? Unless one suggests the supernatural to be involved, it stands to reason that we are not part of some kind of "other" category. We too are animals and therefore share characteristics with them, and they with us. It is true that humans use language unlike any other creature. Other animals may learn what human words mean or use their own "words," distinct bits of sound, to convey meaning. However, no animal that we know of continuously reassembles words in new and unique ways as we do by employing grammar.
Most of the other characteristics I listed above, I later discovered, are probably shared with at least some other animals. Knowledge of death may be the exception, although some self-aware animals could perhaps understand this on some level.
Certainly technology and realization of the self are shared characteristics. Otters use stones to break open crustaceans. Asian elephants swat away flies by flicking branches with their trunks. Dolphins, chimpanzees, magpies and killer whales have all passed the mirror test, showing they recognized themselves as separate and individual. And recently I have discovered that animals have moral codes just like we do. Especially social animals.
In a Ted Talk I watched last summer, Frans de Waal of Emory University explains two pillars of morality, upon which moral systems are generally based: reciprocity/fairness is one and empathy/compassion is the other. He provides several examples of how morality works in the (other than human) animal world. De Waal is a primatologist, ethologist, professor and author.
Reciprocity has been studied in several animals. Chimps have been observed working together to retrieve a reward by moving a box too heavy for one chimp alone. In addition, when one chimp has been fed and the other is hungry, the hungry chimp offers encouragement and asks for help. The chimp that has already been fed is willing to help even though he isn't hungry because he knows he gets a return favor when he is hungry and the other fed. This is a basic example of reciprocity.
Cooperation of this sort is also observed in elephants. Often called the most empathetic of animals, elephants also seem to have the ability to understand and share the feelings of other members of their herd, suggesting presence of the other pillar of morality: empathy/compassion. They grieve at the sites of a loved one's death, coming back year after year to pay their respects.
Have you ever wondered why yawning is contagious? Not to be confused with the "mirror test" mentioned above, mirror neurons, or brain cells which react both when doing an action and observing one, may explain this phenomenon. It may in fact show that by seeing someone in distress or discomfort, our empathy kicks in and we feel what that person is feeling.
Consolation has been observed in male chimps when they put their arms around another in distress. Reconciliation
behavior after a fight has also been observed among chimps. Why do this? Is
it too outlandish to suggest they value inter-chimp relationships? That
like us, it is important for them to make up after a fight in order to
preserve the relationship? This makes sense from an evolutionary perspective. Socially evolved animals have vested interest in protecting others in their group in order to increase the likelihood of reproducing new members. This is especially true in families, where kinship suggests passing on of genes that are even more like one's own. Any of this sounding familiar? In my opinion, this understanding of morality provides not only an explanation for it, but also gives meaning to the human condition, bringing us closer to our "relatives" (all that lives).
It also demands a wholesome and gentle approach to animal interaction, rather than domination, control and abuse on the presumption that they can not suffer as we do. There are lots of moral questions of course. What is moral on a social scale? On an individual scale? In individual circumstances? Is there a "universal" morality? One thing is almost certainly true: morality cannot be contained. It is uncertain and relative according to the person and situation. But is it unique to humans? Scientists have discovered that the answer to that question is NO.
Happy Earth Day to all! What an awesome planet we live on, and what incredible lifeforms surround us every day!
I was hitchhiking in New Zealand a couple of years ago when I got into a conversation about evolution with my driver. I don’t remember the details of what was said, except that she told me, “I didn’t give birth to a baby monkey. I didn’t grow a monkey inside of me.” Misconceptions about evolution are common. For me, many of them dissipated when I learned the definition of a scientific theory and why evolution is the cornerstone of modern biology. What an enormous and fascinating topic! I will go over only a few misconceptions (to avoid writing a novel) and briefly describe common descent, why evolution is not “just” a theory, how it exemplifies the very opposite of randomness in light of natural selection and that it is a simple yet elegant explanation for how organisms are affected by and interact with the natural world. “My grandpa wasn’t a monkey!” First let’s tackle the monkey misconception. We didn’t evolve from monkeys. Evidence shows that humans share a common ancestor with apes, namely gorillas and chimpanzees, but we didn’t evolve from them either. Common descent describes the relationship between us and our predecessors when a new species arises from an ancestral population.
You may remember that apes are most distinguishable by their lack of a tail. Lesser apes include gibbons and resemble monkeys more than great apes. Great apes are a family called Hominidae including chimps, orangoutangs, gorillas and humans, all of which are different species. Evidence also shows that all the observable life on earth, from worms to whales to viruses, arose from a common ancestral organism. “Evolution is ‘just’ a theory.” “Theory,” by the everyday definition, implies a speculation or a guess. However, it is VERY IMPORTANT to understand that in science, a “theory” means much, much more than a hunch. An educated guess perhaps? No. A hypothesis could be an educated guess, but a hypothesis is not the same as a theory. A theory is a confirmed hypothesis that is backed by evidence. A proven theory is a fact. “Evolution is not a fact.” The theory of evolution is a fact (a true statement about the world) in the same way that the theory of gravity (the relationship of force between bodies of mass) is a fact and germ theory (the attribution of infectious disease to microorganisms) is a fact. Most who deny evolution would not deny gravity or germs, but these explanations have been developed by the same methods as the theory of evolution. Calling it a theory is the highest possible achievement of science. A law in science is not “higher” than a theory and neither is a fact. Evolution is the basis of modern biology and the best explanation we currently have for the staggering variety of life we see today and find evidence for in the fossil record. It is not a conspiracy cooked up by evil biologists for some malicious purpose. “So you are saying the diversity of life happened by chance?” EVOLUTION BY NATURAL SELECTION SUGGESTS THE OPPOSITE OF CHANCE. While mutations in DNA occur at random throughout the reproduction process, natural selection is the process that pinpoints and propagates mutated traits that end up being useful for survival. It’s simple: because the likelihood of the organism possessing advantageous traits to reproduce is greater, there is a greater chance of those traits being inherited by offspring. Evolution by natural selection results in organisms “sculpted” by natural selection to survive within their unique environments and in relationship to other organisms in the food chain. Charles Darwin (1809-1882) and Alfred Russell Wallace (1823-1913) developed the idea of natural selection making the theory of evolution, which dates back to the Greeks, more viable and understandable. Again, natural selection is the idea that connects the complexity of life on earth with random mutations that occur during DNA replication. It is the driving force behind evolution that makes it the very OPPOSITE OF RANDOM, resulting in specific traits surviving over others and the ability for life to exist in an enormous range of locations, including thermal vents under the ocean, African savannas, isolated islands and rain forests. “Irreducible complexity shows that evolution is impossible.” The argument that some aspects of life, like the human eye, are “irreducibly complex” is outdated and long-refuted. Using the example of the eye, the argument goes that every part of the eye as a whole has to be present at once in order to function, so how could it have evolved? After all, there is no such thing as “half an eye.”
First of all, there is no one version of the eye, even among humans. There is variation; some are far-sighted, some are near-sighted, and some are blind. No eye is “perfect,” whatever that means. This suggests a process behind the eye’s development and scientists have found several primitive examples.
Some animals have, or had, only light sensors for “eyes.” Some fish have no eyes at all because their environment is total darkness. Some eyes are better at heat detection than light detection. Birds vision is much sharper than humans. Cats see at night as well as we do during the day because of a reflective sheen over their eyes (which is why they seem to glow). This variation shows that eyes come in many shapes and sizes, exist in “parts,” and have varying functions. Even a primitive eye would, according to natural selection, help an organism survive longer than it’s counterparts, giving it a reproductive advantage. We have this idea of successive species becoming “better.” In evolution, this means “fitness to environment” and is based on frequency of reproduction of particular traits. It makes no sense to use good or bad in this case. It is logical that with time, human eyes can become better suited to the environment than they are now, which would mean it can become more complex than it is now. To close, the theory of evolution is simple and elegant. This means that the mechanism is simple (mutations in DNA that are advantageous become more frequent in a population) and the result is elegant (complex, beautiful organisms of staggering variation). Am I saying that in this case simplicity gives rise to complexity? YES. I am aware that the Second Law of Thermodynamics states that in a closed system this should not occur. Guess what? Life in earth’s terrarium is not a closed system: we have the sun upon which most life depends. For an example of how simplicity gives rise to complexity, check out the Mandelbrot Set. In fractals, a simple mathematical formula gives rise to a strikingly complex image. How cool is that?!
Also, you may want to do some reading:
Charles Darwin: The Origin of Species Jerry Coyne: Why Evolution is True Neil Shubin: Your Inner Fish: A Journey into the 3.5-Billion-Year History of the Human Body Richard Dawkins: The God Delusion
My first biology professor was called “The Birdman.” He was a sort of tall, mad ornithologist who, besides resembling a vulture with a tuft of white hair protruding from his head, frequently used the curse word “communist!” As was procedure for a 101 course, he covered the basic tenants of the scientific process, and introduced a term I was unfamiliar with: falsifiability. In order for a hypothesis to be viable, he told me (with wild eyes), you must be able to prove it false! Huh? This confused me. I thought the goal of science was to determine whether a hypothesis was true. Later on, I understood that falsifiability, or testability, is one of the rules of the game of critical thinking that helps determine the viability of a claim. In other words, if you can’t determine whether a claim is false, you also can’t determine whether it is true.
For example: if I claim that there is an invisible pink unicorn that roams the cosmos rearing it’s majestic sparkly head, there is no way of demonstrating that such is NOT the case (the unicorn being invisible and untestable). While this is obviously unbelievable, people do have the audacity to make claims just like this about the supernatural... and expect to be believed. Have you ever heard someone pose the argument, “You can’t prove it’s false, therefore it’s true?” Sorry, but in the game of critical thinking, this is a losing argument. Contrary to intuition, lack of testability makes a claim weaker, not stronger. Lack of proof to the contrary is not proof itself. And just because a claim hasn’t been conclusively proven doesn’t mean that it’s false either. At university, I took a basic critical thinking class with an assigned textbook called “How to Think About Weird Things.” I found it so enlightening and helpful that I still use it today. Although I had ceased attending church at the time of the class, I didn’t have any guidelines to help me decide what to believe. I was agnostic when it came to most problems because I figured that every explanation was equally plausible and therefore subject to my personal opinion.
One of the most life-changing lessons I took away from the class was that some explanations are better than others... and there are ways of discovering this information beyond a reasonable doubt. The class outlined the importance of evidence, double-blind studies, control groups, predictions, peer-reviewing, replication and consideration of alternative explanations. I finally felt I had solid ground to stand on when it came to making decisions that impact my life and the lives of others. Critical thinking is a methodology I can get behind because it is a reflexive process emphasizing how to think not what to think. It is methodical and includes rules, challenges, interactions with others and goals. The “winners” of this game are those with common sense and honest reasoning skills. It enables me to be a conscious player in my life, rendering me more capable of making informed decisions that are in alignment with my values. Most of us think critically everyday, perhaps without even realizing it. And most fields of study are based upon it, namely science... and for good reason.
I also like to imagine life as a game. Rather than positing “winners” and “losers” in general terms, I imagine that within the closed system of my subjective experience, I win or lose at my own life-game, which exists within the larger sphere of objective reality, the realm of science, logic and reason. One of my personal rules is to not confuse subjectivity with objectivity but rather synthesize the two according to my reason, introspection, perception and memory. The game model helps me to focus on my values and reflect on my own thinking so that my time on earth is more likely to be spent efficiently, positively and joyfully. And it reminds me that my personal conviction alone does not have an impact on reality, even if based on a powerful experience, intuition or emotion.
Welcome to Life in a Terrarium! My name is Haley. I grew up in Wyoming and now live in southern Oregon where I practice massage therapy and study English at Southern Oregon University. As an introduction, I will share part of my story of how I came to love science.
Life in a Terrarium explores various aspects of science as I discover them and includes how they add to my understanding of life within the boundary of Earth’s atmosphere. The "terrarium" also refers to the horizon of humankind's knowledge of our place in the universe, which is constantly shifting due to scientific advances. I’m not a biologist, physician, geologist, or politician and do not claim authority on any subject besides my personal experience. This blog is an experiment of thought, writing, and reception. I hope it is both thought-provoking and relatable.
Having been indoctrinated in religion from birth, I am predisposed to supernatural thinking. To this day I am drawn to the esoteric, the unknown, the mysterious, the secrets of the universe.
My personality also lends itself to obsessive-compulsive behaviors and neuroticism, well-met growing up in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, or Mormonism. I ritualized my faith: pray, fast, read scriptures, repeat. Daily life was intense; symbols offered communication between the Divine and me. I was superstitious about numbers (7, 27), colors (white, red, black) and Bible verses. Synchronicity represented my devotion and His revelation.
I knew that my Heavenly Father was watching me. I had a testimony of Jesus Christ. I resolved as a young girl to be sealed in the temple to my husband for time and all eternity. Because God had a secret plan for me, my receptivity to the “Spirit,” or influence of the Holy Ghost, was finely tuned.
I was always a bibliophile. The Bible, The Book of Mormon, The Doctrine and Covenants and The Pearl of Great Price, all parts of the Mormon scripture, spoke directly to me. Books were a gift from on high and my sacred duty was to mine the hidden meaning within them. I read about philosophy, numbers, fractals, quantum physics, politics, and world religions. Although books opened the floodgates of my curiosity, I reconfigured my discoveries in terms of what I already knew as Truth. Reading was a search for more intricate layers of the same Truth.
Further questions were addressed through prayer, scripture study and the words of the latter-day prophet(s). Other approaches to understanding were consistently downplayed. Scientific argument, for example, was used to support the Gospel when possible, otherwise it was criticized as a prideful attempt by man to displace God's eternal unknowability.
So I was intrigued by science, but it was not always useful. When one has mastered the art of self-delusion, many questions are eliminated. But as an inquisitive person who was also not willing to abandon faith, I accepted the challenge to fit “worldly” knowledge into my belief system.
I was an apologist acrobat extraordinaire, eagerly debating friends who clearly didn't know the Truth. I researched controversial Mormon principles, such as polygamy, in order to rationalize their validity. As I grew older, it became a performance to behold, twisting myself into a ridiculous pretzel. I needed the Church to get behind me.
Whenever I challenged the doctrine, I was quickly set straight by instructors before the subject was changed. I wondered why my questions were often discouraged or ignored. I was taught that man is given free will because genuine faith comes only through personal conviction rather than through the conviction of others. If the Church was true, was I not certain to arrive at this conclusion after a thorough investigation? Wouldn’t my faith only be strengthened by such a test?
Rationalization brought me far, until I realized my deep-set value of honesty in my searching. Bending over backwards to make the “logic” of religion work was not enough. Ultimately I had to come to terms with the facts that weren’t aligning with my faith. I was terrified of losing meaning, friends, family and security. But I was more terrified of living a lie.
If meaning is not simply learned, I now reason, I would expect more consensus on truth. I now see that whether an individual is Mormon or Muslim largely depends on time and birthplace. I was taught everything I knew about God, the planet He lives on, the human woman He impregnated, and how He communicates telepathically with man.
I no longer believe, but my conversations with God never ended. Now they are conversations with my unconscious, my ego, my dreaming mind.
Now I gather meaning through observation and reflection. While science does not attribute meaning to existence, it continually provides perspectives on what it probably doesn’t mean (eternal life, predestination, significance, salvation) in light of a lack of evidence to support such claims.
The “answer,” for me, is the fact that the universe is and I experience it. And all that is conceptualized, observed, explained or thought about has nothing to do with what may actually exist aside from my perception of it. In order to make progress in our condition of limited information, humanity observes consistencies and proceeds with what works, thus sending ourselves to our moon, eliminating devastating diseases, isolating the gene for breast cancer, and using wavelength technology to “see” how Earth’s weather systems operate.
My view is that there is no purpose, no intent, no positive or negative, no reason for anything aside from that which we create. Only indifference. This understanding opens a door to an incredible sense of wonder and inspiration because meaning is flexible as long as one recognizes the difference between reality and fiction. I hope throughout this blog I can explain why scientific understanding means everything to me.
