Stuart's thoughts  12/16/2019

SMOGASBORD

A smorgasbord is bsically aa Swedish version of a buffet meal, i.e., a lavish display of many food choices.  What follows is my literary version of a smorgasbord.  I’ve chosen this format because, at this point, the many different, but somewhat related, thoughts swirling around in my head remind me of a smorgasbord of thoughts.  My hope is that anyone choosing to read this will bear with me as I explore a variety of seemingly disparate topics yet, in the end, see how the samples presented in my smorgasbord of thought may be related and, indeed, interconnected.  While the style may be somewhat awkward and unconventional, it will hopefully be useful in conveying the interrelationships of my thoughts.  At the outset it’s important for all to understand that the thoughts , ideas and concepts presented are exclusively my own, not plucked from this source or that but created as a synthesis of my 83 years of life experience and an amalgam of knowledge gained from many courses of both formal and informal education.  Informal education consists of course work taken as part of continuing education in the NCSU OLLI program for those over 50 and private reading of numerous book titles.  My reason for embarking on this project is strictly personal.  I learn best by writing down my thoughts.  I am not a particular good oral or verbal learner.  Thus, my intention is to sort and arrange these concepts in my own mind rather than to convince others to accept my point of view.
 

I.  Information and Knowledge

As humans, we continually seek information about our surroundings from birth and throughout our lives.  This is the basic orientation drive that all animals and, perhaps, one might be inclined to say, all living things have.  It’s incredible at how quickly a new born human learns to have its needs, e.g., water, food, attention, etc., fulfilled.  Information gathering continues throughout life, our childhood, our years of schooling and advance4d education, our working years and, for many, throughout the remainder of their lives in retirement.  We are voracious information gatherers because with accumulating information comes knowledge.  We gather information through use of our five senses.  Although the range of our senses is greatly restricted to narrow bands of the full spectrum of light, sound and other sensory inputs, we have developed a plethora of instruments to help us overcome these restrictions.  Nevertheless, the total scope of information in our environment is almost infinitely vast and my guess is that, as humans, we only discover a tiny fraction of the whole.  Thus, if this premise is accepted, our total bank of knowledge regarding what we may term “reality” is also tiny.  It might be pointed out that the total bank of human knowledge appears to have grown exponentially in the last few centuries and continues to grow exponentially.  If so, what we humans may know in the future my only be a faint dream today.  At this point my perspective is that we may only be knowledgeable of 1 or 2% of the total bank of potential knowledge.

If one subscribes to the rational process of decision making, having substantial relevant knowledge is the first requirement.  However, we all know that having all relevant knowledge rarely, if ever, occurs.  Laking total knowledge which would be required to make an “air tight” decision, we characteristically proceed to make our best estimate.  As described in “A Path To The Gold”, this involves what I termed “probabilistic rationalism”. where one assigns best estimates of probabilities for all possible choices as they evolve  Thus, one’s best decision is simply that choice receiving the highest probability estimate of being best.  Selecting the best is not guaranteed but, lacking full knowledge, it’s the best a person can do.

Recently the question of evidence came up and was claimed to be a moral requirement for holding any belief.  one could say that most beliefs are based on evidence that the believer has, maybe not evidence in the material sense ,but at least a mental sense that some input has provided ample evidence to support a belief.  For example, a medicine man waves a hickory stick over a sick aborigine and the man shortly later arises feeling cured and firmly believe the medicine man’s action cured him.  In fact he may have had, throughout his life, several similar experiences.  The educated observer may claim the situation was simply a fortuitous coincidence and that the medicine man’s actions were not relevant.  However an alternate, equally possible, explanation may be that the aborigine’s faith in the medicine man was strong enough to result in internal release of hormones and/or humoral factors that resulted in the cure.  Who is right?  Did the medicine man have a real effect on the patient’s health or was this simply a fortuitous coincidence?  It’s possible that they were both correct.  From the aborigine point of view, the medicine man effected the cure.  However, from the viewpoint of the educated man, this was simply a fortuitous coincidence.

Two eye witnesses to a traffic accident turned up in court with opposing accounts of the accident and opposing views about which car was at fault, the brown one or the blue one.  Both accounts seem to be equally valid from equally reliable sources but what has yet to come out is the different viewing positions of the two eye witnesses.  One piece of evidence is valid or accurate, one is not, separated only by position of the witnesses relative to the accident scene.  Another man reported seeing a blue car erratically driving down the road shortly before the accident and expressed the opinion that the driver of the blue car may have been drunk and caused the accident.  However, when all witnesses described the blue car, the descriptions of the third man didn’t match the description given by the two eye witnesses.  His evidence was not relevant because it dealt with a car not involved in accident in question.  Great care must be used in dealing with so-called evidence.  Is it accurate, is it valid and is it relevant.  Evidence needs to be thoroughly vetted before Accepting it as a valid reason for forming a belief.
What about evidence outside the realm of material reality such as the evidence for the witch doctor’s curative actions.  With this question, we introduce the concept of subjective reality vs material reality.  According to my definition, material reality consists of that spectrum of sensations in the universe that are clearly perceived by at least one of our five senses or reliable instrument detection.  The existance of the great pyramids, the Atlanticf Ocean, the moon, Mars, the Milky Way Galaxy, etc., etc.  These are items of existence that we would all likely agree have a material existence even though we, ourselves, may not have actually seen them.   Also belonging to the material world are a range of beliefs that are not material items but exist in most of our minds.  Such whispy yet real beliefs as love, honor and compassion are arguably true components of material reality. 

Other such concepts that contain one or more elements of indecisiveness such as the existence of God, the existence of flying saucers and alien visitors from other worlds, the existence of heaven and hell and the benefits from long periods of fasting are less unanimously held.  In fact the number of people doubting these concepts may be equal to or greater than those accepting them.  Thus, we introduce the notion of subjective reality, i.e., realities that are custom designed by each individual.  Many who claim to be atheists doubt the existence of God yet many other religious people are certain that God exists.  Before discussing the pros and cons if such a belief, the definition of God needs to be clearly understood by all.  If one means a supreme being actually existing somewhere in the Universe, that’s one thing that could reasonably be argued against.   However, if it’s intended that God  represents a powerful and forceful conceptual component of one’s mental construct of reality, that cannot be summarily dismissed.  While the world’s population may be relatively evenly split on the first definition, it is not unreasonable that the majority may agree with the second definition, i.e., a component of the subjective realities of millions.  Regardless of how vehemently an atheist holds his disbelief in God, he cannot deny the presence of the God concept and the strength of this faith in the minds of others.  Thus, once again, both the atheist and the religious person are possibly correct.

Some may question whether or not subjective realities actually exist.  However, Robert Lanza’s theory of Biocentrism posits that all reality is a product of the human mind. Biocentrism posits that life creates the Universe, not the other way around. Without humans, there would be no universe.  Nothing would exist in either a subjective reality or material reality.  Personally, I can’t go that far but Lanza’s book on Biocentrism is fascinating and certainly thought provoking.

II. Average Person’s (Non-Scientist) acceptance and understanding of science

As discussed in my book, “What Do You Believe”, many people are typically far too accepting of anything presented to them as resulting from a scientific study.  When hearing about a study that has apparently reported a surprising finding like “eating almonds causes infertility in asian women” many of us can’t wait to spread the news to family and friends.  In most cases, it would be more appropriate to look as carefully as possible beyond the headlne. Seek opinions of other scientists commenting on this surprising finding. Too many of us readily accept reports of this kind without seeking further clarification and confirmation. My advise when hearing of results from the latest scientific study is to QUESTION EVERYTHING.  Even when obtaining much more relevant information, the average layman is ill equipped to independently verify the accuracy and validity of most scientific studiers,  For the most part we hear about such studies from the news media, internet blogs or podcasts our other sources equally unable or uninterested in thoroughly vetting the reported research.  As a scientist who has spent the better part of a 35 year career reading and evaluating published scientific research, I can confidently state that many are found to have critical flaws in methodology, experimental design, statistical analysis and/or data interpretation.  Be particularly careful when you hear of some earth-shattering research finding.  There is a good chance that it is either bogus or the result of sloppy science.  Some unscrupulous investigations will even try to publish fake or manufactured results, like the guy who was found to be manually moving a string attached to a strain gauge (measuring device) which would yield the kind of results he wanted to publish in order to secure funding of his grant for another year.  Some are simply inclined to report preliminary, unsubstantiated data for a variety of self-serving reasons.  However, if studies are reported in ethical scientific journals such as the American Journal of Physiology, Nature or The Journal of The American Heart Association, to name a few, the studies have been carefully reviewed by a scientific editorial board and approved as valid.  A scientific editor will ask a variety of questions such as “is the study design appropriate to adequately address the question being investigated?”  “Are study groups sufficiently large to be able to yield statistically significant results?”  “Have “GLP” (Good Laboratory Practices) been observed? “ “Has the study been appropriately blinded?” “Have the collected data been appropriately handled and evaluated?”   “Has appropriate statistical analysis been performed?”      “Are the results arrived at truly supported by the data? “ In general, results obtained is the lay press or on the internet rarely provide assurances that they have undergone rigorous scientific review.  QUESTION EVERYTHING.

The following is an example of the kind of questioning that I am referring to:

Global Warming (Climate Change) Update

Several years ago, I included my analysis of the question regarding human involvement in global climate change in my book “ A Path To The Gold”.  In that analysis I pointed out several relevant facts that many have overlooked.  One fact is that in addressing this issue, most look at it as a single question, i.e., “is human activity the primary cause of current global warming or climate change”.  However, this issue is really a sequence of at least 5 questions: Is earths climate currently warming? Note! earth’s climate has throughout its history experienced multiple cycles of cooling and warming.  In other words, earth’s climate is constantly changing.  If we conclude that earth’s climate is currently warming, the second question is whether the rate of warming is unusually rapid, i.e., faster than ever seen in the past.  If the answer to that question is yes, the next question asks if this more rapid rate of warming is due to the greenhouse effect.  Again, if the answer to this question is yes, the next question asks, if this is due primarily to CO2.  Finally, if the answer to this fourth question is yes, the final question asks, if this exceptional increase in atmospheric CO2 primarily is due to human activity?  Rather than n absolute answer, yes or no, to each question one assigns a probability to each that the answers yes.  The probability of the entire sequence being yes is the product of the five individual probabilities, (p1 x p2 x p3 x p4 x p5). 

 
Thus, you have a 5 question conditional probability sequence which led to my personal subjective estimate that the probability of the entire sequence being “yes” is 10% or slightly less.  I understand that this is strictly an individual, non scientific, guesstimate, but points out one way someone might semiquantitatively probe the overall axiom that human activity is doing great harm to the planet. 

In Questioning Everything, one encounters a multitude of methodological and data collection issues that may not have been adequately addressed.  The source of temperature data, method of collecting data, timing and scope of collecting data and consideration of other conflicting factors, such as the nature of earth’s surface, frequency of temperature observations, location and nature of temperature recording devices can contribute to substantial variability in the quality and relevance of the data collected.  There are literally dozens, if not hundreds, of graphs depicting earth’s temperature history which display incredible variations in appearance and interpretation.  Some appear to show marked increases in the earth’s temperature in recent years while others look totally unremarkable.  Because of the vast number of variables involved in generating and gathering such data as I partially discussed in my book “A Path To The Gold”, I am not comfortable in assuming that we even have a clear understanding of what has happened in the past, let alone what the future holds.  To the casual observer, one can find temperature record graphs that look totally opposite, one showing marked recent temperature increases and another either implying slight cooling or no significant change.  Many times graphs can be illusory and depict opposing results because of the scales or time periods covered.  In general a long time period (e.g., thousands of years) scaled on the x-axis along with a compressed temperature magnitude scale (e,g., 10 degrees centigrade)  on the y-axis might give the impression of no significant change over thousands of years.  On the other hand a relatively short x-axis time span (e.g., 200 yrs combined with an expanded y-axis temperature scale (e.g., plus or minus 1 degree centigrade) might express an alarming increase in temperature.  To be honest, this is one of the primary techniques used by those who want to affect public opinion in one way or the other.  Just the volume and nature of the past temperature record is so vast and varied that it is probably beyond the capacity of most with scientific training to totally understand, much less the average non-scientist citizen.
There are a multitude of natural factors in producing earth’s climate, solar activity, ocean currents, wind and air currents, surface characteristics of land and water as well as numerous natural events we don’t fully understand and perhaps are even incapable of perceiving. Furthermore, I doubt that we understand or appreciate all of the complex interactions between these factors.   I’m also amused that we frequently tend to regard our species as apart from natural forces defining our climate.  We seem to regard our species as interlopers on earth doing all kinds of harm to this pristine planet.  I maintain that the human species is as much a part of the composite nature of the earth as anything else.  Humans arose from the natural process of evolution and just happen to be the presently most advanced species in the animal kingdom.  In truth, we along with all other components of nature, likely affect the earth and its climate in many, complex and interrelated ways.  We humans are as much a part of the earth as are the mountains, the lakes, the oceans and the polar bears.

Finally, with regard to the question of global climate change, we may be able to alter the course of climate change somewhat but let’s not fool ourselves, we will never be able to stop climate change.  There are too many natural forces involved in this process that has been going on for millions , perhaps billions, of years before humans ever existed.  It would be the height of arrogance to even entertain the idea that we could stop climate from changing or even exert any kind of significant control.  The better approach might be to learn how best to accommodate to change and live with it while focusing on ways to prevent pollution of our environment. 

Thus, rather than carrying on this contentious debate on climate change, which has become a huge political football, we might better agree to talk about the problems of environmental pollution and future sources of energy rather than climate change. I think we could all agree that limiting pollution as much as possible and discovering new sources of energy for the next century would be a good thing.  After all why would anyone want to live in an environment of polluted land, air and/or water or on a planet without access to adequate sources of energy?  Human pollution of the environment is much easier to measure and there are few if any natural causes of pollution to correct for other than volcanic activity.  By focusing on reducing pollution, we would be agreeing on a target that makes sense to us all and, if human induced climate change is ameliorated in the process, we will all be that much  happier.  New sources of usable energy would be fantastic and may open up possibilities for us to travel to destinations in deep space.  All of this offers the dream of a wonderful future rather than attempting to reach a goal by punishing our previous success through threats of fines and punitive taxes.  Let’s get there by challenging our creativity  with appropriate positive incentives.

III.  Human Behavior, The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

While we humans like to think of ourselves as having reached the pinnacle of evolution of the animal kingdom, achieving high levels of intelligence and morality, we need to understand that we are still animals and, thus, are subject to the same biological drives as our lower species cousins,  The main biologic drive all living things appear to be subject to is the drive for survival.    As previously suggested , this might be more accurately stated is the drive for survival of our genes, emanating from our DNA, and final arbiter of all of our decisions and actions.

With respect to other biologic drives such as sex, hunger, thirst, curiosity, etc., it could be stated that all of these are subservient to the ultimate drive for survival, particularly survival of one’s genetic code.  Various arrangements of four different nucleotides form strands of genetic DNA which determine all properties of living cells and, thus, all properties of each of us.  Embedded in this genetic structure is the central drive for survival and individual survival takes a back seat to survival of thew genetic code.

The preeminence of genetic code survival can easily be seen in the life cycles of numerous plants and animals.  In many cases, production of progeny, i.e., the next generational iteration of the genetic code satisfies the survival drive of the genetic code and ends the biologic usefulness of the parent.  This is observed in certain species such as the octopus, the salmon and the mayfly when death of the parent typically ensues very rapidly following reproduction Otherwise, in most cases, the natural drives function throughout life to optimize survival of each individual.
In most species of animals and, perhaps even in plants, it is the complex of all of these important drives that culminates in each individuals behavior pattern.  In most lower animals behavior is largely self indulgent and may or may not be crucial for survival.  Even though satisfaction of the hunger drive may be critical for survival, sheer pleasure of eating is the overt object as we frequently observe in our pets.

The high level of intelligence that has evolved with the human species has added a new wrinkle.  Some of us may actually think of behaving in a way that helps others rather than always thinking of ourselves and satisfying our own needs first.  We have evolved as a species capable of and often interested in positively affecting the welfare of others, particularly family and friends.  We have developed a moral code which is unique among living things.  We are able to express compassion and empathy toward others and, in many cases, sacrifice satisfying our own needs for helping others.  In the extreme, mothers will shield their children from life-threatening danger such as a murderous gun shot and there have been numerous cases of battlefield heroes who sacrifice their own lives to save buddies.  In most cases, we humans are generally kind, friendly and helpful to our neighbors and co-workers.  We usually place high value on mutually beneficial behavior that serves to make communal life preferable to solitude.  These and many more examples, too numerous to mention, represent  Good aspects of human behavior.

Unfortunately, examples of Bad behavior also abound.  If we begin with four of the most basic categories of such behavior, dishonesty, lying, stealing, and mean spiritedness, a fairly representative profile of bad behavior is seen.  In fact, one could claim that lying and stealing are simply versions of dishonesty.  Thus, we could summarize by saying that bad behavior consists of either dishonesty or mean spiritedness or both.  While many humans are pleasant to others and in no way mean spirited,  we are all are dishonest to some degree.  If you question that statement,  just go out on the highway, drive  at the speed limit and notice that nearly all other cars on the road pass you by, thus, exceeding the speed limit.  They are law breakers and are, therefore, dishonest.  While this is a very minor transgression that nearly all of us , at one time or another, have been tempted to take part in.  Maybe we just need to get home soon in order to not miss a child’s soccer game or maybe we have a golf tee time we don’t want to be late for.  Regardless of the reason or the extent that we drive over the speed limit, we are breaking the law and are thus, dishonest, or if you prefer we are cheating the system.  I wouldn’t go so far as to label this bad behavior, it just can’t be called good behavior.  Maybe we should settle for slightly naughty behavior.  Actually, there is likely a long list of marginal examples of bad behavior that we all engage in from time to time.  There are very few saints among us.  However, it might be said that one crosses the line into truly bad behavior when that behavior has a significant probability of harming another person, either physically, mentally, economically or socially.  The key element here is significant probability.  Exceeding the speed limit by even 5 miles per hour could potentially harm another person but the probability of this happening is characteristically relatively low, perhaps 1%.  On the other hand, exceeding the speed limit by more than 5 miles per hour would likely result in a corresponding increase in the probability of causing harm to oneself or others in proportion to the increase in speed.  The exact speed at which this crosses the line into bad behavior depends on many things such as road conditions, traffic volume and condition of the driver.  For example driving 10 miles per hour over the speed limit on dry roads with no traffic by an alert driver may increase the probability of causing harm to only 3% where that same speed on icy roads or in heavy traffic might see the probability go up to 20%.  At any rate, individuals should never be thinking in these terms and rather make every effort to consistently obey the speed limit.  In the end, it best be remembered that if one is acting in a way that puts oneself or others in harms way,  regardless of the accompanying probability, one is engaging in bad behavior.

I’ve  termed extreme bad behavior as “ugly behavior” and I think most of us know it when we see it in spite of there being no precise definition.  Hitting a person over the head with a baseball bat or firing a gun at them are surely examples of extremely bad  (“ugly”) behavior.  However, nearly as bad is stealing another person’s property or spreading false negativity about them.  Anything that is potentially capable of causing serious harm to another person or oneself (e.g., taking heroin) falls into the category of extremely bad or “ugly” behavior.  The next section explores what might be considered the ugliest form of human behavior, human violence, including murder.

IV. Human Violence
 
 I would like to reemphasize once again that all opinions expressed by me in this section and all others previously published are exclusively my own, created as a result of my 83  years of life experience, knowledge gained from many courses of formal education and informal education.  Informal education consists of course work taken as apart of continuing education in the NCSU OLLI program and private reading of numerous book titles. A core belief of mine is that there is no such thing as an absolute reality applicable to all humans.  Each person has his or her own subjective reality and  the most important thing we can do as individuals is to respect those individual subjective realities and not insist that others accept ours.  In treating all others as we would like to be treated and giving them our sincere respect would go a long way to healing the world’s problems.

In this vein, it should also be emphasized that to hold an atheistic view regarding God requires not recognizing the concept of subjective realities.  it’s very rational for a person to proclaim that they do not believe in a supreme being, i.e. God, in the realm of absolute material reality because no evidence of such an “individual” has ever been found.  However, in my mind, it’s a critical error to extend that belief to all of existence, and thus, deny the concept of subjective realities. 

Because there are countless examples of situations where different humans have totally different impressions of many aspects of our shared experience and the universe, it seems obvious that what is imagined as reality can take many forms.  If the idea of subjective realities is accepted, it cannot be said that God doesn’t exist.  While the concept of God may not be included in one person’s subjective reality, neither he nor anyone else, can say that the concept of God does not exist in another’s subjective reality nor that the concept of God does not play a major role in many lives.  Thus, in the pure and honest assessment, there is a God as long as that concept is a part of at least one person’s subjective reality.

Moving on to an entirely different subject, it’s important to point out a potential problem in the way many laymen, i.e., not scientifically trained nor accustomed to reading and evaluating the entire scope of scientific  research, swallow “hook, line and sinker” everything presented to them as scientific fact.  Based on extensive reading and evaluating published science throughout my 35 year career in the pharmaceutical industry, I can say that I’ve found that much reported research contain serious flaws that immediately call into question reported results.  As a scientist you learn to question everything, and look carefully for critical flaws in methods and analysis.  Additionally, always ask if the studies have been repeated in other laboratories by other investigators.  If so, have they confirmed the initial report? Care must be taken in casually accepting everything reported that is referred to as “results of research shows”,  One needs to carefully look at the research and as much of the raw data available to gain assurance that the results reported are, in fact, justified.

The human species has been involved in wars for roughly 90% of the time that we have existed.  We have been granted the wonderful gift of life yet, for some inexplicable reason, our specie has focused on hatred, fighting and killing rather than on compassion, aiding our fellow man and optimizing our mutual existence.  Why have we chosen to spend our precious time on earth killing each other?  It’s estimated that as many as 1 billion human lives have been lost in wars.
While there is surely no simple answer to the question of violence, we may get a clue by observing other organisms. Both plants and animals are engaged in a constant struggle for survival.  Whatever instructions nature has built into all of us as basic biologic drives, survival must certainly be at the top of the list.  With that realization also comes the realization that all life forms are in constant competition with all others for the ultimate goal of survival.
There are certainly examples where an individual sacrifices his or her own life to save others.  Mothers will often shield their offspring from danger while placing their own bodies in harm’s way.  Soldiers in combat have been known to throw themselves on a grenade about to explode in order to save their comrades.  Even certain animal species have demonstrated this extraordinary behavior.  A mother dog or cat goes back into a burning building to rescue young trapped by the fire.  This kind of behavior is most often observed between parents and offspring and might possibly be explained by understanding that survival in the long run is survival at the genetic level.  By rescuing offspring, the genetic material itself achieves survival.  Thus, we might conclude that survival of the genes trumps survival of the individual.  The action of the soldier in sacrificing himself for his comrades must be explained by a higher order reaction that may be explained by the training and conditioning of a fighting force in preparation for combat.

However, except for the above exceptions, most of the time individual survival receives top priority and its ramifications filter down through numerous day to day, common, non-life threatening behavioral decisions. Individuals are driven to win.  Much of life is in the form of competition. We compete as young children for the attention of a parent, we are taught to compete in school for the best grades.  In sports, we are often taught that winning is not simply the best outcome but it is the only acceptable outcome.  Yes, sportsmanship is encouraged but as can be often observed in professional sport, winning at any cost is the ultimate goal.  Professional football players will frequently illegally interfere with an opponent, many times in a way that they can get away with.  As I pointed out in an earlier in an earlier post, most of us, as average citizens going through day to day life, often cheat or e en break the law, just a little, in order to gain a slight advantage over others.  How many of us will exceed the speed limit or squeak through a changing traffic light to gain a small advantage.  If we’re truly honest, we can see how often small examples of cheating creep into our behavior, all of which can be traced back to that basic biologic drive, survival.  Whether or not we are willing to recognize the many small infractions, survival of the fittest rules the day and we all want to be one of the fittest.
It’s been previously suggested that people are basically dishonest, not in all ways or in all situations, but in small ways like driving a bit over the speed limit.  While a person may routinely engage is such “small” infractions of honesty, many of us justify it as common behavior that everyone does and would never engage in higher levels of dishonesty such as theft.  But hold on, we might be tempted to fudge a bit on our income tax return.  After all, millionaires with clever lawyers and accounts sometimes get away with paying little or no tax. at all.  It isn’t fair that they can get away with such gross tax avoidance just because they can afford crafty experts while the small guy who can’t afford such assistance should feel guilty overestimating contributions to charity or medical costs in order to save a few bucks.  Small and seemingly harmless straying from the straight and narrow may be discounted by many, “routinely honest” people but in truth, even these small matters are dishonest.  There is no sense to the concept of being relatively honest.  Thus, my contention is that people, surely not everyone, but most of us are basically dishonest.  We are all strongly driven to survive.  But, how does this lead into our propensity for violence?

While most of us never become overtly violent, it appears that most of us are fascinated with violence to the extent that it comprises  much of our attention in the areas of entertainment and interest in news stories.  If you do even a quick survey of movie choices available on TV, you will soon realize that the warnings of violence or extreme violence is appropriate for most, 80% in a quick survey I recently conducted.  Likewise, news articles focused on acts of violence attract the largest audience, not stories of kindness and compassion.  In fact, it’s even difficult to find the later.  The entertainment business and the news business are in business to make money and what they produce reflects what the public demands, case closed, we crave experiencing violence, not for real, but certainly as observers.

This desire for engaging in violence as only an observer creates an atmosphere or environment that may well be a trigger for sending an unstable person, such as teenager, on drugs and playing violent video games, in the direction a taking a gun to school and engaging in some real, exciting violence.

When speaking of why we’re violent, we need to recognize that we are speaking of the world’s entire population of all humans who have ever lived.  We are speaking of a behavior of the species not simply one segment, whether ethnicity, era of earth’s history, religion, political, mental health or any other specific segment.  In order to initiate such a discussion, let’s take a look at a very crude estimate of all causes of human death, historically.  I say this is necessarily a crude estimate because precise statistics, particularly in the thousands of years considered pre-history, don’t exist.  The excellent book “The Mosquito” by Timothy Winegard is an account of how the mosquito has accounted for approximately 50% of all human deaths worldwide.  Beyond that 50%, it’s suggested that approximately another 10%-20% of human death can be  reliably accounted for by other major causes including other diseases, war, accidents, suicide and homicide. Senescence may account for about another 20%.  However, these  figures are based only on modern data, mostly data since 1900.  My guess is that these estimates fail to include large numbers from pre-history and the large category of undetermined.  Nevertheless, in spite of the estimated nature of these data, they will be used in comments to follow.

Historically, humans killed other humans at about the same rate as did other primates, i.e. about 3-4% of human deaths could be directly attributed to human on human violence.  While that figure appeared to climb as high as 12% during the “bloody” Medieval period, in recent years as we have become more organized (“civilized”?), the figure has apparently fallen off to slightly under the prehistory rate to 2-3%.  Naturally, there are great variations in this rate across the globe from society to society, with Iceland at one end of the spectrum and Somalia at the other. The recent rate of homicide was reported to be 4.9/100,000 population in the U.S.. This can be compared to the U.K. with a rate of 0.9/100,000 and Japan with a rate of 0.3/100,000.

Reasons for homicides are numerous but can be organized, for discussion purposes, into 3 main categories, sexual/interpersonal lust or jealousy, financial greed or the pursuit of power,. In looking at the animal kingdom overall, it’s reported that the meerkat was the species that was most often killed by its own kind  where “nearly one in five meerkats, mostly youngsters, lost their lives at he paws and jaws of their peers.  Disclaimer, because I am only reporting a conclusion from a non-scientific journal, I can’t attest to it’s accuracy.  However, if that report is factual, it suggests that the meerkat kills to eliminate different blood lines from its realm, much the same way as a new male gorilla winning over a new harem is said to kill all the babies.  Could this be in the category of sexual/interpersonal lust or perhaps the pursuit of power.  Only the meerkats and gorillas really know.  In the case of humans, the motive for homicide is usually readily identified, i.e., sexual/interpersonal lust when a wife or girlfriend finds a new lover, financial greed when theft is involved and pursuit of power when a king is murdered by another in line for the throne.  Murder by religious fanatics is quite a different matter.  In this case they are often driven by the belief that their religion expects that of them but in truth, this is also probably in pursuit of power.  But, what about the teenager who takes a gun into school and pointlessly takes innocent lives?  Is that person also seeking power but in a very self destructive way?  In his lust for recognition, he has not only inflicted great harm and tragedy on innocent families, some of which he doesn’t even know, but he has effectively destroyed his own life and maybe the lives of other family members.  Such a case may be representative of another homicide motive category, non-specific mental illness.  Drugs, alcohol or simply insanity could be behind such murders.

I need to bring up another matter that bothers me and that could conceivably be behind some homicides but, at least, are most certainly behind psychological, if not physical, cruelity.  I’m referring to the extreme extent of negativity that exists today in our society.  Led my the heated level of political animosity, the hate Trump movement and the disgusting, corrupt, behavior of the Washington establishment, our population is more divided than it has ever been.  This extreme negativity has fractured families and ruined careers. It’s my impression that more people display “hate” now than ever before in my lifetime.  This is bad for mental health and, in reality, can harm the hater more than the hated.  Hans Selye described the many harmful effects that the stress induced by hate can have on the human body while, on the other hand, Normal Vincent Peele described the Power of Positive Thinking.  Here we have two opposite effects of human emotion that undoubtedly have pronounced medical consequences.

In conclusion, my advise to the world would be to be positive in thought and action. Reject negativity. Disavow the temptation to hate and finally,  respect and treat all other as you would like to be treated. Even if you’re nonreligious, “The Golden Rule” would seem to be the most “rational” piece of advise to chip away at human violence.