Transition

CopyRight @ 1997 There are two kinds of truth. The truth of the heart and the truth of the head. If a truth satisfies both the intellect and emotion, you will believe it is Truth. This book includes an analysis of: Human Ecology Human Genetics Human Survival Strategies, known as Moralities Humans and Religion Everyone knows that the world is changing. We are heading into the unknown and anyone aware of it must know some hope and some fear. We know a little bit about where we have come from. We certainly don't know where we are going let alone the path to get there. This book is to describe one view of humans surviving into the future based on a biological analysis of the problem. It is based on the question of how can humans again achieve a stable ecology. We will not survive if we do not. Putting it in the context of ecology allows one to use many of the tools of science to analyze and describe the problem. Humans will have to adapt by learning new survival methods and habits. Humans will also have to adapt genetically. The amazing thing is that the potentials are far greater than you might expect. Humans can easily become far more than most people would imagine. They will have to. Unfortunately, balanced against that great potential will be the need to adapt a great deal, rapidly. There are some great dangers coming, including disease, that humans are going to be very vulnerable to. If humans want to live as and be more than animals, they are going to have to think and act as more than animals. This book is many things. Part of what this book is, is a description of a Moral Philosophy of Survival. Moral is defined as that which is good. Here, survival in an evolutionary sense, is defined as good. There are a number of well known moral philosophies based on a number of different premises and ideas, but if you research them you will not find any that include a foundation of science. Science was just not well enough developed yet. This description of a Moral Philosophy is based on human survival and biology. It is written as a description of human genetics and beliefs in the context of major challenges to human existence. It is a moral philosophy based on understanding human life and survival. It is far more complicated than most Moral Philosophies. Most moral philosophies are based on rather limited foundations. That does not mean that they are wrong, it means that they are based on limited supports from history or with limited supports of reason and detail. They all have to promote survival or they would not exist. The problem is that moral authority has always been based on authority and precedence, but in this skeptical time, must be based on reason and understanding. The pieces of that have just not been available until recently. This philosophy is based on a broad foundation of biological sciences, humanities, reason and an understanding of existing moralities. Existing moralities are considered in terms of survival. This book also examines many aspects of traditional, historical and sometimes obscure survival strategies. It is not about any one Moral System. Humans are diverse and it must describe many different ways to live. The purpose is to categorize and describe methods of survival and their consequences. Like all science, this is to explain something. As a philosophy, I'll call it Anthropedia, a collection of knowledge about humans. It is about heredity and genetics, morality and philosophy, but most of all it is about survival. While it is true that the skeleton of this book is biology, it's source is inspiration, just like so much of what is human. It's muscle is intellect, but its strength is based on humanity's faith in itself. At it's heart is love, which is so important to human survival. The problem is that humans are already in the crisis that threatens our survival, so this must be more than a collection of information. It must be an analysis of what we face and what we can do about it. As said before, though the dangers are great, the potentials are far greater. First though, a word about heredity Sometimes, context is everything.     Preface added 02/16/06.     I've worked on this book for so many years and have always been amazed that no one else had already written it. Sure it's a bit complicated, but it is obvious in so many ways. Well, I found out the explanation of why that is so. It was written by C. D. Darlington, the great British Geneticist whom I borrow a lot from in this book. It explains a lot and puts this book in context. It also defines a critical requirement I have to fulfill in this book. It has to do with what he referred to as the Three Great Lies of Science.     Darlington said that there were three great lies in science. These three topics were taboo and would get you driven from science if you discussed them. He said that perpetuating these lies distorted all of science and the human beliefs that come from them. Since these lies are about humans, this has placed a limit on what humans can understand and distorts our values, including values critical to survival. The consequences and dangers of this distortion cannot be underestimated.     The first lie was about humans being animals, something that Darwin and Huxley finally brought out. The second lie was about human sexuality. This held sway until at least the 1930's before it could be examined in academia without punishment (Such as The Kinsey Report). The third lie is about human heredity. For many reasons, but mostly accommodation, the peoples and nations have decided to ignore the differences between races, tribes, peoples, even men and women. This distorts the views of humanity that we are able to make. It is a huge limitation upon us, but in hindsight, perhaps this is good. Racial interactions appear to be a rather rough sort of Darwinian win-lose proposition. The gain of one comes from the loss of another's. So we are locked in this struggle of denial, even as the genetic researchers find, one after another, genes that influence every aspect of human existence, especially behavior. As this book is to explain, there are circumstances that can remove the problem of racial conflict implicit in this kind of racial recognition. Not only can we admit to the differences, but we must to survive. Understanding the concept of this book makes chauvinistic racism mostly meaningless. The message of this book must be understood, because it includes an understanding of heredity and race that we will need for survival as well as some astonishing potentials beyond survival.     I did not know about those taboos, so I studied human nature and genetic differences. I learned how the genes fit in to what we are and what that means. I studied this in the context of trying to figure out how humans could create a stable ecology. This is not about saving the environment, though that will likely be an important part of it. This is about creating a stable human ecology that humans can survive and grow in. We mostly have not had one in thousands of years and by definition, that is a dangerous place for any specie to be. We have to find a new way we can survive. We have to make the transition to a new ecology. This is the basis of this book from beginning to end. To offer a useful description of human heredity, it must be described in three ways. First is in terms of genetics, science and reason . Second, it is about basic survival so it must be communicated in terms of emotion and morality. Finally, it must offer a different result than what has been offered by 'Social Darwinism'. This cannot be a science in a moral vacuum. The issue of races must be clearly addressed in a way that leads to something of benefit for all, not conflict. Note that the arguments for Social Darwinism and chauvinistic racism are not illogical, inherently false or even unnatural. It is new factors that are a bit more complicated, that change the situation. Those old arguments get superseded and their results would waste incredible opportunities, let alone perhaps preclude long term human survival. These new factors have to do with issues of disease and genetics, but are described in terms of morality and survival. As a later note, the recent around the world studies of the genetic makeup of individuals such as by National Geographic are showing that appearances of race may be quite deceiving. Racial genetics are distributed far and wide and show up in unexpected places. This is another factor that argues against racial conflict.     There are consequences to this. This extreme distortion of truth has caused extreme distortions in society. There are many places that this is important, but consider just two. The first relates to children and the second relates to religion. In both cases, the denial of the importance and uniqueness of individual human genetics and the inherent value of heredity has lowered the value of the individual. I think this has also lowered the perceived value of children and has contributed to the decline in child raising and its value in Western culture that has been educated with these incomplete premises. The second result of the reduction in individual worth has been the relative increase in the perceived worth of religion, which represents more the survival of groups than the individual. We have not ascribed individuality and individual worth in terms of genetics, so we seem only aware of a sort of mystical nature and worth. This has all contributed to a very short term point of view in everything we do. That is besides all other the mis-formed social, educational, political, etc. policies and philosophical views created based on this faulty information. Then again, the other option may have been racial wars.     Of course you might not think that there are still forbidden questions in science. How could it even be done? How could there be such a conspiracy and how could it work? How could this important knowledge be expunged from academia? It's very simple. If someone wants to examine heredity, they are simply called a racist or perhaps a Nazi. These days that will cause academic and social ostracism. I suspect that in Darwin's day, someone studying life as separate from God's creation, was simply called an atheist. Today, it doesn't matter if one honestly and for the benefit of humans, studies heredity and race, they are simply labeled a racist and rejected. There is no distinction made between a student of heredity and a chauvinistic or jingoistic racist. Realize that though this study finds that what is thought of as racism is becoming meaningless and will become more dangerous to survival as time goes on, the commonest reaction to it will be a knee jerk reaction that this is just a racist document and so by definition is evil. Heredity is still a forbidden topic, but it must be examined. We are lucky that not only is there an alternative to Social Darwinism, but that the alternative shows how and why each race should be glad the others exist and can contribute to all humanity's survival. If someone tells you that the study of heredity is racism, understand that it is just a thoughtless reaction that they were trained to give. Then once this issue of heredity is understood, when we have a more realistic understanding of humans, perhaps we can approach the 'Fourth Forbidden Topic In Science'. That is considered below. Transition Since humans created agriculture, animal husbandry and cities, we have lived in a fundamentally changing ecology that is not stable and that we are not adapted to. So this book is formed about how we can again achieve a stable ecology that we are adapted to. Some of that is about what we will require in an ecology and part of it is about what humans will have to do to adapt genetically and behaviorally to survive the Transition to this new ecology. Fortunately, an analysis of human ecology and technology suggests that we have most of the components we will require to create a long term stable ecology. We are mostly missing an adequate energy source and some technical skills. Unfortunately, the same analysis shows that we are in extreme danger and that we have a great deal of genetic and behavioral adaptation we must accomplish regardless of the material resources we have available. Luckily, all the pieces are in place for not just survival, but also great development. Currently, humans are very like they have been for all their history. We are very limited and basically tribalists. Still, we have developed new philosophies and understandings. Also, the changing ecology has created new selective pressures and new potentials that have caused extremely rapid genetic adaptation and evolution. The first problem is that much of what we call human progress, especially medicine, have come to act to negate natural selection. This will naturally lead to a genetic disaster and it is not as far off as you might think. In that, humans face their most basic challenge to surviving as more than animals. This is what the first part of the book is about. Humans are not only their genes and instincts. The mark of a human is that we survive by what we know and believe. We survive by the use of learned survival strategies called Moralities. This is the second problem we must solve and the second part of the book. The question is do we have or can we develop a survival strategy and method, or morality, that will allow us to survive into the future ecologies. It seems that we do have at least one existing morality that will. The problem is that most existing moralities, most of which are known as religions, are based on precedence and authority. For many reasons, in the future, moralities will also have to be based on logic and reason or they will not be used. Describing the reason and logic of morality has required a lot of analysis and work. Just as humans use logic and reason to verify truth, humans have ways to verify moralities. I try to tell people what they already know, but have never been able to put into words. Here are the words. Many people, especially when young, feel that there is a better way for humanity to act and survive. Many people have looked for these same answers in many places, especially religion. Religions can provide many answers about how a person can live, but no explanations about why. If you are a person who needs explanations, you will need to look further. Science is a great tool for developing an understanding of the unknown. Unfortunately, the question of how humans can survive, is incredibly complicated and little science about it has been developed. Many people have devoted their lives to trying to figure it out though and we can stand on their shoulders. The basic concepts behind how genetics work are quite recent and have not been integrated with the rest of human knowledge. What would it look like if religion was compared to our scientific knowledge of life and survival? What would it look like if our scientific knowledge of life and survival was compared to our religion? Understand, this exploration took the path of science rather than the path of religion, but because it is a view of morality, where it ended up would look very familiar to any person of faith. How familiar is for you to decide, but I did the same thing that so many people have done when they wanted to understand more than what they were taught as children. All of this is supposed to sound familiar, because it is something that you have thought of before, but have not been able to put into words or make complete. I'll tell you up front that much of what we need to know about human survival relates to what makes us human, morality and genetics. Most of the rest of the required information has already been well explored. Originally, I asked "why is that person different from me"? But then I was trained as a biologist and I put the question in another form. I then asked "how could humans again achieve a relatively stable ecology that we can survive in"? I asked that first question over 33 years ago. What I found since then might amaze you. Many unexpected and very important answers arise about human potential and hazard. Bibliography... and how I came up with this, such as it is. If you are interested in this topic, you can email me at seahunt@diver.net. The First Section of this book is a number of summaries: The General Summery (an overview of the book) Summary of Human Ecology Genetics and Artificial Selection An Examination of Morality The Issue of Racism, Short and Long Term Ecological Conclusions and An Examination of How We Can Survive The second section is about human ecology and genetics as they are and how they came to be that way. It is the basic foundation of the book. It follows the summaries because they were long enough on their own. The third section is about how genetics and human ecology will be. The fourth section is a look at human survival strategies in terms of biology and common behavioral responses to the ecology. This includes things like marriage, cooperation, status, etc. The last section looks at these same strategies, but in terms of human moral systems and survival. In the 5 chapters of the Second Section of the book, the first chapter describes something about the massive "Changes" going on in the world. The next two chapters talk about what humans are and how they have gotten to this point, through "Pre-history" and "History". Socially, we are still basically tribalists. The fourth chapter talks about our use of "Technology" in terms of the resources we use to survive and the limitations these impose. These chapters are all just to lead up to the fifth chapter, which talks about "Genetics and Natural Selection". This is the kicker. The human world has undergone massive change, but human genetics change much slower. This is where the book really starts. In biological terms, natural selective effects have drastically changed. This book is about how must respond to these changes. We have a genetic disaster coming soon and a disaster from disease coming sooner. The solution to that problem though, will open up other potentials. We can become more than tribalists and almost certainly must. There are amazing potentials that can be easily realized. That is what leads to the Second Part of the book, which is about how humans can develop morally to survive in a post tribal society. Currently, the Fifth Section of the book is the Morality Monographs that examines individual topics of morality and applies the patterns from the genetic and morality studies to each topic. Here I try to offer judgment based on the foundation already created. Remember that when all is said and done about genetics and morality, this started as a question of how humans could survive the problem of disease. Trying to solve that, led to recognition of the problems and amazing potentials of human genetics. Numerically, the population density of civil populations is the biggest change in human ecology. The next biggest is antibiotics. Both of those change the biggest selective factor effecting humans and present out biggest immediate challenge. The equation is simple. The increased population density and increased population numbers of the city ecology, equals massively increased vectors for the spread of disease. Human memory may not be long enough to remember, but civil humans have always been ruled by disease. That has not changed, but must. We will adapt behaviorally and genetically. The equation of humans is dominated by the high investment of raising children. This has increased with our technology. We cannot afford to pay the price of disease, because it is our very lives and the lives of our children. The Last section of the book. Well, it's a different conversation altogether. It is the Fourth Forbidden Subject of Science. Please understand that there is a roughness to this that is unavoidable, because I am absolutely crushed for time. I work, go to school, have 2 young children and a house that needs work as well as other people that depend on me. I do what I can and don't have a clue what's on TV. The primary intent is to get this book down in type and re-write it as I can. I have learned that anything I write, must be re-written in reverse order that the ideas come out in the first write. It is just a characteristic of my writing, but it means that everything must be re-written at least once and any writer knows it takes far more than that. It takes time that I just do not have. I do what I can. If you want finished writing, go to the diving side. Why This Was Written     Current working form of the book as of 03/10/04 This is not current. Work has been moved off line and the book has been re-written up to the monographs, but it is here, it just needs more time and work.     Update 11/17/04. Work is now on the Morality Monographs. You might want to check it out. It is the conclusion after all the initial science foundation was written. Section 1 - Summaries These summaries actually cover most of the book. 03/08/08 - Actually, at this point, they are meant to be the book. They are just missing the morality Monographs. Summary --- Just start here. Human Ecology Summary Genetics and Artificial Selection Morality Summary A Near Human Future (Was Racism Essay) Another Human Future A Survival Guide Section 2 - Human Ecology and Genetics Details These chapters are many years old, but they contain the original human ecology and genetic material that is the beginning of the book. They are the start of the book and are also quite current. This is the first half of the foundation of the book The original book was to be 9 chapters long with chapter 9 being about morality. In its present form, the morality section has somewhat taken over the book, but these chapters about human ecology and genetics are still the beginning of the book and still are where it must start. Chapter 1. Introduction Chapter 2. Pre-Historic Humans Chapter 3. Historic Humans Chapter 4. Technology and Energetics Chapter 5. Reproduction and Selection Human Evolution Artificial Selection. It Is Already Happening Section 3 - Human Beliefs and Survival Methods These chapters are just observations of how humans operate and survive. These are behavioral processes described in terms of strategies common to many species in different ecologies. In the Morality monographs, they are described again, but in terms of them being elements of morality, rather than ecology. This is the second part of the foundation of this book. They are mostly current and they really do need to be fit in to this book. All it takes is time. Morality Summary - use parts Morality of Survival- Inclusive fitness Morality Introduction- redundant, emptied Chapter 6. Human Belief- institutions, follows morality Chapter 7. Chapter 8. Chapter 9. Section 4 - Morality This is what is built on the foundation of the last section. Morality Monographs- This is where the current work is going on. 11/22/04 03/15/07 A friend of mine got me to examine the question of God. It took me three years. It produced a very interesting view of a possible human destiny that is considered above. The conclusions are very speculative, but by itself, it is one of the most interesting examinations I have made. This is like nothing you have ever read. I think you might find it fascinating. What its deeper meanings might be are for the reader to decide. It does put some things in context and it is guaranteed to make you wonder. Oh, and best of all, it's about artificial selection, my favorite. It is written as four or so essays. They have not been re-written from the end as they must be, but I want to get back to the core of the book about human surivival as fast as I can so these are being put aside for the time being. I'm getting close to the end of my book. I am looking foreward to coming back to these though. About God - The Fourth Forbidden Subject of Science.     At this time, this section is basically storage. These are the Unfinished Morality Notes written for the Morality section of this paper. The 'Human Ecology Summary' above is the 'finished' form that derived from these notes. These were written over a period of many years. Some are pertinent, some are repetitive, some are ... odd, all are disorganized. They are put here mostly as part of a process that is supposed to lead to a summary that organizes them and states the conclusions I have reached. Really, they are an accumulation of rough data about methods humans have used to survive. The conclusions are a bit different from the data here. It represents a lot of try, much creativity, many restarts, many failures and much frustration. Make a part about humans, beliefs, factors that could be skipped, but is before the end of the morality or is an appendix Some Forward Stuff- probably gunk Some Notes - gone P6 Morality - 1 - good intro to beliefs. Add rat and irrat P6 Beliefs - 1 - couple good parts P6 Beliefs - 2- some parts, mostly elsewhere, but confirm at end P6 Morality - 2 - Look at when done. Make mono about castes. P6 Freeway - really about nuances of meaning of behaviors P6 Human Conciousness- beginning could make paragraph mono. At end are D Brin's memes=Mono P6 The Meme - some of this could make a mono P6 War - gone P7 Institutions - long summary, should make mono p7 Organizations- not much, but look ar when make organization mono P8 Selection - gone Stable Ecology Notes-About the next stable ecology* Some Stable Ecology - Notes about what morality is-empty pprint.htm* P9 More Morality Stuff-mine a couple comments on morality-empty P9 Some Notes- good comment on morality and on institutions- empty P9 Reproduction-some next stable ecology - empty P9 Tre- 3 monos and parts - drugs, priests, selfishness P9 Parts- some parts are edible P9 City-stuff P9 Stable Ecology-gunk P9 Gladiators-should make monograph about competition in society P9 Introduction 1-gunk P9 Introduction 2- some history of conciousness stuff P9 Ownership-same repetitive gunk, but needs a monograph P9Power-repetitive junk except for first paragraph P9Paradoxes-good moral questions P9 Zabble-gunk P9 Some Teaching Notes- gunk P9 Some Technology Notes -hould be short essay in resources P9 Men and Women-leave Definitions - gunk Economic speculation-leave Some Biases- gunk *Marriage And Reproductive Strategy Birth - moved out 03/10/2004 - obsolete Wealth and Beauty - moved out 03/10/2004 - obsolete God - moved out 03/10/2004 - obsolete book bookcut Back To Home Page