Philosophy of Genetics.

I'm not sure why I dislike sunny days. I find myself tired, drowsy, and lethargic when I see the brightness outside. I'm enjoying the heat, mind you. I just wish it wasn't so bright. I want to go jogging outside, but it's so damned bright. Some clouds with a bit of cool breeze would be perfect about now.

Um, I guess something Sciency? I recently listened to this talk on CBC Radio. It was a lecture series known as the 2009 CBC Massey Lectures. They presented the first lecture, known as the Season of the Brown Hyena. It was about the importance of preserving language. As you all know a language dies out every 14 days. At this rate about 3500 languages, or half the spoken languages in the world, will be extinct by the year 2100. This is really appalling, but also understandable in the highly interactive and influential way we live these days. Some might say that it's natural for languages to die out, and have been doing so for ages. But what a shame it would be for such unique way of expressing the human experience were to disappear forever. The lecturer, Wade Davis, explained that ancient civilizations are NOT failed attempts at trying to evolve or civilize human beings to what we are today. Rather they were, and should be seen as, unique ways of expressing the fundamental question that we all ask: What does it mean to by Human? That thought really touched me. It made me see differently from the idiocentric view we have in this modern world of ours. Each culture is a unique way of expressing the human experience. And to lose a language means to lose one of those beautiful worlds. As you could already see, we can't talk about language without talking about culture. And genetics! In fact, this lecture was not only about language, but also went deeply into DNA, which surprised me. I love how intertwined all these areas of study are. As if we were all digging tunnels into this large mountain, and somehow we all met at the centre. One of the most interesting things Davis said was that not too long ago, maybe as recently as the 1960s, the concept that different races of people came from different species of human was prevalent even in the community at large. When Darvin came up with his theory one thing people had trouble accepting was that all humans - Africans, Irish, Samoans - all came from a single ancestor. That we were all the same. The beauty of DNA analysis was that it showed, once and for all, in the most beautiful philosophical way, that there was no such thing as race. The differences between us were purely geographical. Except for minor differences, we see that all humans are the same. This means that if the entire human species were to go extinct, we could still repopulate and rebuild our species with just the blood of, say, the the Vedda peoples of Sri Lanka. From their people we could recreate the Chileans all the way to the Manchurians of China. Anyway, I won't go on too much about this because I really think you should listen to the lecture. The next post I'm hoping to talk about the San peoples of southern Africa, who might descendants of be the original Homo Sapiens.

In an additional note, damn New Zealand! I'm done with you. I'm not even gonna talk to you until later this year. I'm glad you've got no games until November (or whatever), it'll give you time to think. Bring back Shane Bond. Ugh.