Helping Our Fragile Cousins - The Bonobos

I've been a loyal reader of Bonobo Handshake, Vanessa Wood's spectacular blog on her Bonobo research in Africa. Bonobo's are apes similar to Chimpanzee's in DNA but very different in behavior. Bonobos and Chimps were separated approximately 2 million years ago and have taken slightly different evolutionary paths. Bonobos, Chimps and Humans share a common ancestor and they are both the closest living relatives to Humans.

What makes Bonobos different from Chimps is that they are way less violent (they do not kill each other), they use sex as a form of communication, conflict resolution and for just plain old fun. They live in a remote area of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and sadly there are only approximately 5000 of them left. Local Congolese hunt them for meat largely because of hunger. Due to war and chaos in the region there has been no local effort to protect the Bonobos. Protecting the Bonobos requires local support because of the Malaria infested areas of the remote jungle that they live in.

Claudine Andre founded Lola ya Bonobo, a forest sanctuary, to protect orphan Bonobos (orphaned when their parents are killed for meat). I have wanted to adopt a Bonobo for over a year now and a few days ago I adopted Kataco aka Kata. What the heck... let's make it in celebration of Darwin's birthday!!

Humane research is done on the Bonobo's at the sanctuary and they are working on a program to release them into the wild. As this will be needed in the future if their numbers dwindle.

For a breath-taking video on the abilities of Bonobo's check out this video on TED by Susan Savage.

Look how cute the baby Bonobos are... can you resist helping them?





















By Peter

The Human Bias

People believe because they can think of the concept of an omniscient agent that we must only question whether an omniscient agent exists and not consider the more fundamental question of whether omniscience can exist.

As scientists, we know that omniscience cannot exist. This is because of the Uncertainty Principle. The Uncertainty Principle defines a boundary to the knowledge that we (or any agent) can posses. If we cannot know, simultaneously, the position and velocity of a particle then no agent can possess that knowledge and therefore there are no omniscient agents. Consider this proof of the negative assertion that there IS NO GOD.

Upon entering a period of deep philosophizing it is important to remember that all your intelligent rational cognition is biased by the simple fact that you are a human being. Hunger and beauty can distract your thinking, not to mention countless other innate mental processes.

Humans have five standard basic questions that they apply to any object of their consideration: who, what, why, where and when. Conveniently the five Ws in English. I have a feeling that the Universe is such a place that the 5Ws do not apply to ever situation.

I have been considering for a long time that it is distinctly possible that the question "Why did the Universe come into existence?" is an invalid question. There may not be a why! At the moment of the Big Bang there was not sufficient complexity in the universe to cognate the question why and therefore it may be invalid for us 14 billion years later to ask a question which could not be posed during the time span of the questions context.

Similarly, if the Big Bang is the correct theory (as opposed to the Big Bounce) then the question "What happened before the Big Bang" is invalid. The moment of the Big Bang was also the moment in which time was created. Therefore, there cannot be anything before the Big Bang.

Here is a down to earth example of an invalid question: "Why is the red crayon green?". Clearly, this is an invalid question or trick question that does not have a real answer it only has trivial answers like "The red crayon is not green" which really is not an answer to the posed question. There is no answer to the question.

Our Universe and its physical constants and equations may exist because there is a multitude of other possible universes in existence, that we cannot interact with, that have different Laws of Physics. This would explain why our Universe is tuned as it is but this does not explain why there is existence. A question for which I maintain an open mind. Also, consider that it may be impossible for there to be absolute non-existence which may explain why there IS existence.

By Peter

President Obama's Inauguration

I've been reading Naomi Klein's Shock Doctrine (about half way through) which details many occasions in the past three decades where democratically elected leaders turned on their respective populations much to the disappointment of those peoples. However, the election of Barack Obama, in my opinion, is certainly a victory for the people. The President of the USA has less power than the Prime Minister of Canada, so if you are expecting rapid fire change it won't happen. Obama is an Executive and needs to herd the cats of Congress in order to make anything happen.

The Shock Doctrine, which details the story of how US multinationals with the assistance of the CIA, IMF and World Bank have been causing economic shocks around the world and taking advantage of the situation to reap billions in profits by forcing other countries to sell off their public assets for pennies on the dollar to American multinational corporations in exchange for IMF and World Bank loans. Torture has been a standard but hidden weapon of this three decade onslaught on the standard of living of peoples around the world. Ford motors even tortured it's union employees on the factory premise in Chile for many years.

Under GW Bush torture went public. Under Obama my hope is that torture will again go underground where it's practitioners will have less victims and they may be held liable for their illegal actions. To stop the CIA from torturing or teaching other security officials how to torture will take more than a change in the American President. The CIA developed a manual on modern torture methods code named Kubark based on scientific research developed at McGill University (funded by the CIA and the Canadian government) in Canada in the 1950s. By closing Guantanamo Bay, Obama can send a message to the CIA that under his administration he will not tolerate torture and if the CIA is careless they may face prosecutions. In case you are unclear on the morality of torture, I will remind you that what "we" do to the enemy, the enemy will do back to our soldiers. And worse, the US government has tortured several US and Canadian citizens, either directly or by sending them to remote facilities beyond the eyes of Amnesty International. Once the torture institutions are created it's impossible for any citizen to know whether or not they will wind up in such a facility regardless of their individual lawfulness. Modern torture is less about extracting information (because information goes stale quickly) and more about destroying an individuals personal beliefs and reverting them to a child like state of helplessness. Many torture victims go insane from the sensory deprivation techniques, not to mention the electroshock therapy.

I do think there will be minor changes to the American health care system. Children will be given universal coverage. Since the Congress already agreed on that and it was vetoed by Bush it should be easy to pass that legislation under Obama. Obama will likely make some moves to reduce the 40+ million uninsured and temporarily reduce medical costs by forcing insurance companies to bulk buy prescription medicine. But I highly doubt he would nationalize the health care system as was done in Canada decades ago. America just nationalized the banking and insurance systems and there won't be a climate to tolerate further nationalizations.

Among us atheists we know the only real and important change involves the US government changing their standard lies on two fronts.

Front #1, Religion. Obama is religious, officially, but like many Christians, I know, I doubt their open professing of their faith because, as Sam Harris mentioned in End of Faith, you cannot choose what to believe. Obama is clearly very intelligent and we should expect that he has made the calculation that to be a credible black man he needs to be Christian. His mother was an Atheist and I would be suspect that Obama himself may be a closet Atheist. Although my tolerance for listening to religious rhetoric was exceeded half way through Rick Warren's speech I thought it was an intelligent move by Obama to sandwich himself between two preachers. By doing this it removed the pressure on him to say anything too religious. I thought his mentions of God in his speech were well placed and in the appropriate context. He never said he was on a mission from God or anything extreme like that. It's well known by students of political speeches that words or phrases are used to send hidden messages that would be unpopular if the message was explicitly delivered. I accused John McCain of such a hidden message in October. Obama mentioned that non-believers formed part of America. This is a change in direction from Bush who never mentioned non-believers and allowed his messengers to paint non-believers as un-American, in the same way his father did. I also thought it was telling that he mentioned Muslims before Jews and that he even mentioned Hindus because Hindus have been as invisible as non-believers. Obama sent us a message that he is our friend and he put Rick Warren on stage to shield himself from religious criticism. Expect more extremely moderate religious positions from Obama; remember how he made fun of people who want to legislate from the bible by verbally sharing hilarious parts of the bible. Could an Atheist get away with that?

Front #2, Marijuana. Over the course of history that have been many truths which have been hidden from the people by bold faced lies in order for the ruling class to maintain it's grip on power. In case you are ignorant on the subject, marijuana is an herbal medicine that causes no harm to people and has many beneficial qualities including medicinal benefits. It's not dangerous, yet dangerous substances like alcohol, cigarettes, pharmaceutical medicines, toxins and pollutants are legally sold. The lies of religion are integral in propping up the lie that marijuana is harmful. Multinational corporations in the alcohol and pharmaceutical industries do not want to compete with marijuana because it's a better product than many of their offerings and can be cultivated and sold in a decentralized manner. Multinational corporations have also been trying to hold back many other decentralized projects such as wind and solar power.

The good news is we have the Internet and more ability than ever to pressure the American President and Congress to modernize their way of thinking and give up the charade of religion and the prohibition of marijuana. If this two major lies can be broken then liberty can be truly spread throughout the globe.

By Peter

Congratulations we broke our year-end goal... again!!

Back in September I set a goal of $50,000 in loans by the end of the year. We broke that goal by October 8th. So we adjusted the goal to $150,000. We have now broke that goal!!

Way to go everyone. We are the number 1 team on Kiva in terms of amount loaned. I never doubted for a minute that we could reach our goal and also be the number 1 team in terms of loans (and coolness). It's difficult to describe how much fun and fulfillment I get from being a team member with all of you. I read all the board messages that flood my inbox ;)

Take a minute, on Festivus :), and reflect on the positive impact our team has had on the world in the last 4 months. I've personally witnessed the fact that lending as a team encourages many of us to lend more. Based on the pledges of others I've been encouraged to take a little more from the beer money (or entertainment) pile and put it towards the Kiva loans pile, which is superb!

What's next? The Kiva Obama Team has bought into our idea of Loan-A-Thons and challenged us to a "Loan-Off". Our Loan-A-Thon will be Dec 31 (New Year's Eve) and Jan 1 (New Year's Day)the 48 hour period from noon on Dec 31st until noon on Jan 02, Pacific time (Kiva time :) which would be 3:00 PM Dec 31th until 3:00 pm on Jan 02 EST). I vote for tracking based on Eastern Time Zone (I guess I'm biased) but using that timezone will probably accommodate the Obama team since Washington DC is in that time zone (I'm pretty sure) I agree with Jennifer from our team, let's to Pacific Time since that is the timezone Kiva uses. The Obama Loan-A-Thon is on January 20, inauguration day. And probably the day before or after (maybe someone from team Obama could put a comment on this blog to let us know).

What's after New Years? We set a really large goal for 2009 and try and collectively tap into the other atheist communities and get them to join our cause. I'm still trying to get PZ Myers from the Pharyngula blog to accept my gift certificate. Any help in bringing it to his attention would be greatly appreciate ;)

Cheers,
Pete
Team Captain

Tell Children The Truth About Santa

I do not have any children, yet, but I pledge to tell them the truth about Santa Claus from the beginning. I will not pretend/lie that Santa Claus is a real person who delivers gifts all over the world to children on "Jesus' birth day". In what type of world is that possible? A magical, miracle filled world. But that's not the world we live in and I don't want children to get the wrong idea. I will let them know that Santa Claus is "make-believe" just like Superman and Star Wars.

If we are truly free to believe what we want and pass that onto our children then my children will be in kindergarten debunking Santa Claus. :)

It is a little known fact that the North American aboriginals were raising their children to be well balanced members of their community without spanking or hitting their children before Europeans came to the Americas. Considering that and the reality that we know a whole lot more about the world, history, the nature of life then did our grandparents we should be open to new ideas when it comes to the education and relationships parents have with their children.

I believe that telling children Santa Claus is real when they are young is the first remember-able lie that parents tell their children. When a person is young they are still learning how to remember. This accounts for why we don't remember the earliest years of our childhood.

I still remember the pain of finding out Santa Claus was not real. On reflection I experienced a major episode of cognitive-dissonance. I remember being in complete disbelief of this new fact. If Santa were not real then my parents lied to me? If Santa were not real who gave me those gifts from Santa? Why would they lie to me? Where was the reasoning?

There is no reasoning! All that remains is an ironic similarity between a child's head over heels faith in Santa and an adults head over heels faith in Jesus. The study of Santa and the building of his folklore can be of great interest when contrasted with how other mythical characters such as Jesus developed. There was a Saint Nicholas who was known for his gift giving and after his death was consider a saint for children (as well as sailors and other things) even though he was never formally made a saint. These tidbits of historicity can be pillars of foundation for folklore.

If you are giving gifts to your children and spending quality time with them over the holidays, where is the need to tell them the gifts are from Santa. Tell them it's you! They will love you instead of Santa. Get them to respect you. Let them know other children are not as fortunate and their parents lie to them about Santa. No child will respect you for crafting an elaborate time extensive lie. It's as simple as equating Santa Claus and Mother Goose. Children understand nursery rhymes are not real.

Christians started the tradition of tagging a new ideologically based holiday/festival on top of a pre-existing one. Remember Saturnalia? It was the religious (often referred to as pagan) festival of ancient Rome near the end of December. Christian developers placed Jesus' birth day as December 25th so that one holiday could be placed over/next to the already existing holiday. No Christian then or now could determine Jesus' actual "birth day" and this is because Jesus is mythical and was therefore never born in reality. If you would like a reference to a modern religious institution attempting to do the same thing the 4th century Christians successfully accomplished then see Iran. The Iranian New Year (Norooz) which is part of the pre-Islamic culture in Iran and dates back 2500 years (almost a millenium before Islam) is being swarmed by new Islamic public holidays around Norooz to drown out the non-Islamic celebrations.

Perhaps, although I'm speculating, the cultural crafters of Santa Claus (who were Enlightened) had the intention to drown out Baby Jesus with Father Christmas and send the future children (all of us) a hidden message!

My proposal is that we should worship the cell and more specifically the human and plant cells (Eukaryote) during the December holiday season. Tag a new ideologically based celebration to an old one. We should launch an army of atheist/biologist artists to craft the stories, the new traditions, the poems and songs of our new holiday. In the spirit in which the Mitochondria gives energy to the cell we should give gifts symbolic of the energy and love we have for friends and family.

Happy Cell-ebration!!

By Peter

Ravens are smart

The April 2007 edition of Scientific American has a very enlightening article on the intelligence of Ravens. This image is just a small sample. The article explains how Ravens can memorize 1000 places to hide their food they can identify individual Ravens and Humans. They can perform logic and appear to be very intelligent.

Love: A Complex Emotion

What is love? Love is a wonderful and complicated emotion. It doesn't simply come from the ghost in the machine or the soul in our bodies. Nor does it come from a spiritual power or energy. It comes from within humans and higher order organisms from our brains.

You might wonder how it is possible to develop such a strong sense such as love from merely a network of cells. But our cellular network is vast and interconnected and the interaction of this internal network with our external environment makes it possible to experience the emotion of love. It is our five senses that stimulate this beautiful emotion. It is also our innate desire to feel love. Emotions of empathy and sympathy help to facilitate this emotion of love as well as our innate sexual desires. These emotions were all necessary for the development of pair bonds, the parent-child bond, and alliances outside of the family not only in the human species but also in other mammalian species like whales and chimpanzees.

Every human experiences this emotion. It is very real. But in our culture today love is difficult to understand. For thousands of years love has been bound to different belief systems that set rules and ideals for how love came about and how it should be utilized. For so long our ancestors have believed that love is everything but an emotion. That it comes about through practice of certain rituals and traditions. That it is not something that naturally happens but that one must behave in a certain way, such as praying to a sacred higher power, in order to be blessed by such a feeling. What this has done throughout human culture around the world is misinterpreted the true nature of love.

Love does not have to be a difficult emotion. A person can feel love for many things but there are different types of love. Our innate desires facilitate our love for our family members because we are related to them by blood and they care for us and interact with us while we grow. We also feel love for our friends who are not related to us because we build trust and loyalty with them. We can feel love for things we are good at doing such as sports, writing, traveling, and designing. But the most difficult love of all is the pair bond because there is much at stake for each person in the bond. Although there are benefits, the costs are heavy when a pair bond breaks because the bond cannot be repaired the same way a friendship or family relation can.

The exclusive pair bond is complex because it is a fairly new development in human history-- it is only 10,000 years old. Forged in the time when people developed permanent settlements. It formed so couples could improve care for their offspring and to ensure that the offspring were genetically theirs. It was a way to protect a family unit in a human tribe or society and to maintain unity. But today humans are protected by their governments and family units have less responsibility to care for their whole family. It is no longer necessary for parents to wholly focus on the unity of their family because they are aware that a system exists to care for them through taxes and social programs.

The pair bond has lost its significance in this civilized society. Although pairs still desire to have children their focus is not on the unity of their family but on the pair relationship. In a time when careers are important to both men and women because of their education and desire to do what they are good at it seems that the end goal has become skewed. The pair bond has been changed to simply two people coming together for sexual desires and companionship. The meaning of the pair bond has changed but the type of love has not.

If this new pair bond relationship is to work, love needs to be rediscovered as an emotion that can protect this bond. The primitive and ancient meaning of love as a blessing through prayer has disappeared and the desire to form a pair bond simply to build a family unit has faded. People who care less about family unity and more about satisfying their desires need to understand love in a new light and both partners need to understand their love for one another. The way to do this is to express through communication what love means to each other continuously. In this new pair bond love is satisfaction of the desires of sexual pleasure, beauty, friendship (trust and loyalty), work and play.

Family unity is no more. Satisfaction is everything and two people must learn to satisfy each other in order for this type of love to last. Love may be a complex emotion but we must learn to understand and convey what it means to each of us without boundaries and limits.

By Rajvee