The meme gets hammered into our heads from all around us. We are a nation divided. It’s obvious when you look at the map of the Electoral College and see all those red and blue states. It might as well be black and white. Just look at the popular vote and you see a nation split almost 50/50.

You hear it from the pundits. Our nation is on the brink of collapse because the other half of it is completely out of their minds. What’s going to happen? Will the country fall into Civil War? Will there be rioting in the streets? Increased violence along partisan lines? Will America come apart at the seams because half of the country has it so incredibly wrong?

I have to laugh every time this “Nation Divided” meme pops up in the media, and as much as it does appear, I’m laughing a lot. Emphasizing the split in the electorate is such a manipulative play on us citizens. It had me going for quite some time, until I thought about who benefits from us believing this bit of nonsense.

Fundamental Differences

A phrase often repeated in this 2004 election cycle is “fundamental differences.” Each campaign uses this term in order to distinguish their candidate from their opponent. It’s important for the campaigns to constantly remind us that “fundamental differences” exist between the two Presidential candidates, because otherwise we, the public, would not know this.

From the debates this season we know the candidates both believe in strong homeland defense, forging alliances with the rest of the world against terrorism, spreading freedom and democracy, and maintaining America’s leadership status in the eyes of the world. They both want to see a strong economy, access to health care, education, and support of the common good. These are things the candidates wholly agree on.

Where the candidates disagree is on the best methods for achieving these principles. They dispute the timing of the Iraq War, but they both agree that we cannot fail in Iraq. They dispute the tactics used in Afghanistan, but agree that we cannot fail there either. They disagree on the best method for engaging Iran and North Korea in disarmament, but they agree it must be done.

Such differences between the candidates are purely secondary in nature, peripheral. They are nit-picking the details of how to attain our common fundamental objectives. How can so many people characterize us as a Nation Divided, when we agree so strongly on the fundamentals? A common foundation of common principles does not a fractured country make.

We must remember that it serves the needs of the two-party system to emphasize their differences. They must exaggerate their disputes in order to distinguish themselves and split the electorate. If they can define themselves as polar opposites, this will whip their supporters into a frenzy against the other side’s irrationality and lack of principles. It’s easier to unite a political base against a common enemy, then it is to unite it under a common ideology.

Sensationalism

What’s more fun to watch, a well-reasoned, deeply-intellectual and finely-nuanced debate between two highly-educated academics or someone throwing a chair at a talk show host’s face? Which is more instantly gratifying? Which sort of entertainment gets more television play?

The “Nation Divided” meme achieves a more visceral reaction in the viewer. Like murders, terrorism, war, riots, and other sensationalist, attention-grabbing stories, the “Nation Divided” characterization promotes a sense of urgency, of conflict boiling just below the surface of American life. It holds the promise of an explosion of violence that keeps us tuned into the news, lest we not know when it’s coming.

News Networks are failing in their responsibility to provide perspective. Instead of accurately describing America as a country divided over who should be President, they reduce us to a NATION DIVIDED, but we are actually a nation undecided. We are split half-and-half over which of the two individuals being offered as choices, out of the 300 Million of us, is more capable of competently managing our common foreign diplomacy, military engagements, economic welfare, public welfare, healthcare, national security, civil rights, public education, federal road systems, scientific research, world trade, so on and so on.

Is it any wonder, with the smokescreens, misrepresentation of the facts, red herrings, personal attacks, and other rhetorical abuses so pervasive in our Presidential campaigns that Americans are so evenly divided over who’s the best person to fill the position as leader of the free world? This is the only issue dividing us, and like the peripheral issues the candidates nit-pick, it is secondary to the fundamental principles we all share.

These United States

When I look at the maps of the electorate and see this 50/50 split in how they intend to vote, I do not see a nation divided. I see a nation so closely united that it cannot make up its mind. That is a fantastic thing, to think that our candidates and our parties are so similar that the electorate could so easily go either way. We are evenly divided, and in a political environment where we are only permitted two choices, even proportions of support going to each side is symptomatic of a Nation resting smack-dab in the middle.

I love to eavesdrop on my coworkers discussing politics, liberal and conservative. They are respectful, sensitive, willing to concede the problems with their candidate and point out where they disagree with the other candidate. These are not sworn enemies on a battleground locked in some epic deathgrip, but citizens living in the same society, sharing an equal concern for our common well-being.

You know what I see in these thoughtful discussions? I see a population smarter than its government. I see people struggling to maintain faith in a political system that insults their intelligence. These people are the human face of our political system, that thing the media never has to face and our politicians never seem to respect.

All Americans agree on the same principles. Were we split along fundamental lines then the candidates would reflect this. We agree on democracy, equality, America as a leader in the world, fighting terrorism, ending oppression, supporting the public good, educating our children, and guaranteeing quality of life for all our citizens.

This is America, a Nation United with all of its citizens agreeing on these basic principles. We simply nit-pick the degree to which we should pursue these things and the methodology for achieving them.

Why unnecessarily exaggerate our differences? It’s far easier to persuade an opponent when we stipulate our commonalities, put them aside, and then tackle our differences honestly and respectfully. It’s much more efficient than approaching everyone who disagrees with us as being bereft of principles, un-America, or ideologically buffoonish. We could never hope to persuade such mythological beasts to our various viewpoints. How lucky for us that such boogey-men don’t exist, leaving us to enjoy reasonable debate with our neighbors in a celebration of Democracy.

Happy 2004 Election everyone!

Let me begin by warning anyone who intends to see this movie that it does not make any sense. It seems like it will make sense. There’s a plot, there are fantastically effective scenes, great characters, all the components of a great movie… minus a coherent conclusion, and yet Mullholland Drive is David Lynch’s most accessible film, filled with all the bizarre characters, nightmares, and wild dramatic moments that are the trademarks of his work.

The plot, or what appears to be the plot begins with Rita, about to be murdered, but saved by a car accident. She stumbles away in an amnesiatic state and ends up at Betty’s aunt’s home. Betty is staying there while she tries out for parts in Hollywood movies, and she decides to help Rita figure out her identity. Running parallel to this storyline is Adam, a director who’s film is being taken over by the mob. They are demanding he recast the lead actress in his film with their own, and until he does so, they will keep the production shut down.

David Lynch is a master of scenes. He has created some of the most intense moments in cinematic history and contrasted them with moments of beauty to make the audience cry with relief. Adam’s meeting with the mobsters concerning his choice of leading ladies, Betty’s two completely different performances of the same dialogue for her tryout, the Cowboy’s dialogue with Adam on the ranch, and the stage performance at the Silencio Club are all incredible scenes. There are more, smaller scenes, all significant unto themselves, however much we ponder their contribution to the whole.

Naomi Watts, the lead actress, has run the gauntlet in this film. She not only completely switches her character’s personality partway through the movie, but give two drastically different mini-performances of a single scene, illustrating how different the actor’s delivery can make it. In an interview, she talked about how difficult it was to make a scene where her character masturbates while crying, simultaneously disturbing us and evoking sympathy.

The power of Watts’ performance further illustrates the film’s central theme of identity. One character who has lost her identity, another with the ability to become any. Who is the real person, Betty or Diane? Rita or Camille? The film’s setting, Hollywood, emphasizes this theme. A world of illusions, recordings, death pretending at life, denial. Silencio.

The film is profuse with clues hinting at something solid and coherent below the confusion at its surface. The cowboy’s statement about being seen once versus being seen twice. For one person, he appears twice, for another, he appears once. Then there are the malicious supernatural beings, the old laughing couple, and the monster behind the diner. There is the blue box, the key, memories or reality? The stage performance where a woman continues to sing although she has expired? The waitress at the diner’s nametag and its significance? The closing credits dedicate the film to Jennifer Syme? Silencio.

Each viewing reveals more clues, more connections. A web of settings seem to tie the mobsters to Betty. Like dots begging to be connected: the cappuccinos, the people, the places, the names, the purse with the money, the limo, all of these dots on the page and our minds seeking to explain them. So many juxtapositions of details, each viewing revealing more. Silencio.

Do they mean anything? I have a hypothesis, and my friends have different ones. Draw your own conclusions, but I guarantee your mind will churn trying to put them all together. Beyond the film’s emotional power, its entertainment value, and its incredible performances, it is its ability to make us think in circles that makes it experimental, daring, and fantastic.

See Also: Jacob’s Ladder, The Lost Highway

I received a great criticism of my website recently, which inspired this article:

I enjoy the Scientific observations articles on your website, but you need to drop the political musings. If you were really scientfically-minded (sic), you wouldn’t be trying to influence your readers to see things your way. Your bias is apparent in your article “Politics Muddling Science” and your list of Scientific organizations. Scientists should merely tell the truth and leave it to policy-makers to draw the appropriate conclusions.

There is, I have discovered, a segment of the scientifically minded population who believe that science is somehow “above” engaging the political arena. Politics, they argue, is about persuasion for gain, while science is concerned purely with empirical observation for its own sake. Science should merely present the world with facts, therefore, and not soil itself with politics.

This perspective betrays a severe lack of understanding of the scientific process and a rather naive idealism of science itself. It is also characteristic of an overt cynicism concerning politics that is completely unjustified. Politics is the means by which we dispute issues with the purpose of achieving an ideal mean. How can a process meant to find the best policies for the common good be inherently bad? Scientists who characterize politics in this manner are equating the process with some of its participants.

Cattle and sheep stock account for 20% of the Earth’s methane production, a greenhouse gas. When a Politician characterizes research into this as studying “cow flatulence” and cuts funding for it, should Scientists object? Should a Scientist, studying the spread of STD’s from community to community through Truckers, keep their mouth shut when a Politician unfairly reduces their work to the study of sex culture?

Scientific research depends almost entirely on government funding. Private Enterprise does not conduct general research. When a Scientist seeks a grant, they are playing politics. They must frame their research in such a way as to emphasize its potential benefits to the collective body of knowledge. They must employ some degree of rhetoric to get government funds.

These are issues where individual Scientists are looking out for their own self-interest in the political arena, but what about issues in the greater social scheme of things? Science is very concerned with issues of environmental sustainability, global warming, and world health. Are Scientists acting inappropriately when they take a position on these issues? Should they not lobby the American Congress or the United Nations for action, but leave it up to the world to stumble across their research in some obscure journal and trust it to do the right thing?

“truth” With a Lower-Case “T”

“What is truth?” Pontius Pilate famously asked at Jesus’ trial, and throughout all of human history we have struggled with defining it. Truth is simultaneously a subjective and objective concept. Subjective, because it differs from person to person conceptually. Objective, because there is ultimately only one truth, the reality that we all share and no one holds a monopoly on understanding it.

The Scientific Process of empirical observations, hypotheses emerging from them, testing through experimentation and disputation, until a theory that satisfies all conditions is the best process we have for working out the details of our common reality. That is not to say it is a perfect process. Just as politics has pundits who will distort the truth for a myriad of reasons such as the pursuit of personal gain, pride, ignorance, or as simply a means to the end, Science has scientists with all of these same personal shortcomings.

Scientists are human beings and they can and do let their personal biases, pride, or other personality flaws influence their interpretations of their results. Scientific journals of peer-review are filled with mistakes that may result from such perceptual distortions, which are quite common and perfectly understandable components of human nature. To raise Science, which comprises the collective body of knowledge gathered by scientists, flawed human beings, onto a pedestal of “Truth” with a capital “T” applies an idealistic infallibility to it.

And cynicism is the last refuge of an idealist.

Democracy is for Everyone

Politicians are not politics. This is so important for people to remember because we so easily fall into a pessimistic rut about the political process. The idea that politics, with its rhetorical appeals and partisanship somehow obfuscates the truth is irrationally cynical.

Political Science, Social Science, polls, random samples, these are the scientific process of politics. It is not perfect, but then no perfect system exists for anything. Disdaining politics for its dysfunctional components is throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

Productive disputation thrives on a cross-pollination of ideas. Democracy thrives on the pursuit of the ideal mean. What makes a politician better equipped than a professor to determine public policy? What makes the opinion of Michael Moore or Rush Limbaugh more significant than someone with a doctorate in any field? We all bring valuable perspectives to the table in our democratic process and all opinions garner equal respect.

48 Nobel Laureates have signed an endorsement for one of our presidential candidates this 2004 election cycle. It was their right to do so. People who respond to this fact with lamentations that “Scientists should stick to science,” are actually exposing a sort of jealousy at the position of respect the Nobel Laureates posses.

Consider the argument often applied to celebrities to discredit their political statements, “What do they know about politics?” This raises my own question: What do politicians know about politics? Our politicians originate from a wide range of backgrounds, they are veterans, farmers, scientists, lawyers, movie stars, so on and so on.

None of our politicians hold degrees in being President or a Congressperson. The most significant degree our politicians hold to qualify them is the law degree, but this does nothing to prepare them for determining public policy and more to do with giving them the rhetorical eloquence needed to persuade. The only qualification a politician has to determine public policy is their virtue of being elected.

So the electorate determines public policy. This makes sense, as we are all components of the public. Collectively we have some idea of what’s best for us. So arguing that some demographic, some component of the public should stay out of the arena flies in the face of Egalitarianism.

If Science is the endless endeavor to refine our understanding of truth, then Scientists should lobby for the truth. When creationists constrain or even prohibit the teaching of evolution in public schools, Scientists not only have the right, but the responsibility to vociferously advocate teaching the truth to our children. When politicians argue for funding institutions that serve the public good, Scientists must make sure the public knows that generalized Scientific Research is an important part of those services.

For Scientists not to take part in Politics is simply intellectually irresponsible.

“To study history one must know in advance that one is attempting something fundamentally impossible, yet necessary and highly important. To study history means submitting to chaos and nevertheless retaining faith in order and meaning. It is a very serious task, young man, and possibly a tragic one.” – Father Jacobus (from Hesse’s “Magister Ludi”)

Evolution is the most important concept in Biology. Understanding how all life on Earth is related to all other life and what truly distinguishes homo sapiens from all other life is crucial to understanding our purpose for existing. Understanding our past helps us to understand the focus of our future.

Without evolution, we are merely taking our modern problems at their face value. Medicine, agriculture, environmentalism, capitalism, democracy, so many dimensions of our existence benefit from understanding the Evolutionary process and harvesting the power of that process.

Layers of the Past Within Ourselves

Because the mutation of existing organs has an extremely high probability of killing the organism, successful mutation more commonly works by adding layers of complexity to biological structures. The evolution of the brain provides the most obvious example of this dynamic at work. Basic fish have only a brain stem, reptiles have a forebrain layer on top of the brainstem, and mammals have a neocortex layer enveloping both of these structures. Our brains, therefore, exhibit the evolutionary strata of our ancestry.

We see our evolutionary history exhibited elsewhere in our biology as well, in the process of a developing pregnancy, from a single-celled life, to a cluster of undifferentiated cells. Then the human embryo resembles a fish embryo, complete with gills that serve no purpose. From here, it advances to a stage where it resembles an amphibian. The embryo progresses through 3 billion years of evolutionary history until it advances into a human fetus.

Update: 01 JAN 2007

The above image, drawn by biologist Ernst Haekel, is innacurrate, as is his specific theory of “Embryonic Recapitulation,” on which my statements are based. Read more about this here.

The HYPOTHESIS of Evolution Versus The THEORY and FACT of Evolution

One of the more popular arguments against evolution is that it is merely a “Theory,” and not a fact. As those who understand the framework of science know, a theory is a the most plausible explanation supported by the facts. So when public schools, such as the Alabama’s Board of Education, require textbooks qualify Evolution as a “Theory” and not a fact, they are showcasing their ignorance of the scientific method. For this reason, I have reworded the debate to correctly define the “hypothesis” of Evolution from the theory of Evolution.

Contrary to the common misconception, evolution is not a hypothesis, but a proven scientific fact, and a theory that has been repeated through scientific studies and observations of the natural world. The fact is that the Earth is 3.6 billion years old. The fact is that there were once Dinosaurs, and there are none now. The fact is that there are humans now and there were no humans not too far back into the past. The fact is that all life comes from other life.

As a Civilization, the human race has used Evolution to change the world around it. We have artificially selected useful animals and plants to preserve, while exterminating the harmful. Fish farms use the evolutionary process to maintain the average size of their stocks. Health Organizations today urge the Medical Community to refrain from the use of Antibiotics, because, like insecticide-resistant cockroaches and locusts, infectious bacteria are rapidly adapting to these hostile agents.

The hypothesis of evolution has to do with the history of this process and the details of its mechanisms. There is indeed much we don’t know about this process, which took 3.5 billion years. That’s 3,500,000,000 years to roughly 3,000 years of recorded history. Or to put it another way, we’ve only seen 0.000009% of the process. Think about that in terms of Chaos Theory.

The hypothesis of Evolution wonders how things got from the fact of single-celled organisms 2 billion years ago to the fact that we stand here today debating it. How did we go from tree-dwelling hair-covered primates to hairless-uprights? Did we evolve these traits in an Aquatic environment, a Savanna envirionment, or a Mosaic of environments? Why does the fossil record plainly show that dolphins and whales are descendents of land-mammals? What made them return to the ocean? We know the basics of how the first cells formed, but what about the process that created the intricate designs of DNA, molecules with the ability to reproduce?

These are the speculations of Evolution, a massive puzzle, billions of years long, where the majority of the pieces are forever lost. The fossil record preserves only a very small fraction of the links, but what it has preserved only serves to reinforce this process to explain our origins.

Evolutionary Strata in Daily Life

Economic Evolution: With the invention of trade and currency, goods and services began to compete in the marketplace. Better innovations, business models, and products emerge from this system, where everyone competes for a limited amount of buying power. Capitalism harnesses the power of evolution by providing as free and fair a system for products to compete in as possible.

Ideological Evolution: Evolution has been used to promote many naive and ignorant ideologies. It has been used to promote racial inferiority, Marxism, “Master Races,” etc. The fact that such ideas have failed to take the majority of minds in our global civilization is an example of Ideological Darwinism. Democracy harnesses the power of evolution by providing a system for ideas to compete for popularity.

Social Evolution: The most powerful evolutionary trait of homo sapiens is our communal habits. The global community is comprised of hundreds of smaller communities, all competing with one another ideologically, economically, and, to a lessening degree, militarily. There are bodies that attempt to mediate this macro system, such as the UN and the WTO, but this is where cultural evolution works out as more effective Social Hierarchies reap the benefits of cross-cultural interactions.

Environmental Evolution: Human beings have the ability to effect our environment in ways so drastic that they have not been seen since plant life oxygenated our atmosphere. The natural world has been artificially selected according to our desires. We cultivate food crops and destroy weeds. We breed cattle for docility and size. We may have shrunk the size of life in the ocean by fishing out the largest members of different species. We evolve the world to our liking, and often to our detriment.

Evolution is not a steady rise

We must remember that evolution, both physical and social, is not a system of continual progress. The better design does not always win. Consider the virus or parasite that kills its host or the economic system that destroys its environment. Consider the Native Americans whose culture valued cleanliness and sanitation, when confronted with the unhygienic, disease-ridden Europeans, were quickly wiped out by the plethora of microbial assaults brought with the foreigners from the cesspool of London. It is true that many of the Native Americans’ memes survived, the Europeans adopted their farming techniques and eventually, their system of Democracy after occupying their ghost-villages and abandoned farmlands.

Evolution and Creationism

There are two schools of thought involving the idea that all of this was created. One school is Creationism, which takes a classical and literal interpretation of the Bible’s account of our origins. The universe and Earth were created in seven days, Adam and Eve were the first humans, and we are all the children of Cain.

Creationism denies the Earth as billions of years old and a universe that’s even older. It denies the fossil record and everything we have learned about the natural history of our planet. It must engage in fantastic levels of denial, all to fit our existence into something so simple and mundane as a universe that came into being a few thousand years ago and all life with it.

Intelligent Design argues, not for the literal Biblical account of our origins, but does see an intelligence at work in our origins. The Bible is not necessarily wrong, but takes poetic license. For instance, the claim of all creation being formed in seven days must be interpreted from the perspective of an infinitely powerful being. To such an entity, a billion years might be as a fraction of a second.

The religions of Abraham very poetically describe God as manufacturing the human race out of dust or clay. Evolution concurs with this method. Amino acids formed out of lightning and water. DNA molecules are simply molecules with the ability to reproduce themselves. We certainly are made out of the same stuff as dust and being such does not negate the scriptures.

It seems odd that I must take this moment to clarify that Evolution and Intelligent Design are not mutually exclusive concepts, but can easily coexist. The concept of Evolution, from an Intelligent Design perspective, is so incredibly inspiring. The idea that, if there is a god, it took that being billions of years to create us seems so much more impressive, especially when we think of how the Bible describes the whole thing as being only seven days to the deity. It also makes all life, from our perspective, so much more unique and sacred for what would be to us an awesome effort to bring us into existence. Someone snapping their fingers to make it happen instantly seems so tawdry and unremarkable in comparison.

You can believe in evolution and still believe in an invisible hand coaxing it along. Just as most Creationists believe that invisible hand still coaxes us along. What’s wrong with discovering the methods God used to accomplish this?

Isn’t Science for some the quest to find the hand of god?

Beyond…

If evolution is a gradual process of biological refinement, then what does the future hold for us? Our bipedal locomotion, opposable thumbs, and dexterity all helped bring humans into the position of dominant species on Earth, but it was our adaptable brains and culture that played the biggest role. We are no longer fettered by the slow genetic changes and chance mutations once necessary for evolving. Now we have culture, technology, the means to improve our lives through means outside of biology.

As the dominant species on our planet, we also have the greatest responsibility to it in our own interests. Our planet is currently undergoing the sixth mass extinction in natural history, and we are the cause. Reducing the variety of life on Earth removes links in the food chain and brings down our quality of life overall. Variety provides greater chance for adaptability, and that is good for continuing life on Earth.

We also have environmental factors to monitor. Global warming is not a concern for “tree-huggers” and hippies only concerned with saving the Earth. It is a well-researched and well-documented issue that concerned only the human race. If the Earth warms, only mammals will die. Plants, insects, and reptiles will thrive in the new environment.

Most importantly, from evolution we learn that the human race is precious. We are unique on Earth for our intelligence and our culture, two evolutionary traits that took 3.5 billion years to spring forth. To think of what it took to bring us here, and then realize that we could lose it all in the blink of an eye through Nuclear War or a meteorite is terrifying.

We must take care.

Evolution Resources Online

Understanding Evolution: A Website for Teachers

PBS Evolution