The Human Touch

We're currently living in an amazingly connected world, thanks to 24-hour news channels, satellite TV/telephone, the internet, social networks, 3G notworks, cell phone and other innovations.  Because we are such a connected world, last week I was able to sit and watch live streaming broadcast of parts of the rescue of 33 Chilean miners, broadcast by a British television company.  Forget two places at once, I was (virtually) in three places at once.  More if you count the fact that I was on the Tor network while doing all this, so there were at least three other intermediary locations as well.  In many ways, we've condensed the globe down to the size of computer chip.

But more importantly- do you know all the neighbors on your street?  If you were out of flour, would you have to go to the store or could you ask a friend next door?  With internet bullying in the forefront the past couple of weeks, I think we really need to consider our reactions to the virtual world and the physical world.  I'm not knocking the virtual world- I think the interconnectedness is great.  We can experience other cultures, get our news from a variety of sources, learn about so much more than our own little block, but it's for sure not the end-all-be-all, and it's important to keep that in perspective.

As humans, we're social beings and wired with the need for interaction with others.  There's variation in how much interaction we need or want; ask an introvert and an extrovert how much time they like to be with people in a given day and you'll get vastly different responses.  But besides the variation in quantity, there's also variation in quality.  In person contact makes the biggest difference in our lives, with phone contact coming in close.  Written letters make a fair amount of difference in how connected we feel to people, although virtual communication over the internet registers as almost nothing positive psychologically.  Especially in times of stress, we need human contact.  We need to feel like we belong.  We need to feel like we have a place to turn.  We need a shoulder upon which to cry.  We don't get those things from the newer forms of communication.  Instead, most people tend to feel less connected.  There is no human touch like in a hand written letter, no quick response like a phone call, and definitely no physical connection or facial display of empathy.  When the chips are already proverbially down, that added draw on our emotional reserves can be tragic.

Additionally, the anonymity of the internet allows people to not have to face the consequences of their actions, so the norm of being civil gets broken down.  Unfortunately, it's harder to break down our need for empathy.  All in all, moving more and more of our communication into the virtual world leaves fewer of our social needs met.  At its worst, we end up with situations like some of the recent bullying and harassment cases, and as we've seen, potential to tragic deaths.  Figuring out how to navigate this brave new world is going to have more bumps along the road, but I'm hopeful that we'll manage to figure it out.

And yes, I get the irony of writing this all on a blog instead of calling to talk to someone about it.  :)

Why I love amphibians, and hate the iPad

Obviously, I think amphibians are pretty frakkin' awesome.  If I didn't think thus, I wouldn't be doing the research I am.  What exactly do I find so cool about amphibians, you ask?  Well, quite a bit, really.  For one, the huge diversity of amphibians- morphology, ecology and behavior.  Tails, no tails; gastric brooding, dermal brooding, egg layers; vocalization for mating and social purposes; inhabiting rain forests, vernal pools, and deserts; the ability to distinguish kin, non-kin and other species, as well as recognize familiar and unfamiliar.  These little critters can do a lot. 

They also happen to be extremely basal vertebrates.  Some people might refer to them as "ancient", "lower", or "simple", while talking of mammals for instance as "advanced" or "higher" vertebrates.  This framing might work at a superficial level, but the connotations of these terms include a degree of judgment, that for some reason we mammals are better than our less derived vertebrate relatives.  It's not a coincidence, unfortunately.  Our western cultural history still bears the imprint of many centuries of Christian thought, and it was the teaching of the church for many of those years that there was a natural order, or hierarchy.  organisms were ordered from the lowliest of creatures to the most divine, and one of the early theories of evolution posited that evolution was this slow march replacing organisms with other organisms ever more closely resembling the Christian God.

We now know that that's not at all the case, but this idea that newer is better is pervasive.  In contrast, one could argue that the older less derived forms are actually better suited to competing for resources.  After all, if they weren't better, they wouldn't have exerted a competitive pressure that drove evolution of more complicated traits attempting to compete with older versions.  If amphibians had had no ability to compete with the supposedly vastly superior mammals that came later, then they would have ceased to exist long ago, to be replaced by these newer forms.  The identifying characteristics of the major groups of organisms can be thought of as the innovation(s) that allowed a group to successfully compete with the older, more tested organisms already in existence.

It's an important lesson, I think, that progress isn't better simply because it is new.  Technology for the sake of technology may be interesting from a theoretical approach, but practically speaking, unless it solves some problem or improves life, it's just someone's research.  Especially in our current ecological paradigm of a vast population growing even larger, and polluting in ever increasing quantities, I think it's important to consider practicality and functionality.  Technical obsolescence and style obsolescence may encourage the development and adoption of new technology, but is it always better technology?  The Apple iPad and its launch recently is what has made me consider this paradigm, because I have to ask, "What real purpose does this thing have?"  As far as I can tell, it does nothing new that can't be done using some other already-existing device.What does this product do other than pad Apple's coffers and our landfills?  I'm using this one example, but it's only one of many instances which I think maybe the older answer was just as good, and the newer version serves solely for profit and use of resources.  But then again, I'll also never give up my turntable.  Commence the cries of "Luddite!".