There's a reason why cavemen aren't around anymore.

In the last few weeks, more than a few of my acquaintances have mentioned trying the Paleo or Caveman Diet. Basically the logic is that humans started cultivating grains ~10,000 years ago and that this hasn't been enough time for evolution to catch up to digesting this carb-heavy diet. In other words, the Paleo Diet consists of what our ancestors supposedly ate in hunter-gatherer days: meats, veggies, fruits, nuts, and seeds. You cut out grains, legumes, dairy, oils, refined sugars, and salt. I first heard about this last year when John Durant (who at the time I thought was one of the worst spokesmen ever -- he wore the five-toed shoes on national TV, c'mon!) was on The Colbert Report and professed his commitment to eating like our hunter-gatherer ancestors. Colbert called the diet a "high-falutin' Atkins diet," which I can't help but agree with.

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So what are the benefits of this diet? Well, obviously cutting these processed foods out of any diet isn't necessarily a bad thing. Proponents of the Paleo Diet claim that it prevents the so-called "diseases of affluence" or "diseases of civilization" like Type 2 diabetes, heart disease, alcoholism, allergies, depression, etc. While this is undoubtably true, the majority of these diseases don't affect a person's mortality until later in life. In other words, these diseases don't affect a person's reproductive ability so they may be not affected by natural selection pressures. So the argument that our modern day diet should have been selected against or that we haven't evolved to deal with it doesn't ring true to me. 

Another statistic that I've seen thrown about is that pre-agricultural ancestors acquired 64-68% of their calories through animals. This seems high in almost any culture (excluding Inuit and other cold-climate cultures where plant-life is extremely limited). However, in the time period that we're discussing, our human ancestors didn't possess much of the hunting and fishing technology required to consume this many calories from other animals. The diet of our closest relatives, chimpanzees, is over 90% fruits and plants and a smattering of animal calories when available. Our dentition and GI tract closely resemble those of chimpanzees so it seems to me that our ancestors more than likely did far more foraging than hunting. 

Furthermore, the argument that evolution hasn't had the appropriate amount of time to adjust to eating grains and other agricultural products doesn't hold up. The number of copies of the gene for salivary amylase, which digests starch, has been shown to increase in cultures that consume more grains. The same can be said of the human body's ability to produce lactase to aid in digesting dairy products. While I'm not arguing that we should be filling our systems with these things or that they are necessarily the healthiest way to consume calories, natural selection does seem to be acting in these situations. 

I'm usually fairly skeptical about diet fads even when they're sold with a scientific bent. And I have nothing against those that want to try this one in theory. However, as with any diet, I think it's more about a person's attention to what they're consuming and an active participation in keeping themselves healthy. People that stick with a diet or an exercise regimen, regardless of what it is, more often succeed at losing weight or maintaining their health. Getting rid of some extra carbs and refined sugars is a good plan for anyone. Certainly Americans who consume on average donuts and soda could stand to pay attention to where they get their calories. Looking at consuming 60+% of your calories in modern-day animals products, though, seems to disregard many of the ecological and economical problems the world is facing. Modern day protein from farm-raised animals is fatty and unsustainable. So while the Paleo Diet seems fun and perhaps even has good intentions behind it, I'm left feeling that it's more of a lark for frat boys on a camping trip rather than conscientious individuals looking to get back to their roots. 

Pack your bananas for Heaven, folks.

There's really not much to be said about this other than that I truly believe there is a hard correlation between banana believers and those planning for the END OF DAYS this weekend. Their Left Behind books fervently folded down on all the important pages. Their recent and surprising forgiveness of "the gays" in their lives (or at least pity substituted for anger). Their patronizing smiles to those of us that have lived sinful (um, read: fun?) existences. So, fare thee well. I'll still be here eating my impossibly difficult Satan oranges (with NO tab!) on Sunday.

I, for one, welcome our altruistic robot overlords.

I've recently spent some time trying to explain to non-sciencey people why kin selection and group selection are such hotly debated topics among evolutionary biologists (Yes guys, we don't debate the validity of evolution, but rather, what kind of evolution). While most people understand the basic theory underlying kin selection (an individual is likely to help those genetically related to itself even at a negative cost to the individual) -- trying to explain group selection is tricky. One of the biggest myths about evolution is that natural selection is the only game in town, and therefore individuals always act selfishly to benefit themselves and their direct descendants. However, lately more and more testable science is showing that natural selection and the "only the fittest survive" theory is just one piece in the complex puzzle that makes up evolution.

When I first read the headlines to this story about robots working together, I thought it must be exaggerated. The idea that we can replicate the behavior of organic life in something completely synthetic still blows my mind. However, Laurent Keller's group in Switzerland has gone above and beyond replicating life. They created robots that were programmed to search for "food" and then move this "food" into a certain spot. The robots were also programmed with a point analysis system where they weighed the costs and benefits of helping. As generations went on, the group simulated evolution by using the "genes" from individual robots that were the most cooperative, ie: the most successful. After hundreds of generations, they found that the robots that helped the group closely resembled systems found in nature.




The theory of kin selection makes sense on paper but the bigger issue has always been demonstrating its existence in the real world. While it becomes harder to immediately extrapolate the results of this study to complex social systems like those of humans, the implications for understanding social insects are immense. Groups where individuals seemingly act on a level that benefits the whole over the individual may be explained by continued studies into kin selection.

Germ-->fish-->mermaid-->man!

This is an issue I'll unfortunately be coming back to again and again: you cannot teach children false information and expect them to grow up and be well-rounded, contributing members of society. There are currently eight different states --Tennessee, Missouri, Florida, the usual suspects-- that have anti-evolution bills in their legislatures. As a refresher, the infamous Scopes Trial of 1925 and the equally as important Kitzmiller v. Dover trial in 2005 that ruled intelligent design is not science (and is simply creationism in disguise). 

Currently, Florida has Senate Bill 1854 on the table which in part states: "The instructional staff of a public school [is required to] teach a thorough presentation and critical analysis of the scientific theory of evolution." Ahh, you might say, critical analysis is certainly important for any aspiring intellectual. Which would be quite true, if that's actually what we were talking about. However, in this case it's just more coded language to add doubt to the theory of evolution and support for ideas like creationism and intelligent design. A common argument I've heard from those that support this so-called "teach the alternatives" is that if you give kids the facts, they'll make their own decision about what is right. Really? Because I'm pretty sure if you told a kid dinosaurs were still around, he'd believe you. And you know what? That wouldn't be fair, would it? That stupid kid would grow up thinking dinosaurs were out there somewhere just like leprechauns and Santa Claus. And his poor little heart is going to be broken when he either finds out he's wrong or is made fun of for the rest of his life for sticking to his deluded little guns. 

So why would anyone want to teach kids a false narrative? Because it fuels doubt. It adds to the supposed controversy (oh and hey, for anyone not in the science community, that controversy is as fictional as unicorns). And eventually those kids might grow up to be card-carrying Republicans that are making our laws (please refer to the below video). While laws about science may not seem that important, remember that we're currently dealing with issues on stem cell use, vaccines, oil pollution, and global warming. 

This attack on science education falls in line with the recent outcries against "elitism," "intellectualism," and those there damn fancy college-educated folk. I've read multiple interviews with science educators where they say they're basically afraid to get mired in any sort of controversy, so they glaze over the sections on evolution.  If science teachers are afraid to do their jobs, these kids we supposedly care so much about are not learning facts. They're learning half-truths and then they may just end up like this:

Sweet, sweet revenge?

With all this badass posturing and reignited patriotism in the last week, I had to wonder if there was a reason behind all of it. As in everything else in life, I should qualify that I mean a biological reason. Something scientific to back up the screaming frat boys outside the White House getting drunk off the assassination of an evil man. Sure, we can all celebrate that there is one less mass-murderer in the world. Is it simply a feeling of camaraderie with our fellow citizens that we don't often get to feel anymore? Because, let's face it, not many of us actually contributed to the downfall and eventual destruction of this pathetic guy thousands of miles away. 

As it turns out, revenge is not just a cultural phenomenon and has a defined basis in our brain chemistry. In a recent interview with Scientific American, Dr. Michael McCullough describes how revenge stimulates the same pleasure sensors in the brain that light up when we crave things like desserts or drugs. Even thinking about perpetrating an act of revenge activates our dopamine levels and the left prefrontal cortex which is involved with goal-planning. That goal is to commit an act that deters the individual who has harmed us (mentally or physically) from imposing more harm in the future. The desire to prove that you won't tolerate this mistreatment also jumps up if other people were witness to the initial injury because there is more at stake in social cost-benefit terms. Therefore, the "goal" is to produce "reformed behavior" (McCullough).

So did revenge motivate our reactions after hearing the news that Osama bin Laden had been killed in a US military raid? It's hard to say. Once the act involves more than an individual (in this case, an entire nation), the clarity of biological motivations is blurred. In the same vein as altruism -- where an individual commits an act that benefits the larger group-- we still don't entirely understand the reaction where group dynamic is involved. The goal may have been to deter other terrorists from continuing their quest to destroy western culture.  Or it may have been to prove that we won't tolerate the tragedy and destruction of 9/11 because it was witnessed by the rest of the world. However, in reality, it doesn't seem likely that we can expect reformed behavior from this ilk. The media has constantly described the likeliness of retribution by al-Quaeda or other terrorist groups around the world and these same groups have expressed their interest in doing so. Instead, a skewed sense of justice was at stake and the desire to bring closure to an event that occurred almost ten years ago. 

While it may have felt like revenge and some may have even felt pleasure that mimicked what they believed was revenge, I'm not convinced there was a biological basis for the reaction. Most of us were not personally affected by 9/11 or by bin Laden's death. However, we felt like we were because it affected our country as a whole. I think revenge is therefore closely related to altruism in that the goal is ultimately to help or protect those that you care about. I can't say whether bin Laden's death actually did either of these things (helping or protecting Americans), but people who experienced satisfaction from the event at least think that they did. The difference is that altruism seems to stem from a higher place while revenge speaks to our basest instincts. 

Catholics: always taking 2 steps backwards.

So, shockingly enough, the Pope (specifically Pope Benedict XVI) has come out with another little gem of wisdom sure to be handed down through the ages. Much like his recent edicts that condoms actually contribute to the spread of HIV, we are clearly dealing with facts in the real world. At an Easter homily last week he said that it was wrong to think that:

 "in some tiny corner of the cosmos there evolved randomly some species of living being capable of reasoning and of trying to find rationality within creation, or to bring rationality into it...If man were merely a random product of evolution in some place on the margins of the universe, then his life would make no sense or might be a chance of nature. But no, reason is there at the beginning: creative, divine reason." 

Creative I'll give you, divine is a different story. Those people that have the NERVE to bring rational thought to the dialogue of how we got here is just offensive. The very thought that a human life could be "chance" is a threat to organized religion because it would mean that no one is in control. And no one is a bigger proponent of controlling the masses than religion, particularly a gilded city whose power relies on the constant bartering of money for sins. 

Why is nature in opposition of a divine creator (if that's what you choose to believe)? Why would this divine omnipotent being have made women's hips too small to bear children safely? Or wisdom teeth? Or remnant hair follicles? I CAN DO THIS ALL DAY. 

C'mon Catholics, every time I think you're ready to outsmart the fundamentalists, you go and prove me wrong. Church teaching doesn't say that Roman Catholicism and evolutionary theory are enemies. And in a world where a good chunk of people still listen to the man in the fancy hat, it scares me that bad science and misleading faith are being spewed left and right to those who can't separate "The Pope says evolution isn't real" from "The Pope says no condoms with AIDS!"