Forgotten Things: #1

All week I've been reading Churchill - Three of his books are on the web now at Gutenberg. They are: The Malakand Field Force (about the Northwest Frontier), The River War (about the Sudan including Darfur), and From London to Ladysmith via Pretoria (about the South African war). Aristotle has said that men have found out most things but some of them have been forgotten. And that keeps coming back to me as I read these books.

For instance, one real cause of the war in the Sudan was the slave trade the Mahdi and the Dervishes were conducting in and through the Sudan. And one real cause of the Boer War was the Afrikaners determination not to treat the other Africans as equals as they would be obliged to do under English law. Even admiring biographers like William Manchester in The Last Lion, simply disregard all Churchill's statements on the subject because of a conviction that these statements are just a cover for imperialism.

But we see that when the British left the Sudan, the Moslems resumed the forcible conversion of the southern Sudan and the enslavement of those who refused to convert. And this is still going on and has escalated into the crimes going on in Darfur. As if the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries had never been. And we see that as soon as the British influence was removed from South Africa the whole apartheid system was instituted which made the eventual rise to power of the African majority a bitter and terrible experience.

And Manchester and others do not even discuss the reasons for the troubles on the NorthWest Frontier whereas Churchill explains that a jihad is going on. When we consider that it is thought that Osama Bin Laden, the leader of a jihad, is hiding in the same area that Churchill was writing about or when we realise that the Russians were opposed in Afghanistan by a jihad based on the Northwest frontier, it seems amazing that Manchester and other biographers devote no thought to Islamic jihads. And the war in the Sudan was a war against the followers of a Mahdi, a messiah preaching jihad against the Egyptians aka the Turks.

But in the days of the Cold War the only issue seemed to be Communism or non-Communism. So that seeing these other issues is one of those "forgotten things" of which Aristotle speaks. I think that reading these books by Churchill gives a valuable perspective on our present struggles. For instance, it is ridiculous to say that the Americans have "caused" Osama when history shows that the peoples of the areas (Afghanistan, the Sudan and the Northwest Frontier) in which Osama began and and ended are perpetually launching jihads.

Digital Evolution - What is it?

There are two ways evolution could have happened - as a digital process or as an analog process. Darwin saw evolution as an analog process - small changes added up over time to make great changes. I think that evolution is a digital process - or several digital processes.

Digital Evolution - What is it?
First, a gene can move from one place on a chromosome to another. Second, a group of genes can move their position on a chromosome. Third, the number of chromosomes can increase or decrease. This last process, which occurs immediately at the conception of some individual, is the cause of macro-evolution, in my opinion.

The new synthetic theory of evolution would have it that macro-evolution is a process occurring over a long period of time involving gene mutations in many individuals which mutations are gathered together by natural selection over a long period of time into the "gene suite" or gene frequencies of a population. When this gathered bundle of genes has changed enough from some adjacent bundle (adjacent in space or in time) we call it a new species or a new family or a new class.

Here is the point. All species have a set number of chromosomes. If we say that a change in chromosome number is the cause of evolution at the species level and above, then it is easy to explain why species have a set chromosome number. The change in chromosome number both alters characteristics and tends to fix them because successful fertilizations are more likely where chromosome numbers are the same. But if we say that genes are mutating and being added by natural selection into a species change then we have to explain how natural selection adds mutant genes on different chromosomes until the new plant or animal is successful at which time natural selection changes the number of chromosomes which affects the number of genes (including HOX and MADS genes) without affecting the successful design even though a change in HOX or MADS gene numbers will alter body design.

This explanation has never been attempted. If ever offered, it would be a very convoluted and the words "Occam's razor" come to mind. A change in chromosome number accompanies all evolutionary changes above the species level and most at the species level. Why not then say the change in chromosome number is the cause of macro evolution instead of saying that a change in chromosome number is an external, adventitious "happening" that always happens?

After all if the change in chromosome number increases or decreases the number of the type of genes called HOX or MADS then it is not possible that natural selection had previously tested the entire body design that will emerge as a direct consequence of the change in chromosome number.

Digital or analog evolution - why it matters.
Does it matter though whether evolution is digital or analog? Yes it does because the false science of eugenics is completely dependent on an analog theory of evolution. Eugenics can be rejected whether evolution is digital or analog as a matter of social choice. We can choose equal justice under law for we are human. But in our present culture it is a powerful argument in favor of eugenics to claim that it is scientific. I think we have on hand the refutation of that argument - I think that evolution is digital, not analog. It is the purpose of this blog to explain, cover, debate, these issues.