the cultural cognition project

culturalcognition |  “Cultural cognition"refers to the tendency of individuals to form beliefs about societal dangers that reflect and reinforce their commitments to particular visions of the ideal society. Cultural cognition is one of a variety of approaches developed for empirical testing of the "cultural theory of risk" associated with Mary Douglas and Aaron Wildavsky. This chapter (from the Handbook of Risk Theory, Springer Pub.) discusses the distinctive features of cultural cognition as a conception of cultural theory, including its cultural worldview measures; its emphasis on social psychological mechanisms that connect individuals' risk perceptions to their cultural outlooks; and its practical goal of enabling self-conscious management of popular risk perceptions in the interest of promoting scientifically sound public policies that are congenial to persons of diverse outlooks.

Related video: lecture on the cultural cognition of risk

Great Debate Transcending Our Origins: Violence, Humanity, and the Future

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asu |  Celebrate five years of intellectual stimulation and excitement with the Origins Project at Great Debate Transcending Our Origins: Violence, Humanity, and the Future. Saturday, April 5, 2014 - 7:00pm

The first panel of the evening, The Origins of Violence, will feature scholars and writers Steven Pinker, Richard Wrangham, Erica Chenoweth, Adrian Raine, John Mueller and Sarah Mathew discussing the development of violence from the brain to world wars. 

The second panel, The Future: From Medicine and Synthetic Biology to Machine Intelligence, will feature scientists and notable experts Richard Dawkins, Craig Venter, Kim Stanley Robinson, Esther Dyson, Eric Horvitz, George Poste and Randolph Nesse discussing the future of new biomedical and robotic technologies and their impact on humanity. The evening will be moderated by Lawrence Krauss.

inclusive fitness 50 years on...,

royalsociety | The cardinal problem of evolutionary biology is to explain adaptation, or the appearance of design in the living world [1,2]. Darwin [3] convincingly argued that the process of adaptation is driven by natural selection: those heritable variations—i.e. genes—that are associated with greater individual reproductive success are those that will tend to accumulate in natural populations. To the extent that the individual's genes are causally responsible for her improved fitness, natural selection leads to the individual appearing designed as if to maximize her fitness. Thus, Darwinism is a theory of both the process and the purpose of adaptation. 

However, correlations between an individual's genes and her fitness need not reflect a direct, causal relationship. For example, genes for altruism can be associated with greater fitness, despite the direct cost that they inflict on their bearer, if relatives interact as social partners. This is because an individual who carries genes for altruism will tend to have more altruistic social partners. That altruism can be favoured by natural selection suggests that the purpose of adaptation is not, in general, to maximize the individual's personal fitness [4]. 

Although Darwin [3] recognized the potential for such indirect effects to drive the evolution of social behaviours, discussing the logic of kin selection theory in connection with the adaptations of sterile insect workers, it was William D. Hamilton (figure 1), more than a century later, who developed these insights into a full mathematical theory. By quantifying the relative strengths of direct selection, acting via the individual's own reproduction, and indirect selection, acting via the reproduction of the individual's relatives, Hamilton [4] revealed the ultimate criterion that natural selection uses to judge the fate of genes. 

Hamilton's rule states that any trait—altruistic or otherwise—will be favoured by natural selection if and only if the sum of its direct and indirect fitness effects exceeds zero [4–7]. That is where –c is the impact that the trait has on the individual's own reproductive success, b_i is its impact on the reproductive success of the individual's ith social partner and r_i is the genetic relatedness of the two individuals. This mathematical partition of fitness effects underpins the kin selection approach to evolutionary biology [8]. The general principle is that with regards to social behaviours, natural selection is mediated by any positive or negative consequences for recipients, according to their genetic relatedness to the actor. Consequently, individuals should show greater selfish restraint, and can even behave altruistically, when interacting with closer relatives [4]. 

Having clarified the process of social adaptation, Hamilton [4] revealed its true purpose: to maximize inclusive fitness (figure 2). That is, Darwinian individuals should strive to maximize the sum of the fitness effects that they have on all their relatives (including themselves), each increment or decrement being weighted by their genetic relatedness. This is the most fundamental revision that has been made to the logic of Darwinism and—aside from a possibly apocryphal quip attributed to J. B. S. Haldane, to the effect that he would give his life to save the lives of two brothers or eight cousins—it was wholly original to Hamilton.

microbial genes, brain & behaviour – epigenetic regulation of the gut–brain axis

wiley |  To date, there is rapidly increasing evidence for host–microbe interaction at virtually all levels of complexity, ranging from direct cell-to-cell communication to extensive systemic signalling, and involving various organs and organ systems, including the central nervous system. As such, the discovery that differential microbial composition is associated with alterations in behaviour and cognition has significantly contributed to establishing the microbiota–gut–brain axis as an extension of the well-accepted gut–brain axis concept. Many efforts have been focused on delineating a role for this axis in health and disease, ranging from stress-related disorders such as depression, anxiety and irritable bowel syndrome to neurodevelopmental disorders such as autism. There is also a growing appreciation of the role of epigenetic mechanisms in shaping brain and behaviour. However, the role of epigenetics in informing host–microbe interactions has received little attention to date. This is despite the fact that there are many plausible routes of interaction between epigenetic mechanisms and the host-microbiota dialogue. From this new perspective we put forward novel, yet testable, hypotheses. Firstly, we suggest that gut-microbial products can affect chromatin plasticity within their host's brain that in turn leads to changes in neuronal transcription and eventually alters host behaviour. Secondly, we argue that the microbiota is an important mediator of gene-environment interactions. Finally, we reason that the microbiota itself may be viewed as an epigenetic entity. In conclusion, the fields of (neuro)epigenetics and microbiology are converging at many levels and more interdisciplinary studies are necessary to unravel the full range of this interaction.

bringing pseudo-science into the science classroom

realclearscience | By stressing the importance of critical thinking and reasoned skepticism, groups like the New England Skeptical Society, the James Randi Educational Foundation, and the Center for Skeptical Inquiry constantly battle these forces of nonsense, but their labor all too often falls on deaf ears. It's time to take the problem of pseudoscience into the heart of American learning: public schools and universities.

Right now, our education system doesn't appear to be abating pseudoscientific belief. A survey published in 2011 of over 11,000 undergraduates conducted over a 22-year period revealed that nonscientific ways of thinking are surprisingly resistant to formal instruction.

"There was only a modest decline in pseudoscientific beliefs following an undergraduate degree, even for students who had taken two or three science courses," psychologists Rodney Schmaltz and Scott Lilienfeld said of the results.

In a new perspective published Monday in the journal Frontiers in Psychology, Schmaltz and Lilienfeld detail a plan to better instruct students on how to differentiate scientific fact from scientific fiction. And somewhat ironically, it involves introducing pseudoscience into the classroom.

The inception is not for the purpose of teaching pseudoscience, of course; it's for refuting it.

"By incorporating examples of pseudoscience into lectures, instructors can provide students with the tools needed to understand the difference between scientific and pseudoscientific or paranormal claims," the authors say.

the dawn of monotheism revisited

solami |  §1     In 1961, the Egyptologist Sir Alan Gardiner set the stage for a more enlightening reading of humanity's record - in as much as it relied on Egypt's history and its King List as relayed to us notably by the historian Manetho. In his book "Egypt of the Pharaohs" (p.170), he declared: "Manetho's narrative represents the last stage of a process of falsifications which started within a generation after the triumph of Amosis" over the vilified Hyksos (1575-1550 Old Chronology, henceforth OC).  In this critical analysis, Gardiner has been supported by a growing number of scholars, some thus coming up with remarkable - even if occasionally conflicting - new ideas, theories and insights (1).  One of them, the Islamic scholar and Egyptologist Ahmed Osman, in one of his latest books "Moses Pharaoh of Egypt - the Mystery of Akhenaten Resolved", thus commented our tampered records:

     "Like the accounts of the historian Manetho, the Talmudic stories contain many distortions and accretions arising from the fact that they were transmitted orally for a long time before finally being set down in writing. Yet one can sense that behind the myths there must have lain genuine historical events that had been suppressed from the official accounts of both Egypt and Israel, but had survived in the memories of the generations" (p.24). "The Alexandrian Jews were naturally interested in Manetho's account of their historic links with Egypt, although they found some aspects of it objectionable. His original work therefore did not survive for long before being tampered with [2/3 of Zarathushtra's Avesta reportedly was even deliberately destroyed]" (p.27). And: "Yoyotte ... became one of the few to see through the 'embellishments' of the biblical account and identify the historical core of the story ..." (p.48).

§2     Thus, it was time someone went beyond mere bickering over the confusing King Lists. With his book "A Test of Time", the Assyrologist and Egyptologist David Rohl has presented an archeologically and astronomically supported NewChronology (henceforth NC, with the reign of Ramses II thus placed in the 10th century BC, i.e. dated some 350 years later than traditionally recorded, and the reign of Akhenaton beginning some 3025 years ago and overlapping the ascendancy of David as the successor to King Saul).  If independently confirmed in its key elements by further research, we would find ourselves at the threshold of a new era, providing startling synchronologies of the past to which we were blinded through our own shortcomings and not necessarily by design.  Recognizing this could have vast implications for the future far beyond the bedeviled Middle Eastern craddle where our monotheistic beliefs appear to have their common roots. Osman's comments on the above-quoted koranic and biblical texts may help us to get there:

     "... the Koran presents the confrontation in such a precise way that one wonders if some of the details were left out of the biblical account deliberately. Here Moses sounds less like a magician, more like someone who presents evidence of his authority that convinces the wise men of Egypt, who throw themselves at his feet and thus earn the punishment of [an imposter] Pharaoh. One can only suspect that the biblical editor exercised care to avoid any Egyptian involvement with the Israelite Exodus, even to the extent of replacing Moses by Aaron in the performance of the rituals. ... [During] their sed festival celebrations, Egyptian kings performed rituals that correspond to the 'serpent rod' and 'hand' rituals performed by Moses - and, in performing them, Moses was not using magic but seeking to establish his royal authority.
     I think the correct interpretation of these accounts [of the Bible and the Koran] is that, when Akhenaten was forced to abdicate, he must have taken his royal sceptre to Sinai with him. On the death of Horemheb, the last king of the Eighteenth Dynasty, about a quarter of a century later, he must have seen an opportunity to restore himself to the throne. No heir to the Tuthmosside kings existed and it was Pa-Ramses, commander of Horemheb's army and governor of Zarw, who had claim to the throne. Akhenaten returned to Egypt and the wise men were gathered in order to decide between him and Pa-Ramses. Once they saw the sceptre of royal authority and Akhenaten had performed the sed festival rituals - secret from ordinary citizens - the wise men bowed the knee in front of him, confirming that his was the superior right to the throne, but Pa-Ramses used his army to crush the rebels. Moses was allowed to leave again for Sinai, however, accompanied by the Israelites, his mother's relatives, and the few Egyptians who had been converted to the new [monotheistic] religion that he had attempted to force upon Egypt a quarter of a century earlier. In Sinai the followers of Akhenaten were joined subsequently by some bedouin tribes (the Shasu), who are to be identified as the Midianites of the Bible. No magic was performed, or intended, by Moses. The true explanation of the biblical story could only be that it was relating the polical challenge for power in a mythological way - and all the plagues of which we read were natural, seasonal events in Egypt in the course of every year. ..." (p.178f)
     "This would explain how a new version of the Osiris-Horus myth came into existence from the time of the Nineteenth Dynasty. Osiris, the King of Egypt, was said to have had to leave the country for a long time. On his eventual return he was assassinated by Set, who had usurped the throne, but Horus, the son of Osiris, confronted Set at Zarw and slew him. According to my interpretation of events, it was in fact 'Set' who slew 'Horus'; but their roles were later reversed by those who wished to believe in an eternal life for Horus [alternatively, if their roles were not reversed, that might support the idea that Moses/Akhenaton had a role to play in Canaan/Palestine in the post-exodus period]. This new myth developed to the point where Osiris/Horus became the principal god worshipped in Egypt in later times while Set was looked upon as the evil one. This myth could have been a popular reflection of a real historical event - a confrontation between Moses and Seti I on top of the mountain in Moab." (p.187f)

§3     These conclusions could go a long way to explain not only the developments which took place following the 18^thDynasty but many of the undercurrents still gripping the Middle East. Particularly the relations between the descendents of the competitors to the Throne of Pharaoh,Ramses I and Akhenaton (Moses if, for this study, we were to follow Osman'sanalysis: 2); i.e. the Egyptians on the one side and the "Children of Israel" on the other who, both, would appear to be victims of imaginative falsifiers of history. And they would clear up many mysteries, if it were not for the uncertainties which persist on what happened at the end and after Akhenaton's 17 year reign, particularly whether, how and where Akhenaton lived on. So far, no archeological or historical evidence has become known which would undisputably attest to Akhenaton's death at a certain time and place.

 

§4     Until recently, most scholars tended to interprete the fragmentary archeological data as pointing to a violent death of what many describe as the "heretic Pharaoh" at his regnal year 17. And they mostly associated that end of the first monotheistic reign with the subsequent resurgence of the Amon cult all over Egypt. Initially, this seemed to be supported by esoteric sources, i.e. by currently living persons who, on the basis of personal reincarnation experiences, are said to have been contemporaries of Akhenaton (3). By their very nature, these subjective accounts are just that. They cannot be relied upon without corroberating data. Nevertheless, in the absence of more conclusive information - like contributions from other disciplines - they may constitute imaginative and sometimes helpful hints and pointers for further research and more enlightened analysis.

 

§5     Pointing notably to the striking parallels between Akhenaton's Great Hymn to Aton (Gardiner, p.225f) and Psalm 104, scholars suspect the authors of these texts to be identical. Moreover, the Encyclopaedia Judaica (vol.12, pp. 378, 388, 389, 390, 400) recorded :

     "No primary source of information on Moses exists outside the Bible. ... [In] the Haggadah's hymnic confession Dayyeinu, ... Israel's career from Egypt to the settlement is rehearsed in 13 stages without a reference to Moses. ... According to Artapanos, Moses ... was the first pilosopher, and invented a variety of machines for peace and war. He was also responsible for the political organization of Egypt (having divided the land into 36 nomes) ... According to Josephus, Moses was the most ancient of all legislators in the records of the world. Indeed, he maintains that the very word 'law' was unknown in ancient Greece (Jos., Apion 2:154). ...
     Hecataeus of Abdera presented Moses as the founder of the Jewish state, ascribing to him the conquest of Palestine and the building of Jerusalem and the Temple. He explained, in the Platonic manner, that Moses divided his people into 12 tribes, because 12 is a perfect number, corresponding to the number of months in the year (cf. Plato, Laws, 745b-d; Republic, 546b). ... Very curious is the legend recorded by Israel Lipschuetz b. Gedaliah (Tiferet Yisrael to Kid. end, n.77).  A certain King, having heard of Moses' fame, sent a renowned painter to portray Moses' features.
On the painter's return with the portrait the king showed it to his sages, who unanimously proclaimed that the features portrayed were those of a degenerate [4]. The astonished king journeyed to the camp of Moses and observed for himself that the portrait did not lie. Moses admitted that the sages were right and that he had been given from birth many evil traits of character but that he had held them under control and succeeded in conquering them. This, the narrative concludes, was Moses' greatness, that, in spite of his tremendous handicaps, he managed to become the man of God. Various attempts have, in fact, been made by some rabbis to ban the further publication of this legend as a denigration of Moses' character."

§6     Together, these and other ancient voices are seen to support the view that the name Moses - incidently like that of Salomon - may be less the real name and more one which was adopted post-festum for the biblical editors' or their taskmasters' purposes. Could it be then that the person hidden behind the name-of-convenience of Moses is in fact Akhenaton? In that event, he would have lived beyond his reign in Egypt (similarities come to mind with Jesus’ alleged post-crucification life in Kashmir (India) and elswhere and how that persistently recurring story has been treated by the powers that be, i.e. by those who consider themselves as the gardiens of the Holy Grail).

 

§7     Sigmund Freud concluded in his 1939 book "Moses and Monotheism" that Moses was not an Israelite but an Egyptian whose teachings derived from Akhenaton's pure monotheism (which he had imposed for apparently imperative economic reasons). That, of course, would require rewriting those stories which ante-date the "exodus of the Israelites" - if that ever happened as such and was not in fact an exodus of monotheistic Egyptians - rather than one of slaves - to what may have been their Palestinian exile (essentially brought about by deseases and power struggles between factions associated with the legitimate, and on the other side with the illegitimate contender to the Throne of Pharaoh?).

publicly funded schools where creationism is taught...,

slate |  A large, publicly funded charter school system in Texas is teaching creationism to its students, Zack Kopplin recently reported in Slate. Creationist teachers don’t even need to be sneaky about it—the Texas state science education standards, as well as recent laws in Louisiana and Tennessee, permit public school teachers to teach “alternatives” to evolution. Meanwhile, in Florida, Indiana, Ohio, Arizona, Washington, D.C., and elsewhere, taxpayer money is funding creationist private schools through state tuition voucher or scholarship programs. As the map below illustrates, creationism in schools isn’t restricted to schoolhouses in remote villages where the separation of church and state is considered less sacred. If you live in any of these states, there’s a good chance your tax money is helping to convince some hapless students that evolution (the basis of all modern biological science, supported by everything we know about geology, genetics, paleontology, and other fields) is some sort of highly contested scientific hypothesis as credible as “God did it.”

believe it or not: a narrative antidote to daystarism....,

Forbes | This article appears in the July 16 issue of Forbes magazine as a sidebar to “World Bank Mired in Dysfunction.”

The World Bank is a place where whistle-blowers are shunned, persecuted and booted–not always in that order.

Consider John Kim, a top staffer in the bank’s IT department, who in 2007 leaked damaging documents to me after he determined that there were no internal institutional avenues to honestly deal with wrongdoing. “Sometimes you have to betray your country in order to save it,” Kim says.

In return bank investigators probed his phone records and e-mails, and allegedly hacked into his personal AOL account. After determining he was behind the leaks the bank put him on administrative leave for two years before firing him on Christmas Eve 2010.

With nowhere to turn Kim was guided into the offices of the Washington, D.C.-based Government Accountability Project–the only game in town for public-sector leakers. “Whistle-blowers are the regulators of last resort,” says Beatrice Edwards, the executive director of the group. Edwards helped Kim file an internal case for wrongful termination (World Bank staffers have no recourse to U.S. courts) and in a landmark ruling a five-judge tribunal eventually ­ordered the bank to reinstate him last May. Despite the decision, the bank retired him in September after 29 years of service.

The U.S. is beginning to notice. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee insisted on inserting a whistle-blowing clause in 2011 after World Bank President Robert Zoellick approached them for an increase in the bank’s capital. But ­because of the supranational structure of the bank, the Senate’s demands are ultimately toothless.

“We can’t legislate the bank,” explains a Senate staffer. “All we can do is say, ‘We’ll give you this [money] if you do that [whistleblower protection].’ But they say, ‘You can’t make us do that because we can’t answer to 188 different countries.’ ”

daystar?

npr | Flip on television at any hour of the day and you'll likely see the elements of modern televangelism: a stylish set, an emotional spiritual message and a phone number on the screen soliciting donations.

Based in a studio complex between Dallas and Fort Worth, Texas, and broadcasting to a potential audience of 2 billion people around the globe, Daystar calls itself the fastest growing Christian television network in the world.

The Internal Revenue Service considers Daystar something else: a church.

Televangelists have a choice when they deal with the IRS. Some, like Pat Robertson and Billy Graham, register as religious organizations. They're exempt from most taxes but still must file disclosure reports showing how they make and spend their money.

Daystar and dozens of others call themselves churches, which enjoy the greatest protection and privacy of all nonprofit organizations in America.

Churches avoid not only taxes, but any requirement to disclose their finances. And, as NPR has learned, for the last five years churches have avoided virtually any scrutiny whatsoever from the federal government's tax authority.

Today, television evangelists are larger, more numerous, more complex, richer, with bigger audiences than ever before and yet they are the least transparent of all nonprofits.

The top three religious broadcasters — Christian Broadcast Network, Trinity Broadcasting Network and Daystar Television — are worth more than a quarter of a billion dollars combined, according to available records.

global system of conehead supremacy?

theunknownmoment |  Future Money Trends: "Who is calling the shots at the Vatican. I am assuming it's not the pope."  

Karen Hudes: "Well, there is something called the black pope but that's umm... that's not the ultimate reason why we have been in the fix that we are in. What we have found out, and this sounds implausible, but it's absolutely correct, the fact that its been held in secret doesn't mean that it's not true. It is true. There is a second species on this planet. They are not extraterrestrial, they are very much with us, they made maps in the previous ice age. The remnants of their civilisations are all over the place. A lot of times along the coast its submerged because the umm... amount, the sea level has gone up by 400 meters, but this group has large brains. They are very distinct from homo sapiens.

those big heads though...,

Fast forward to 25 minutes

wikipedia |  Judaism - In ancient Israel, the Kohen Gadol (High Priest) wore a headdress called the Mitznefet (Hebrew: מצנפת, often translated into English as "mitre"), which was wound around the head so as to form a broad, flat-topped turban. Attached to it was the Tzitz (Hebrew: ציץ), a plate of solid gold bearing the inscription "Holiness to YHWH"^[1] (Exodus 39:14, 39:30). Lesser priests wore a smaller, conical turban.

Byzantine empire - The camelaucum (Greek: καμιλαύκιον, kamilaukion), the headdress both the mitre and the Papal tiara stem from, was originally a cap used by officials of the Imperial Byzantine court. "The tiara [from which the mitre originates] probably developed from the Phrygian cap, or frigium, a conical cap worn in the Graeco-Roman world. In the 10th century the tiara was pictured on papal coins."^[2] Other sources claim the tiara developed the other way around, from the mitre. In the late Empire it developed into the closed type of Imperial crown used by Byzantine Emperors (see illustration of Michael III, 842-867).

Worn by a bishop, the mitre is depicted for the first time in two miniatures of the beginning of the eleventh century. The first written mention of it is found in a Bull of Pope Leo IX in the year 1049. By 1150 the use had spread to bishops throughout the West; by the 14th century the tiara was decorated with three crowns.

dna analysis of paraca skulls unknown to any human, primate, or animal...,

collective-evolution |  Paracas is located in the Pisco Province in the Inca Region on the Southern coast of Peru. Home of the ground breaking discovery in 1928 by Julio Tello of a massive graveyard containing tombs filled with the remains of individuals with elongated skulls, now known as the famous Paracas Skulls.

They are approximately 3000 years old, and initial DNA analysis of them has revealed that they may not have come from humans, but from a completely new species, according to Paracas Museum assistant director, researcher and author Brien Foerster. Here is the apparent quote from the geneticist who did the testing

“Whatever the sample labeled 3A has came from – it had mtDNA with mutations unknown in any human, primate or animal known so far. The data are very sketchy though and a LOT of sequencing still needs to be done to recover the complete mtDNA sequence. But a few fragments I was able to sequence from this sample 3A indicate that if these mutations will hold we are dealing with a new human-like creature, very distant from Homo sapiens, Neanderthals and Denisovans. I am not sure it will even fit into the known evolutionary tree. The question is if they were so different, they could not interbreed with humans. Breeding within their small population. they may have degenerated due to inbreeding. That would explain buried children – they were either low or not viable” (Source)(Source)

It’s always been thought that the skulls were a result of cranial deformation, where the head is bound or flattened to achieve the shape. Many authors state that the time period to perform this shaping was approximately 6 months to 3 years, but the practice is no longer performed, which makes it hard to really know.  According to Forester:

“From the doctors that I have spoken to, they have said that you can alter the shape of the skull but you cannot increase the size of the skull. The skull is genetically predetermined to have a certain volume.” (Source)(Source)

What he is saying is that you can change the shape of the skull, but not the actual volume of it, the shape, but not the size. This is why these skulls are such a mystery, because of their cranial volume, which in some cases is 2.5 times larger than a conventional human skull. Again, it’s well known that cranial deformation changes the shape of the skull, it’s been done by ancient cultures before by binding the head between two pieces of wood, or binding in cloth, but this does not change the volume and cause elongation like we see with the Paracas skulls.

“As I have said, deformation can alter shape, but not the volume of bone material, and certainly not twice as much. We are dealing with 2 different phenomena: elongation through binding, and elongation via genetics. The Paracas skulls are the largest found in the world, but from what root race stock would they have originated? To suggest that natural elongation was the result of hydrocephaly or some other clinical condition is ridiculous, when one takes into account that at least 90 of them were found in 1928.” (Source)

I would also like to quote author and historian Graham Hancock.

“I have grave doubts about stories presently doing the rounds on the internet, and apparently bought hook, line and sinker by many, making extravagant and premature claims about the implications of DNA testing on certain elongated skulls from Paracas in Peru. We have no details of the lab that’s done the testing, and even in the sensationalist reports that have been attracting so much attention it is emphasised that the findings are preliminary. Let’s wait until we see the findings themselves, rather than someone referring to them, and let’s get more detailed results, before we get in the least bit excited. That being said, previously unknown species of human have been coming out of the woodwork recently (Denisovans, Homo Floresiensis) so who knows? It’s always good to keep an open mind but right now I fear this whole thing with the Paracas skulls is going to blow up into a great discredit to alternative history. I do hope I am proved wrong.” (Source)

Foerster has raised thousands of dollars so far for the initial DNA testing, but a full genome study to completely verify the theory would cost at least one hundred thousand dollars.

Juan Navarro, the owner and director of the Paracas History Museum allowed the taking of samples from 5 skulls. The samples collected consisted of hair, tooth, skull and bone skin. Apparently, the process was documented via photos and video. The samples were given to the geneticist, who was not given any information about where they came from.

moses and akhenaton

grahamhancock | The Bible and the Kuran speak of Moses being born in Egypt, brought up in the pharaonic royal palace, and leading the Israelites in their Exodus to Canaan. In historical terms, when did Moses live, and who was the pharaoh of Oppression? Now that archaeologists have been able to uncover the mysteries of ancient history, we need to find answers to these questions. Egyptian born Ahmed Osman, believes that he has been able to find the answers for these questions which bewildered scholars for centuries. He claims that Moses of the Bible is no other than King Akhenaten who ruled Egypt for 17 years in the mid-14th century BC. 

During his reign, the Pharaoh Akhenaten was able to abolish the complex pantheon of the ancient Egyptian religion and replace it with a single God, Aten, who had no image or form. Seizing on the striking similarities between the religious vision of Akhenaten and the teachings of Moses, Sigmund Freud was the first to argue that Moses was in fact an Egyptian. Now Ahmed Osman, using recent archaeological discoveries and historical documents, contends that Akhenaten and Moses were one and the same person.

In a stunning retelling of the Exodus story, Osman details the events of Moses/Akhenaten’s life: how he was brought up by Israelite relatives, ruled Egypt for seventeen years, angered many of his subjects by replacing the traditional Egyptian pantheon with worship of Aten, and was forced to abdicate the throne. Retreating to exile in Sinai with his Egyptian and Israelite supporters, he died out of the sight of his followers, presumably at the hands of Seti I, after an unsuccessful attempt to regain his throne.

Osman reveals the Egyptian components in the monotheism preached by Moses as well as his use of Egyptian royal and Egyptian religious expression. He shows that even the Ten Commandments betray the direct influence of Spell 125 in the Egyptian Book of the Dead. Osman’s book, Moses and Akhenaten provides a radical challenge to the long-standing beliefs concerning the origin of Semitic religion and the puzzle of Akhenaten’s deviation from ancient Egyptian tradition. In fact, if Osman’s contentions are right, many major Old Testament figures would be of Egyptian origin.

civilization's starter kit

NYTimes |  I’M an astrobiologist — I study the essential building blocks of life, on this planet and others. But I don’t know how to fix a dripping tap, or what to do when the washing machine goes on the blink. I don’t know how to bake bread, let alone grow wheat. I’m utterly useless with my hands. My father-in-law used to joke that I had three degrees, but didn’t know anything about anything, whereas he graduated summa cum laude from the University of Life. 

It’s not just me. Many purchases today no longer even come with an instruction manual. If something breaks it’s easier to chuck it and buy a new model than to reach for the screwdriver. Over the past generation or two we’ve gone from being producers and tinkerers to consumers. As a result, I think we feel a sense of disconnect between our modern existence and the underlying processes that support our lives. Who has any real understanding of where their last meal came from or how the objects in their pockets were dug out of the earth and transformed into useful materials? What would we do if, in some science-fiction scenario, a global catastrophe collapsed civilization and we were members of a small society of survivors? 

My research has to do with what factors planets need to support life. Recently, I’ve been wondering what factors are needed to support our modern civilization. What key principles of science and technology would be necessary to rebuild our world from scratch? 

The great physicist Richard Feynman once posed a similar question: “If, in some cataclysm, all of scientific knowledge were to be destroyed, and only one sentence passed on to the next generation of creatures, what statement would contain the most information in the fewest words? I believe it is the atomic hypothesis that all things are made of atoms — little particles that move around in perpetual motion, attracting each other when they are a little distance apart, but repelling upon being squeezed into one another.” 

That certainly does encapsulate a huge amount of understanding, but it also wouldn’t be particularly useful, in a practical sense. So, allowing myself to be a little more expansive than a single sentence, I have some suggestions for what someone scrabbling around the ruins of civilization would need to know about basic necessities.

tribalism in the modern era..,

american |  Tribal warfare, broadly construed, has afflicted human existence since the beginning of recorded time. Figuring out how to resolve conflict among conflicting groups — be they actual warring tribesmen, geopolitical rivals, partisan adversaries, or cultural warriors — can rightly be described as the key challenge facing social scientists, both in theory and in practice.

In his engaging, persuasive book Moral Tribes: Emotion, Reason, and the Gap Between Us and Them, Joshua Greene, a cognitive psychology professor and the director of Harvard’s Moral Cognition Laboratory, grapples with some of the thorniest socio-moral questions ever to have bedeviled political philosophers: When and why do we choose between “me” and “us”? When and why do we choose between “us” and “them”? How can we craft a common “meta-morality” that people of all different ideologies, religions, races, and cultures can share?

To call Greene’s project ambitious would be a massive understatement. “This book,” Greene writes, “is an attempt to understand morality from the ground up … It’s about understanding the deep structure of moral problems [and] … about taking this new understanding of morality and turning it into a universal moral philosophy that members of all human tribes can share.”

His framework for this analysis is a camera with automatic and manual modes, representing the reflexive and reflective capacities of the brain, our twin — and conflicting — abilities to act instinctually and think contemplatively in response to challenges we face. Greene skillfully maps these complimentary modes to particular portions of the brain that alternately process involuntary movements and purposeful thoughts.

Greene begins by exploring how “our moral brains evolved for cooperation within groups,” but not for cooperation between groups. He ably explains the Prisoner’s Dilemma and how a variety of different forces — direct and indirect reciprocity, concern for others, concern for one’s reputation, and commitments — enable two collaborators to find the “magic corner, where the aggregate outcome is optimal.

But these forces at times have nefarious consequences, as “some mathematical models indicate that altruism within groups could not have evolved without hostility between groups.” In his model, the human mind’s “automatic mode” applies to in-group interactions, where we instinctively protect and promote those within our tribe, including those outside of our nuclear families.

In order to overcome these inter-tribal differences, Greene maintains, we must turn to “manual mode” and carefully, actively, intellectually weigh the costs and benefits of any key decisions.

unalienable vs. inalienable

adask |  We can debate whether all of our rights are unalienable, inalienable or merely illusory. But what we can’t easily debate is that The United States of America started with the legal premises that: “We hold these truths [premises] to be self-evident, that 1) all men are created equal, that they they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights . . . .” and 2) “That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among men . . . .” In those two premises we see the basis for the governmental system and nation envisioned by the Founders. In those two premises, we see the basis for America being deemed “the land of the free” and the basis for American exceptionalism.

Every governmental system starts with one or more spiritual and/or political premises. For example, a monarchy is based on the premise/belief that only one man or woman in the country receives his/her rights directly from God and he/she is therefore the only sovereign–all else are subjects. Communism rejects the idea that any individual or individuals can be “sovereign”. Communism is based on the premises that 1) God does not exist; 2) the State is sovereign; and 3) all of the people are, at best, subjects. The United States of America started with the premises that we all received an equal endowment of unalienable Right from God and that government’s primary duty was to secure those God-given, unalienable Rights.

The premises on which any nation is constructed will determine how well that nation prospers and how long it lasts. The premises underlying the Soviet Union led to poverty and national destruction in just a few generations. The premises underlying The United States of America led to prosperity and national longevity and even world preeminence. 

So, when a group of government officers or special interest steals or surreptitiously eliminates the premises on which a nation is built, the result is more than an intellectual debate. The result can be national destruction. Right or wrong, the two premises on which America was built were the “people’s premises” and should only be changed with the people’s knowing consent. However, we live in a society where our fundamental premises have been concealed and virtually denied. In my opinion, as a result of the loss of our memory of our basic premises (unalienable Rights, etc.) we are all worse off as individual men and women; the American dream is dying; our children’s futures are being diminished; and our nation is heading for hard times and possible disintegration. 

I am therefore in favor of restoring the two, original premises on which this nation was built. Other people–fascists and fools, in my opinion–are indifferent to those premises or even opposed to them. Our current government seems dominated by those who believe that might makes right. I disagree with that premise.

The premises are the “rules of the game”. When special interests unilaterally change the rules to suit themselves but don’t inform the people, they “cheat”. The cause a kind of treason. 

I am against that treason and the “Unalienable vs. Inalienable” article was intended to help people recognize those original premises, regain respect for those premises, and hopefully, encourage them to demand a restoration of those premises. 

If you disagree with the premise of “unalienable Rights,” what premise(s) do you think should constitute the foundation for our nation?

unfair play...,

NYTimes | IN his provocative, passionate, important and disturbing book — part memoir, part history, part journalism — William C. Rhoden, a sports columnist for The New York Times, builds a historical framework that both accounts for the varieties of African-American athletic experience in the past and continues to explain them today.

First, he wants to recast black sports history, transforming it from “the inspirational reel” featuring Jackie Robinson, Arthur Ashe and the later Muhammad Ali into “a more complicated tale of continuous struggle, a narrative of victory and defeat.” His alternative narrative focuses on the stories of successful African-American athletes who so wanted to be accepted by white society that they failed “to anticipate, plan and organize,” maintained their “wholesale dependence on a racist white power structure,” and showed “surprise and consternation when the money and support” were withdrawn. Even black athletic institutions like Negro league baseball in the 1940’s and historically black colleges in the 1960’s complacently, and fatally, assumed that segregation would assure them a steady supply of athletes.

Second, Rhoden argues convincingly that integration posed relatively few problems for the white sports world, which quickly gained access to a huge pool of cheap talent, but that it precipitated a disaster for a “black industry, practically eliminating every black person involved in sports — coaches, owners, trainers, accountants, lawyers, secretaries and so on — except the precious on-the-field talent.”

Consequently, most black athletes lost their connection to a “sense of mission . . . of being part of a larger cause.” Young athletes, in particular, “dropped the thread that joins them to that struggle” and became, instead, a “lost tribe,” adrift in the world of white coaches, boosters, agents, club officials, network executives — those profiting from black muscle and skill. 

Finally, Rhoden insists on the importance of black athletes and entrepreneurs gaining organizational and business power in college and professional sports: the path toward the “redemption” of his subtitle. His vision here is a little murky, but he knows too much history to feel sanguine about the one black-owned franchise in the N.B.A., Robert Johnson’s (and now also Michael Jordan’s) Charlotte Bobcats.

NFL and NBA should organize their own minor leagues and stop parasitizing and distorting higher-ed...,

WaPo | IT’S OFFICIAL, according to a preliminary ruling of the National Labor Relations Board: The college sports industry’s claim that it exists to serve student-athletes doesn’t hold, er, Gatorade. Teams are composed of full-time athletes who labor under highly restrictive, sometimes dangerous conditions, and they deserve a stronger voice in how colleges and universities treat and compensate them.

The hard truth for those who love watching college sports is that major-conference basketball and football teams, billion-dollar businesses, exploit many of their players. By pretending the system is designed to help them, the teams add insult to sometimes literal injury.

The labor relations board’s ruling cuts through the hypocrisy. Examining Northwestern University’s football program, NLRB Regional Director Peter Sung Ohr found that players spend far more time competing and preparing for games than they do studying. They are under the supervision of well-compensated sports professionals — in most states, the highest-paid public employee is a college football or men’s basketball coach — rather than faculty members. In return, Mr. Ohr noted, the players get scholarships holding economic value. That can’t reasonably be construed to be an academic relationship. 

In fact, the rot is more extensive than Mr. Ohr describes. The problem is not simply that some college athletes are treated more like employees than students. It is that too many of them are shortchanged. Most athletes on highly competitive teams aren’t superstars who will make millions after spending some time in collegiate servitude. Their compensation is in their scholarships — the education they are supposedly getting while putting in full-time hours on the field. But, according to the NCAA’s own numbers, this year’s top-seeded Division I men’s basketball teams have graduation rates that hover around 60 percent. There are ugly racial divides: The University of Central Florida reports that 89 percent of white players on all NCAA Tournament teams graduate, but only 65 percent of their African American teammates do. And those numbers follow an NCAA drive to graduate more players. 

Those who do get a diploma, meanwhile, ­haven’t necessarily gained much. HBO’s “Real Sports” recently dug up example after example of college players who got degrees in “general studies” or “multidisciplinary studies” from respectable universities and now work menial jobs. One could barely read. A University of Oklahoma professor admitted that he helped push players through to keep the football program running. “There’s one like me at every big-time university in the country,” he said.

give it back...,

whitehouse |  Your Majesties, Your Royal Highnesses, distinguished members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, citizens of America, and citizens of the world:

I receive this honor with deep gratitude and great humility.  It is an award that speaks to our highest aspirations -- that for all the cruelty and hardship of our world, we are not mere prisoners of fate.  Our actions matter, and can bend history in the direction of justice.

And yet I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge the considerable controversy that your generous decision has generated.  (Laughter.)  In part, this is because I am at the beginning, and not the end, of my labors on the world stage.  Compared to some of the giants of history who've received this prize -- Schweitzer and King; Marshall and Mandela -- my accomplishments are slight.  And then there are the men and women around the world who have been jailed and beaten in the pursuit of justice; those who toil in humanitarian organizations to relieve suffering; the unrecognized millions whose quiet acts of courage and compassion inspire even the most hardened cynics.  I cannot argue with those who find these men and women -- some known, some obscure to all but those they help -- to be far more deserving of this honor than I.

frum distracted me, the endgame still means putting the bloodfunnel into ukraine

commondreams |  On Thursday, the IMF released the broad outlines of its terms and conditions for loans and other measures for the Ukrainian economy. What those terms and conditions mean is less a rescue of the Ukrainian economy than the onset of a Greece-like economic depression for the Ukrainian populace.

Ukraine’s economy had clearly entered a recession, its third since 2008, sometime in the latter half of 2013.  Some recent estimates of the likely contraction of the economy in 2014-15 have ranged from 5%-15% in GDP decline.

The ‘IMF Standby Agreement with Ukraine’ text released March 27, acknowledges the current severe economic instability of the Ukrainian economy. What it fails to acknowledge, however, is how the IMF package will further adversely impact that economy.

The IMF deal calls for $14-$18 billion in IMF financial support provided over the next two years, 2014-15. Another potential $9 billion reportedly will come from other countries, although in yet unspecified form. The European Bank for Reconstruction & Development apparently will provide $2 billion of that $9 billion. Presumably the US aid package of around $1-$2 billion now currently working its way through the US Congress represents another element of the $9 billion. The remaining $5 of the $9 billion non-IMF funding is yet unidentified.

The $27 billion total is well in excess of the $15 billion that was being talked about in prior weeks by the public press and more than the $20 billion Ukraine had asked the IMF for at the end of 2013—an indication that the economy has been deteriorating more rapidly than reported since the beginning of 2014.

In previous articles on the Ukraine economic situation a few weeks ago, this writer estimated that at least $50 billion would be needed to stabilize the Ukraine’s economy over the next two years. That figure may even rise by 2015.