Tag: Society

Natural Selection versus Genetic Drift in Single nucleotide polymorphisms, SNPs

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Research published from The University of Queensland indicates that natural selection plays a greater role than genetic drift in SNPs dealing with height, waist-to-hip ratio, BMI, and schizophrenia among European, African, and Asian populations (Does evolution make us or are we just drifting that way?). Led by Professor Jian Yang from UQ’s Institute for Molecular Bioscience and Queensland Brain Institute, the team used more than 400,000 genetic samples from African, East Asian and European populations to determine if the SNPs (pronounced as “snips”) showed a tendency towards randomness, implying genetic drift, or not, and thus natural selection.

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The results showed that for SNPs such as height, waist-to-hip, BMI, and schizophrenia, there was a greater frequency for height among Europeans; a greater BMI number for Africans with Europeans having greater than Asians; both Europeans and Africans falling out of the mean for schizophrenia. None of these traits showed the tendency towards a random distribution which indicates that for these SNPs natural selection plays a greater role than genetic drift. In other words, what this study says that rather than in the colloquial debate of Nature versus Nurture it’s more like Selection over Nature and Nurture not having a factor at all. This is important in that it gives hope for the potential to treat certain ailments, such as schizophrenia through treatments such as CRISPR. 

It has left me to wonder how much of natural selection over genetic drift influenced hominin traits? Eyebrows/brow ridges, robust/gracile, even “having a chin” how were these more a product of selectivity among groups than randomness among Neandertals, Denisovans, and modern humans? More intriguing, could this be applied to culture as well? 

-A. M. Holmes

 

 

Wow, and I thought I was a Progressive Thinker.

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This morning I got a Twitter notification from All Revolutions (@RevolutionsCen) about an article from The Atlantic by Ed Young (@edyong209 ) where, as he tells it in I Spent Two Years Trying to Fix the Gender Imbalance in My Stories , “I knew that I care about equality, so I deluded myself into thinking that I wasn’t part of the problem”.  He had seen how a lot of his articles reflected a gender bias he never intended to portray. Reading this opened my eyes to the fact that even though I claim to be “gender-blind” I wasn’t doing any better. Here I’m thinking I’m a progressive thinking person now to find out I’m as dirty as our misogynist President (I wasn’t aware of Emmanuelle Charpentier, Jennifer Doudna, and CRISPR). I was fooling myself completely. Now I begin to wonder where else has my supposed “blindness” toward gender, race, or ethnicity has misled me to promote instead the same prejudices I have always felt unjust?  The article is very enlightening. Also, it has good resource information at the end of it.

-A.M. Holmes

“I Want Money…”

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Carmen de la Rosa Sanger Peters Anapopolis Rahim Martin Johnson Ross so-on-and-so-forth, etcetera, etcetera Weinstein had finally laid to rest poor, dear Leonard Weinstein, the former and now late CEO of the financial services of Weinstein, Sheckelman (husband number 9) and Johnson (number 6) in Greenwood and was on her way to the law offices of Ross (number 7, divorced him back ‘83), Jorgensen (number 8 for 6 months a year later) and Haims (he’s gay) to hear the will. Not that there were going to be any surprise, she already knew (with the help of an ex-husband whom she promised as a client her next victim) that all 90 million dollars in net worth, not including the stocks in some dynamic portfolios, were incontestably hers.

“And rightly so considering how hard I worked on this one,” she thought as she drove her silver-gray Porsche 911 down the road and into the tunnel. “I thought I was going to have to divorce this one before he croaked. Thank God, for the hidden dangers of prostate cancer and the over-inflated male pride.”

At 56, and the best looking 56 money can buy, Carmen was not getting any younger and found that staying that way was getting harder no matter how much money it took for upkeep. The way she saw it, she probably had enough time for 2 or 3 more husbands (if they all lived) maybe even a 4th (if any one of them didn’t). One good lucky strike that could knock the ball out of Yankee stadium would shorten that number to one or two if it became necessary. But, as she gave it another thought, that wouldn’t make it anywhere near as fun and enjoyable. The thrill of catching them, after all, is what helped make the time go by every time she found one of these lonely, pathetic and rich morons to marry. Yes, she’s been everywhere that’s anywhere several times over and even owns some of them. She has plenty of toys, both the material and the living kind, and could always get new ones of either kind whenever she got bored. Friends? As many as money can buy.

“Fuck friends!” she answered that thought as it came up, “Actually, that is the only kind of a good friend, a ‘fuck friend’, ha ha ha.” She laughs aloud at her own joke as she was still trying to make her way down lower Manhattan and into the Wall Street district. “The sooner I get there, the sooner I can get out of this black shit and on a plane for Sidney.” Australia was going to be her next stop. Seemed to her that she ran into a couple of promising prospects while visiting there last Summer. “A rugged Aussie type- that’ll be exciting. Hell, I may even fall in love! Love, ha-ha-ha-ha, you’re a real crack-up today, Carmen.”

She finally arrived at the buildings where the offices were located and had the valet parked her car. Alone in the elevator, she noticed that it was only 8:40 in the morning and thought over possibly having breakfast at the “Windows” restaurant. She decided against it thinking better to grab a bite later. Carmen had noticed how beautifully clear the September sky was today and tried to remember if Spring was coming to the ‘down-under’ at this time. She didn’t care. All she knew was that by this time tomorrow, on the twelfth, she was going to be basking on some sunny beach, sipping her drink, and feeling the warmth of the South Pacific wind in her face. She checked her make-up before saying to herself, “In an hour I’ll be done here at the Twin Towers and on my way to JFK. With any luck, I’ll be a new bride by New Years of ‘02.”

At 8:46, the elevator stopped and the lights went out.

-A. M. Holmes

“Populism” is the New “Nationalism”

 

The New York Times op-ed says, “If freedom is to prevail over the many challenges to it, American leadership is urgently required.” Unfortunately, the U.S. has leadership but not in the form it needs to preserve freedom.

In the U.S. “Populism” has become just another word for “Nationalism”. “America Great Again”, “America First” these are fascistic slogans used by a radical movement within the GOP that has Trump as its leader. This is a group that believes in the suppression of the free press, divisiveness along socio-economic and cultural lines, isolationism, and “bread and circuses (tax breaks and parades) for the masses. These people are elitists who have nothing in common with the average American and yet know how to manipulate and lie to achieve power through the ballot box. They are un-American and if we continue to allow them to usurp the government they are a threat not only here but globally as well.

-A. M. Holmes

Why I Remain on Facebook

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I thought about it as well, weighing the security breaches against staying in touch with people, and concluded that whatever I am worried that someone would get has already happened. Therefore, I’ve taken some steps to prevent any further excursions by outfits like Cambridge Analytica into mine and my friend’s lives. I’ve cut down my number of contacts down to a small, manageable number and of people I can control. Removed any pictures of my children and be careful of what I post in the future. I’ve also made access to certain information more restrictive. I won’t participate in surveys, test, and any of the other distractions FB had provided in the past. Note: I never understood why some of these would ask for a login to post on your profile if you were already logged in. Always seemed like a security violation.

Anyway, to keep in touch with family, former classmates, co-workers -friends, I will remain on FB. I will also remain to do so more carefully.

Understanding Men

 

Author’s Note: With the Women’s March, the #MeToo, and #TimesUpNow movements taking center stage I think it’s time we look at what really has inspired them, Men.

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Some of you women may have been wondering what the hell is wrong with these men? Is it all about power and control? Is it that they wish to dominate everything that badly? Did mommy and daddy not teach them to respect women? Is it genetics? Are they just plain stupid? Or just brain dead? The short answer is, well, boring.

A multi-disciplinary research study in areas from genetics to behaviorism, psychology, and physiology have concluded that the main drive for men falls into three categories and little else. Men are motivated only by three things,

  1. Food
  2. Sex
  3. A way to do as little as possible with the least amount of effort and the greatest amount of gain.

Every single human endeavor from the dawn of time created by men can be thought of as a way of achieving one or more of these goals. From understanding the secrets of the universe to Velcro, it’s all about food, sex, and the desire to be lazy. Now, these are not in any kind of order of importance and they do tend to overlap on many occasions. As a matter of fact, if more of these goals can be achieved at the same time, the better. Take for example strip joints that feature all-you-can-eat buffets that are so popular among men. Here men can eat, enjoy sex, and achieve a high amount of self-gratification without doing anything at all (I always thought that if all of this could be done in a tasteful way, men doing these things while sitting on the toilet would be Nirvana). Men will pay top dollar to go to these establishments.

Another example is agriculture.

What motivated humans from leaving the comforts of the jungle to go trudging into the dangers of the outside world? Food (and if it was a woman who led the way- sex). Tool making? To do as little as possible with the least amount of effort and the highest amount of gain (opening a coconut, or the head of the person trying to steal your coconut). Combining the two we became hunter and gatherers (please note that its “hunters” then “gathers”, you’ll understand in a minute). Men developed societies in which women did most of the gathering (a laborious back-breaking effort requiring a great amount of time) while the men did the hunting (requiring a lot of wandering around not really sure where to go, eventually running into something, tracking it, killing it, skinning it, chopping it, and after much revelry, back patting, and a lot of “atta-boy, Og”, finally dragging it home to eat it- after the women prepared it, of course). It only took a mere 2 million years (and a long time of nagging from cave wives) for men to go to the next step and invent agriculture. Now, all that men had to do was to go out into their back-yards and kill it, skin it, chop it to bring it in and eat it (again, after women prepared it).

What about other inventions, you say? Cars- come on, aren’t they supposed to be sexy? Yes, if you consider a noisy, smelly, polluting machine made of cold steel and plastic that provides transportation with the least amount of effort (on the driver’s part) can really be an object of sexual desire (on a personal note, I prefer woman. It looks a lot less strange talking to one of them then to a machine that should not have anything interesting to say back to you).

Sports? The object of any sport to aggressively overwhelm your opponent through aggressive acts, and outscoring him with a lot of display. Ever watch deer rutting or any other phenomenal display of sexual competition? Compare that to something like football or boxing, same thing. I mean, how many times have men been heard using sport terminally to the ability to “win”, or “score” with women sexually? Isn’t the sweat in sport the same as in sex?

Ok, what about religion? What’s that all about? Religion is the set up (as thought up by men) of a moral code (as determined by men) of conduct (regulated by men) in which society (men and women) can live by. All religions include in their doctrine rules that govern sexual behavior- specifically, a woman’s sexual behavior. Why is that, you ask? Well, if a man can control a woman’s sexual activity he is guaranteed a source of sex (and food preparation) that requires as little effort as possible. I mean, that’s what marriage was really all about, wasn’t it (“until those goddamn women libbers and fags had to ruin it all for us real men”)? If a woman broke the rules she is labeled a whore. If a man does the same with a woman, he is considered doing God’s will and there is a lot of show of high fives all around and a lot of drinking and celebrating (and by the way, I know I sound like I’m religion bashing, I’m not. I’m a good little Catholic boy- well, most of the time). And don’t get me started on the many dietary laws religions have (that’s food, by the way).

Power is about sex. Before Catholic priests were made to take an oath of celibacy they were screwing anything that moved (and thinking about screwing anything that didn’t). Money is about power and the ability to get as much of it while doing as little as possible with the least amount of effort has always been looked at as a high achievement Communism failed because even though through sharing the work meant there was less effort, there was little gain as well. With power getting more food and more sex becomes easier.

What about understanding the secrets of the universe? Here you have men (and though there have been many strides made by women it is still men for the most part) sitting looking up into the sky, sitting considering a microscope, sitting looking at a difficult mathematical problem, sitting- well, you get the point.  Possessing knowledge is power (“I know more than you do, nya-nya-nana-nya-nya”). Power there is prestige. And with prestige comes invitations to all those high-class celebrity parties that all the “In” people go and where there are a lot of food and women. Seeing the pattern here?

So, women, that’s the secret to understanding men. The Golden Grail to the basic psyche of men.  The essence of maleness. The rhyme and reason to all the silly things that men do. So, accept them for what they are. After all, this study about men was conducted by men and men wouldn’t to women to make there lives easier. Now, I’m going out for lunch.

-A. M. Holmes

“Smug feeling …from the rich and famous”, The Golden Globe Awards 2018

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A local reporter tweeted, “Here we go again. A group of rich and famous “stars” celebrating each other’s careers while pretending to laugh at jokes that are falling about as flat as the champagne sitting on the tables draped with white table clothes. Privileged? Yep. Relevant? Funny? Dare is say, no.” (https://twitter.com/rooprajfox2). In a later tweet, he explains that he wanted to spur “a conversation that is long overdue both in Hollywood and our world …I don’t like the smug feeling I get from the rich and famous in that room.” What he perceived as “smug feeling …from the rich and famous” I saw as a reward for many years of dedication and hard work against the odds in an industry set up for you to fail.

Ninety-nine percent of the individuals in that room started out with practically nothing, working in service and manual labor jobs, trying to stay one step ahead of homelessness, just to make their dream come through. They spent backbreaking hours trying to make a living before going to school, tryouts, rehearsals, or home to work on a song or a script, sleep a bit, and all to state all over again the next day. Weeks and weeks, months and months, years and years of disappointments may go by before that special moment, or song, or book, or script happens, and you make it, or at least get your foot in. But it’s not champagne and laurels yet. No, the struggle to maintain the momentum begins and here is where some make it and others fail. For every Oprah, Jackman, or Spielberg there are hundreds of thousands who couldn’t do it. Then, if that wasn’t enough to discourage you, there are the “Power That Be”, usually men, who saw their position of status as an opportunity for abuse.

Many of those “Rich and Famous” people in that room at some point in time have had to do things they didn’t want, and many are ashamed they had because those who had the power to fulfill their goals had the means to “make or break” their careers. Some of those things may have been as innocuous as a particularly bad role, a change in wording, a costume that showed a bit more than modesty would allow. Other times not so, and for many, especially if you were a woman, you had to “perform” to win the favor from the plutocrats that ran the business. This is a culture of the truly Rich and Famous preying on the innocent.

Care to judge them for what they had to endure? Let me ask you this, how much better are you, as an observer, an audience or viewer, how much better are you when you remark on an actor’s appearance, clothing, physical features without giving credit to their craft? Now, tell me, how would you like to be judged on the same criteria, not for who you are or what you can do, but how you look. Honestly tell me that those people in that ballroom, or anyone anywhere, should be made to feel that way. To change this practice is the struggle and challenge of the MeToo (@MeTooMVMT) and Time’s Up (@TIMESUPNOW) movements. They have pointed out to all of us that the culture of harassment, abuse, and intimidation must come to an end. I see it as a noble cause and pray they succeed. But, back to the “smug feelings of the rich and famous”, at least one final word on the subject.

These people were not born rich, they weren’t born privileged, they didn’t go to Ivy league private schools, or had a corps of lawyers removing every obstacle, they worked hard to be where they are. And if they wish to throw a party, or several parties, to honor some of their own for their hard work, then they deserve it. After all, many in that room didn’t have daddy give them $1 million to kick-start their careers.

How I learned to Stop Worrying and Love My ASD

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If anyone would have asked me in the beginning if I would like to be set down in a world among the idiots my answer would have been a firm “No“. Since no one did, here I am. If my answer seems to be insulting don’t let it bother you for it’s not meant for anyone specifically and applies only to humanity in general.

Still perturbed? Okay, I can say that there are exceptions and that you are one of them but then you’ll realize I don’t know you so how could it apply? Or, I could say the problem is not in you but in me but that is a copout because I really don’t think it and so the statement loses all its earnestness. Fine. So, let’s just say, as the saying goes, agree to disagree. What? Still not happy with the “world among the idiots” part? Fine {again}, prove to me we don’t live in a time and culture where stupidity is normal and exceptional is viewed with suspicion? For evidence of the culture of stupidity, one has only to look at the warning label of any product with the insight that at some point someone did attempt to blow-dry their hair in the shower or use bleach as a mouthwash. As for the attack on the brilliant how about the way we are training our children to believe “everyone is the same, everyone is a winner”. Really? Mediocrity as a life’s goal!

I predict that future historians, after a long ‘Dark Age’ recovery period, will call our times “The Meh Epoch”, or M.E.

Okay, so fine, a flatline baseline is what we in the Western world are shooting for, a world where “I am entitled to everything that is coming to me as long as no one I don’t like gets any of it then it’s not fair” populist politics of both the Left and the Right lower the bar to the point where only flatworms can cross. Yeah, that’s sounds like a stable place to be. A society where factcheck fake news to exhaustion because people’s perceptions rather than truth feeds the greedy media. A culture of the damn that blames physical ills on the genes inherited from the parents that are no different than the “sin of the father” reasoning use 200 years ago but with a misconstrued scientific twist. Oh, and then there the Western elitist point of view that the world will be “a better place if only we allow {fill in the blank: God, Nature, Socialism, Capitalism, Nationalism, Skepticism, any kind of “ism”,  Science and Technology (yeah, capital letters), Boomers, Gen-Xers, Millennials, Gen-Zee, The U.S. Congress, The Donald, The Fed, Wall Street, PETA, Hollywood, Bollywood, The United Nations, NATO, UNESCO, EU, PU (just kidding), Ahura-Mazda, ComCast, Apple, the “Spaghetti Monster”, Organic Farming, Anti-Vaxers, Anti-science, Moe, Larry and Curly, etc., etc., etc.} to do its thing in peace”. That will so not happen if there are sane people on this planet.

But, enough of my rant.

Wondering what the title has to do about this all of this? Nothing at all unless you consider for a moment that’s it’s a peek into the effed-up process in which my mind works.

It sucks, and I used to let it frustrate. Now, thanks to those that have made autism chic, I have embraced my mental “quirkiness” in the form of Asperger’s syndrome and see the world in my different way.

Frustrating? HELL-YA! Can I do something about it? Might be the point of sharing these private thoughts of mind. Is this my “Dark Manifesto”? Please, that’s for the truly psychotic. Is there hope for our screwed-up world? Sure, there is. There’s always that.

 

If you indulge me on one final note, my other reason for doing this. I see the beginning of 2018 with renewed possibilities one of them being the completion of several writing projects I will be sharing here. Some are good, some need work, as fiction and commentary, all I hope will entertain and maybe provoke some discussion.