Tag: evolution

Wenzda’s Theme Music

Greetings to all on this day, Wenzda, February 12, 2025. Sunshine is blazing across a bold blue sky, dazzling off the disheveled snow comforter still in place around much of Ashlandia. It’s 24 F, up from 19 F. Gonna get up to 42, 43 F, ‘they’ tell us.

A gorgeous full moon visited last night. Light sprayed across the snow, throwing deep shadows around trees and houses. One of those wondrous sights that hold your attention and forces you to invest in deep philosophical thoughts about the nature of existence. At least, until the wine runs out.

Happy Darwin Day! “Charles Robert Darwin, who first described the process of evolution of species in the plant and animal kingdoms through natural selection, was born.
It is now celebrated as Darwin Day, when the common language of science, bridging language and culture, is recognized and appreciated.“ stolen from Scottie’s Playtime. A friend puts on a one-person play as Darwin to honor the man. We were planning to attend but with the rise of flu and other respiratory illnesses, we backed off that intention.

That’s Dr. Pepper Trail on the right.

I also have another lymphedema bandage session this afternoon. The left appendage and all of its accessories responded well and I may come out of there wearing a normal shoe on it. The right, which had the surgery, still had some space to improve.

Today’s song is “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road” by Elton John with Lyrics by Bernie Taupin. Released in 1973, while I was in high school, it’s one of those songs which are easy to sing along with…if you know the words! It’s like, what is he saying? Hearing the actual lyrics cause conniptions over meanings and associations. Some seem straightforward enough but others give a ‘huuuhhh?’ moment. It’s about longing to me, though, about being in a different place and time, one where you feel more comfortable. That’s why I The Neurons have delivered it to the morning mental music stream. Reading the world’s news, especially politics in the U.S., I wondered what road we’ll need to follow to survive and free ourselves of this mess. Where is the yellow brick road?

Coffee grabbed me as I was walking by and took me into the kitchen, where I indulged a cup to wash down a lemon turnover. Hope your day goes well. Stay safe out there. Cheers

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Sunday’s Wandering Thoughts

I went off topic on a mini-rant with a friend this morning.

It started as an innocent encounter. They commented on my Harris-Walz bumper sticker. I support her campaign to be POTUS.

He said something about being comfortable with a woman president, and I just riffed, telling him that we’re overdue to have a female as our president, just as we were overdue to have a black as our president.

And maybe it was the air, but I went off on a tangent about sex and gender, and how so many people tell me that sex is a matter of biology and that it goes hand in hand with gender. They talk about it as a foregone and undeniable fact of nature. I point out that are many species who have it way more complicated than the simple labels of male and female. I firmly believe that sex and gender continue evolving for humans, just as we as a species continues evolving.

And, and, to finish, it’s always humorous to me when someone pulls out the God card. “God created man and woman.” Right, but isn’t your God all-knowing? So, if they’re pulling the strings of creation, aren’t they creating the others who aren’t strictly male and female as you would have it? And do you claim to know the mind of God? And don’t tell me you’re going to predicate everything on a book or teachings that are a few thousand years old. It’s been revised and edited, and by the way, can’t God change their mind about things?

Guess that’s a commandant I don’t know: “God shall not change their mind.”

I don’t know why I went off. But it’s out of me know. At least for the moment.

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Friday’s Wandering Thoughts

Just think back of when telephones first came to the United States. Few probably foresaw a time when telephone lines spread pole to pole across the nation. Not many probably had visions of homes with several phones. They probably didn’t see the invention and rise of phone booths.

If you’re old enough, you can probably recall conversations about the cost and need when ‘calling long-distance’.

Folks of the telephone booth probably didn’t see a time when all those phone booths would be gone. Few probably guessed that phone lines would start disappearing underground. People with all those phones in their home likely never suspected those phones would be unnecessary with the rise of wireless and cell phones.

Pew Research from 2021 states that 97% of Americans own a cell phone. So, given the progression we’ve seen since the telephone first arrived, what will be next? How many of us will still be holding onto a cell phone when it becomes archaic, and what will replace it?

Just sipping coffee on a cold and rainy afternoon, watching people using their phones in the coffee shop, and wondering.

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Saturday’s Wandering Thoughts

Just for the record, my preferred pronouns are he/him.

I respect others’ choices. The idea of gender is a wholly human creation, a long-ago first stab at categorizing creatures as we sought to understand their roles. Like many things in science, it was an okay first guess. I’d say that it’s a better guess than the idea that the Earth is flat, that fish went underwater for the winter, or that the universe revolves around the Earth. Those were all accepted scientific truths.

But we evolve, study, and learn. We test ideas and form new ones. New angles and insights develop. What we know about sex and gender, and gender identity, is much different today than what was known a hundred years ago.

It all becomes problematic because it’s hard to let go of things we previously learned, to understand that we made some conclusions which aren’t quite right. It’s also challenging because so many of our mores, roles, and language is tied up with gender and sex.

As societies, we’re struggling now, much as we’ve strugged to learn and change in previous centuries. Eventually, we’ll grasp the complications and grow to understand that it’s not just about male and female. By then, of course, the needle will have moved, and we’ll know yet more that will force us to face new challenges.

Such is the beauty of science and our existence. As much as we learn, we come to understand how little we know. Assumptions and conclusions which we consider solid and resolve are proven to be wrong. And that gives us the opportunity to keep striving to learn and keep up.

I, for one, am always falling behind. But I’m gonna keep trying.

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Assumptions

The other day, I wrote a short post, “End Game.” I’ve been amused by the position that people won’t accept other genders because, God, and the Bible, or some other deity and religious document. I assumed that were it true that a deity created the original one or two sexes, they may now have decided to add more sexes. I assumed they could agree with that.

That might be a wrong assumption.

After posting that, I read an article about conservative American thinking in Salon. I infer from the article that Conservatives have a difficult time accepting change. So if God created two sexes and stopped, that’s it; the end. That chokes the life out of my position. They were taught one thing, so they believe one thing, and they can’t change their thinking to believe anything else. It’s a fascinating conclusion, because it’s not about politics or religious beliefs, but about brain structure and how our brains develop and work.

That leads to another assumption, embraced by so many, that we are all the same. An intriguing dichotomy arises: if you have a hard-wired conservative brain and were taught that everyone is the same, then you can’t change your mind, and yet you’re the very evidence that we’re not all the same. That explains why so many conservatives will drop back and point to differences in gender and sexual orientation as either choices or sicknesses. They can’t conceive of the third choice, that either their God has more in mind for the sexes and variations for humans, or that humans continue to develop and evolve. Like generals fighting the last war, their thinking is predicated on the past situation. To think that gender changes might be required for humanity’s survival is unthinkable, and unimaginable.

Now we’re entering X-Men territory. Yet, medical science can point to evolutionary changes and mutations beyond genders and sexual orientations that indicate, yes, human beings are dynamic and evolving. Changes have emerged, and will continue to emerge. Unfortunately, my recent reading about conservative thinking is that they have a hard time with science, too.

The way we learn has an impact, as well. We’ve learned that what we first learn often stays with us; it’s difficult to overcome what we initially learn, even when new information is later added that shows that we initially learned was wrong. Part of this also has to do with with our brains, memory, and wiring.

I wish I was more intelligent and better educated so I could understand and explain it all with more clarity and nuance. Sadly, I ponder if humans might end up destroying humanity trying to stay the same as were were when they believe they were created.

I hope that I’m just assuming the worst.

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