THE BEGINNING OF THE END?

MORTALITY

The end of life is ever more close.  But it isn't of great concern when you truly believe you go on in a better way in the hereafter.  In about thirteen years I will be 100.  I keep getting warnings the end is near.

Eight years ago I had a case of shingles in the right trigeminal nerve region.  Fortunately, my eye escaped the damage it often causes.  Blood work at the time showed some immune deficiencies and a marrow sample indicated I had the same disease that Carl Sagan had died from about six months after a successful bone marrow transplant.

One or two shots a week at the local cancer/blood diseases center have maintained neutrophils at low levels, but high enough that they seem to prevent infections.  But an accompanying low level of platelets means a minor accident could be fatal- hence my internist son wants me to promise not to drive when schools are closed and roads are icy.

A FINAL POST

I've given some thought to a final post so a daughter could click on the publish button after I am gone.  Because of the mix of topics I'd like to cover, I probably should write separate ones.  If I mention God, half my readers are likely to tune out.  If I mention evolution, the other half are likely to tune out.  I have already tried to discuss why the two concepts are not mutually exclusive.  It appears to me that some teachers in Europe and Asia have focused on a few evolution posts to have classes access them; it is just my guess based on peaks in page views.

POPULAR EVOLUTION POSTS

A February 27, 2015 post, on Evolution: the body cavity, covers a topic presumably given very little attention although it is important in understanding physiology and evolution.  The content could help you understand why I think the biggest gap in the origin of coelomate animals can be filled by an ancestor of nemerteans.

The May 2, 2014 post, on Evolution of Macromolecules, when applied to cell physiology, can help one understand the natural selection biochemical features of cells had as most of the important underpinnings developing before the origin of multicellularity.

The April 8, 2015 post, Cnidaria: nematocyst origin, provoked renewed interest in the July 19, 2013 post on Acoelomate evolution, 2, cnidarians.  They should be helpful in understanding the sponge-cnidarian-flatworm sequence of early evolution that had to be completed in the Pre-Cambrian before the protonemertean-polychaete-pogonophoran sequence led to hemichordates, then chordates.

OVERLOOKED POSTS OF IMPORTANCE

In order to understand the major errors infecting current evolutionary theory attempting to determine the "Tree of Life", the errors made in proposing the Ecdysozoa and Lophotrochozoa need to be seen.  The post of May 31, 2013, Science Screw-Up No. 1 points out the errors that should have been seen by reviewers and stopped the publications involved.  There are many other posts that provide a more rational answer to explain the "Tree of Life".  It is necessary to understand the ecology of the deep sea to see how the pogonophorans have answered many important unasked questions about evolution.

ECLECTIC OR CHAOTIC?

My interests had jumped around in animals of interest over the years, as well as thinking of moon origin and the early environment on earth, continental drift, and unfortunately, or fortunately, not in a well-planned way.  Without my chaotic background, I doubt I would have arrived at the role of pogonophorans and extreme longevity answering major questions of evolution.  I accumulated a stack of mostly unpublished papers that I looked at and thought I should assemble them in a book.  I think I picked the title, "Animal Evolution: A Serial Symposium" to accommodate my eclectic collection.  That was almost thirty years ago when I started printing it out on a dot-matrix printer.  The files saved on floppies, hard disks, and tape never got fully transferred to CDs and thumb drives before the old hard drives were corrupted; probably a good thing they are not swamping me with redundant data.

When I retired nineteen years ago, I was going to write the book that turned out to be "Evolution Insights", my 2010 unpublished manuscript.  That might never have been done if I hadn't had the health problems noted above warning me time was limited.  This blog was conceived of when it was apparent publishers were not looking for such books from new (though ancient) authors in 2010.  Again golf and other things became distractions until other health problems jarred me in to getting a blog going. So I thank Google for their support of this blog and hope that it will survive my demise - whether tomorrow or ten years from now.  This is not meant to be morbid, but you start to think about such things when you return from a memorial service for a WMU colleague first met about 51 years ago.

So while I work on my final post I will probably continue posting.

Joseph G. Engemann   Kalamazoo, Michigan    November 9, 2015