SCIENCE: QUIET AND CREATIVITY

QUIET - the book

Cain, Susan.  2012, 2013.  Quiet, the Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking.  Broadway Books.  New York.  352 pp.  Just read this book at the end of January 2014.  Very worth reading.  Today (February 2, 2014) I was reviewing in my mind some of the things from it I wanted to blog about (evolutioninsights.blogspot.com) and, as I was thinking about how creativity is enhanced by left-brain/right-brain cooperation and how creativity seems to be associated with introversion and right brain activity, the following seemed evident.

INTROVERT-EXTROVERT-AMBIVERT RATIO

Cain discusses probable causes of introvert/extrovert personality types and sees both hereditary and environmental factors as causes, including one known gene, as having some influence.  I see that a simple explanation of chance expression of left brain versus right brain dominance could be a major factor.  Once both hemispheres are more equally integrated into brain activity, one might be more of an ambivert.  Until that point is reached the ratio early in life would be close to 1:1.  

CREATIVITY

I agree with her arguments that introversion is associated with the careful thought leading to creative results.  But I have personally made the transition from right brain dominance and introversion to either extroversion or, more likely, ambivert status.  I still find quiet time pleasant and useful for thinking.  My discovery of my transition was a few dozen years ago as I was reflecting about left-brain/right brain matters and the need for me to use more graphic material in lectures to accommodate those students who were right-brain dominant.  I became aware that I was thinking in words that I was hearing in my mind.  At that time I could not visualize a picture of anything in my mind, the same mind that in the mid 1960's I could visualize strategy for a three dimensional tick-tac-toe game that some faculty were playing on Western Michigan University's new IBM 1620 computer.  I had lost my first game with it, but, after a night's interrupted sleep pondering it, I won the next game.  I had changed.

HEMISPHERIC DOMINANCE AND CAREERS

I spent some time considering a research project enlisting honors college students in a longitudinal study of hemispheric dominance.  A math professor friend noted the mathematicians had been discussing left-brain dominance as characteristic of their profession.  But he was right-brained and taught an area of math more visually oriented, I think geometry.  I wanted to have students check the ratio in various academic disciplines, both in faculty and undergraduate majors.  In particular, follow-up on students from their freshman year to later years would show whether they should be counseled out of a field or left to make the transition to suitable hemispheric activity.

I did not pursue the project, perhaps because I was an INTP personality type, and/or I didn't have the disposition to deal with the ambiguities involved in getting approval from the university's human subjects review board as needed for projects when people are the subject.  But from personal experience, I knew that I changed.

My understanding of the evolutionary origin of hemispheric dominance in humans came with my being called upon to teach introductory zoology about the end of the 1970's.  After 20 years teaching invertebrate type classes I wanted to know the reason the left brain controls the right side of the body and the right brain controls the left side of the body.  To shorten the story, it wasn't in the books, but it became apparent that it was the most economical way to integrate vision into a unitary binocular vision for us.  The role of association neurons connecting left and right neurons controlling structures of invertebrates contributed to the answer.  I gave a presentation at the state academy on the topic but did not publish the story.  The enormous demands of brain space for good vision selected for a large visual cortex.  But the area for nervous control of the physical body do not demand much space for transmission of motor impulses.  So rather than having massive crossing over from both visual hemispheres, the partial crossing over of visual and complete crossing over for motor nerve enervation was achieved through natural selection.  As other portions of the brain enlarged along with the visual cortex, the portions allocated to thought did not have right and left functions so opposite sides of those regions could specialize as we see in humans.

CONCLUSION

Both personality types may have creativity in their future as they optimize hemispheric use with a balance appropriate to the business at hand.  I might never have reached this understanding if my nine-year old verbal brother had not belabored his tongue-tied little five-year old brother with the maxim that if you couldn't express your idea you didn't know it.  I was not literally tongue-tied, but I clearly understood concepts I could not find words to express.  My transition from introversion to what I am today is a long story, I will spare you the details.

My understanding of hemispheric dominance and creativity long ago was why I argued study of biology was exceptionally important in a liberal arts education.  Laboratory and field study of organisms exercised the right brain and explaining and describing exercised the left brain; cooperatively using both sides enhanced the result.  Actually, any subject that has physical aspects and written and verbal aspects should have similar value.  

Perhaps the link between left-brain with math, music, and speech skills, versus the right-brain with visual, graphic, and mechanical skills starts early in life.  It may never be known if more right-brained children developed after television began to replace radio.  But there are good reasons to think both physical and mental health are enhanced by adequate diverse physical exercise.  Where do smell and aromatherapy fit in?  We are complex creatures in a complex world; I will leave it at that.

Joseph G. Engemann      February 2, 2014

EVOLUTION: MAJOR NEW POINTS

The most important new evolution points made in this blog site are in earlier posts as noted below.

The error infecting current views of animal phylogeny are described in post number 6, on 5/31/2013.

The evidence shows the old annelid theory of evolution of chordates was correct in its main point.  Details of evidence showing the process are found in posts 17, 18, 19, and 20 published on 6/24/2013, 6/28/2013, and 6/30/2013 (posts 19 & 20).

Post 15 on evolution in the deep sea (6/22/2013) is essential to help understand the environmental factors directing the evolutionary pathway not seen by current workers in phylogeny.

My second post on asteroids (May 11, 2013) might make the deep sea post more understandable.

Joseph G. Engemann      1/27/2014

GOD AND MLK

MARTIN LUTHER KING, Jr. spoke at Western Michigan University December 18, 1963, fifty years ago today.  I had the privilege of being in the audience.  His message, as always, recommended non-violence in making social changes and the importance and rights of all individuals as children of God.

He must have realized his position exposed him to violent racist attack.  But he continued his mission and message for peaceful eradication of racial discrimination and establishment of racial justice.  When someone gives their life to promote the love God has for all of us, they are considered martyrs and deserving of automatic sainthood.  So, in my mind he is a Saint, although my church has not to my knowledge any policy of declaring sainthood for those of other denominations.

Joseph G. Engemann        December 18, 2013

CREATIVITY: HONESTY HELPS

Honesty was a section in The Two Way Street, my 1970's unpublished manuscript on creativity, Chapter 4, A Creative Frame of Mind.  The section reads as follows-

     Honesty is essential to the maintenance of creativity.  Honesty with others will reduce self-deception.  Honesty does not mean that everything known must be used or told.  Honesty must be coupled with the proper evaluation to be complete.  Accurate evaluation will make it easy to determine the best use.
     When honesty has been practiced so long and with such diligence that it is automatic, judgments and estimates will be realistic.  The resultant accuracy can contribute to the accuracy of derivative hypotheses.
     The defense of honesty should include the careful labeling of humor.  The unrealistic aspect of humor should not blend with the real and confuse, rather it should delight by its contrast.  Thus the choice of humor should be determined by the audience, not the teller.  Perhaps a sophisticated listener can discriminate on a very fine scale and appreciate what would be uniform and bland to the less sophisticated.  So also, honesty is partially determined by the listener, be it self or someone else.  Is it honesty to state something true when we know it is or will be misunderstood?  If we are willing to state something it is pointless to say anything unless we are willing to say it clearly.

A cartoon to amplify the third sentence of the above quotation showed a woman and a man in their backyard, each talking over adjacent sides of the fence to another woman and another man.  The quotation under the cartoon could be attributed to either one talking, it reads "I wish what went in Pat's ear went out the other ear instead of the mouth."

Honesty makes life easier when you don't have to clutter up your mind with lies or misinformation.  It makes it easier to keep from believing what started out as a lie.  It makes it easier to believe others; but evaluating information as it comes in may make it easier to reject untrue information.

A basic faith in the honesty of scientists made me look beyond the conflict of the view Gans and Northcutt present, as noted in blogs 16 and 17, June 23 and 24, 2013, and make the major discovery of how the two main groups of animals are linked.  That view reestablishing the annelid theory of chordate origin has yet to be understood by my peers.

Joseph G. Engemann       November 11, 2013

SCIENCE: WHALES AND CLIMATE CHANGE

A MUST READ BOOK

Coming Climate Crisis? Consider the Past, Beware the Big Fix is a 2010 book written by Claire A. Parkinson.  Chapter 11, Compounding Social Pressures, should be required reading for all scientists and would be scientists as well as those in the publishing and grant awarding fields and members of Congress and their staffs.  It is also an excellent reference for those interested in an objective assessment of the global warming/cooling controversy.

A major social pressure affecting scientific output in some unfortunate instances is peer pressure.  The pressure is not only seen in the peer review outcomes of publication and grant results but in modified behavior by scientists as well.

WHALES AND THE OCEANS AS A CARBON DIOXIDE SINK

While reading her book it occurred to me that a carbon sink aspect exists in the role of sperm whales (see August 31, 2013 blog on the whale’s role in fisheries production) that I did not think of when originally working on the topic in the 1970’s.  It was not part of the discussion in the joint manuscript I was working on with Dr. Patrick Kangas in 1989 (unpublished).  But it could be inferred from the massive amounts of carbon (tens of millions of tons) in the primary production by marine algae resulting from the sperm whale’s ammonia recycling role.  Recovery of sperm whale numbers to pre-whaling levels would more than double the value of the existing marine sink functioning in atmospheric carbon dioxide reduction.

The gradual rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide during the whaling years may have been as much a result of whaling as it was from the industrial revolution.

The climate concerns aside, Parkinson’s book gives remarkable insights into the way science functions.  I also want to thank Dr. Charles Heller for making the book available to me and prompting me to read it.  At the time of writing her book, Dr. Parkinson was climatologist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.  One focus of her work has been the increase/decrease seen in Arctic and Antarctic sea ice.  If you know Dr. Parkinson, please convey my enthusiastic response to her book.

Joseph G. Engemann      November 4, 2013

EVOLUTION AND STEM CELL MORALITY

STEM CELLS AND MORALITY

Some contend that experimentation with embryonic stem cells violates the commandment prohibiting killing since the embryo destined to be an adult human being is destroyed in the process.  There is some support from evolutionary theory that it is also bad or wasteful science.  Experience in stem cell research also shows that embryonic stem cells have only the slimmest of chances of effecting cures whereas adult stem cells have produced a considerable number of successes.

The evolutionary process whereby organisms were produced involved many developmental steps prior to the adult stem cell production.  Those steps may have been modified in different ways in different species over time.  The same thing may be said for the process of producing the adult organ from the adult stem cell.  But the adult stem cell is programmed to do the right thing in the right place.  The embryonic stem cell is programmed to do everything, but it has been difficult to limit its development to just the job of one type of adult stem cells.  As a result, embryonic stem cell research for cures has mostly resulted in failures, many of which involved induction of tumors or cancers.  The failure is presumably due to the inability to turn off the potential of the embryonic cells in all directions but the desired one.

There is optimism in the recent discovery of methods to produce the equivalent of adult stem cells from some adult cells.  This can be potentially the best stem cell research line for the following reason.  The stem cells produced from this method could come from the individual needing treatment and as a result be free from the danger of rejection of non-compatible donor cells.

For the non-religious or those who have no objections on moral grounds, embryonic stem cell research should not be promoted or receive tax dollars because it is money wasted.  The value all research has for training new scientists and development methods is not unique to embryonic stem cell research and can as readily be had by doing adult stem cell research.

Joseph G. Engemann     October 27, 2013

EVOLUTION AND MORALITY

NATURAL LAW AND SEXUAL REPRODUCTION

Natural law is a foundation for the morality of some people, probably both those that are atheists and those that are deeply religious.  For those that are religious and believe that God created the world and is the author of natural law it would seem that they would find evolution an aide if they realized God is the author of evolution.

I recently started thinking about this topic when a friend of my wife was discussing with her the relative contributions of men versus women to genetic flaws found in offspring.  The friend thought women get blamed for the preponderance of genetic flaws such as trisomy 21 which occurs with a higher frequency when the mother is older.  I wasn't too quick to point out that males always pass on flaws of their X-chromosome to their daughters and of their Y-chromosome to their sons.

Of course, mitochondria are another matter since they are only passed on through the mother's egg.  So pick an energetic mother and don't worry about having a lethargic father if you want to have plenty of energy.  But it is not that simple.

From an evolutionary standpoint, in vitro fertilization is a terrible mistake.  Old-fashioned sex is the best way we have to deliver healthy sperm to an egg.  Aging and/or defective sperm may not have the energy to reach the egg and be the first to donate their chromosomes to the egg.  How important that is can be demonstrated by the higher percentage of males conceived.  Carrying a large X-chromosome must slow them somewhat compared to carrying a small Y-chromosome.  Not all deleterious genes will be expressed in egg or sperm but those that are can perhaps be selected out by the competition of sperm to reach and fertilize the egg.  The sperm also have to have some teamwork by helping to disperse some of the cells surrounding the egg so one can fertilize the egg and immediately cause the fertilization membrane to form and prevent other sperm from entering.  It makes it seem like males participate in team sports from day 1.

So it would seem that the fertility clinics may be unwittingly defeating the natural selection that helps maintain the fertility of the human population.

Who wins the battle of the sexes in a genetic sense?  I have no idea, it seems pretty even to me.  But sex-linked recessive genes behave as dominate genes when in a male.  For that reason red-green color deficiency in vision is many times more common in men than in women.

Joe Engemann     October 22, 2013