CREATIVITY: Last First

The Two Way Street

Was the name of my 1974 manuscript on creativity which was never published.  Since it dealt with creativity and the value of reverse viewing, I am starting at the end with a series of cartoons it contained.

The caption "Don't say anything, he thinks he's creative." was a jab at myself.  Perhaps it was a reminder to not take myself or my ideas too seriously.  The cartoon followed the final chapter, number 13, which did not particularly talk about how to be creative, but reviewed some ideas I had entertained that did not appear in earlier chapters.

An idea for improving certification processes for teachers and my realization that administrators can be an effective source for good preceded ideas I thought important to work for as a congressman.  I did not run for congress in 1969 after thinking about it and discarding the idea.  An example of one idea entertained was the following in a section on "Social Needs."

"There were programs I was interested in pushing that were dubious campaign issues because of complexity or the potential for misunderstanding or arousing effective opposition.  As a university teacher I enjoyed a retirement program (TIAA-CREF) where my rights were immediately vested and could be taken from job to job.  Why should not all workers have that advantage?  It is especially irritating to see corporations rob older workers of their pensions by either mismanagement or corporate restructuring.  So a federally licensed pension system similar to TIAA-CREF should be a right of all."

Permission to use the above cartoon in non-profit publication or personal use is granted with the hope you will credit evolutioninsights.blogspot.com

Joseph G. Engemann    August 18, 2014

EVOLUTION: CIRCULATION

THE CIRCULATORY SYSTEM

Circulatory systems have evolved and transport things throughout the body.  So transportation is the primary function, but the things transported can be oxygen, nutrients, waste products, and molecules serving a variety of functions.  The transport of many of the substances could be accomplished by a fluid filled body cavity, or just cell to cell in very small organisms.

The need for oxygen in active large animals is greater than can be transported by oxygen dissolved in body fluid of large animals.  So respiratory pigments such a hemoglobin allow a much greater supply of oxygen to be transported rapidly. When oxygen is abundant in the just inhaled air in the lungs it will combine with hemoglobin, but when it reaches tissues where it is depleted it is released.   Typically, the depletion is due to metabolism resulting in production of carbon dioxide which is then carried on the return trip to the lungs for release and elimination with exhaled air.

Circulation of blood in animals with heart, arteries, capillaries, and veins is like a bus route.  Some things go round and round on the route.  Others, such a hormones may go round and round until they are bound up by the target organ.  Those control substances included things that stimulated or inhibited processes in the target organs.  Over time delivery of control substances for specific targets selected processes that became the nervous system enabling precision in control.  But longer acting processes where instantaneous response is not important are adequately served by the circulatory systems of organisms.

EVOLUTION OF THE CIRCULATORY SYSTEM

No circulatory system
Many students have had the opportunity to see circulation within cells while observing Amoeba, Paramecium, or plants such as Elodea with  microscopes.  Similar cytoplasmic movement can occur in animals with circulatory systems.  Movement of the organism can provide some functions of a circulatory system by leaving waste behind as areas with more oxygen and food are reached.

Gastrovascular type circulatory function
Animals in the phylum Cnidaria (jellyfish, corals, and related forms) and Platyhelminthes (flatworms) are the major groups with gastrovascular type systems.  The name comes from it being the central digestive cavity which may be branched reaching all the parts of the body and having the capacity to carry on digestion as well as circulation enhanced by body movements and sometimes cilia.

Body cavities as circulatory systems
In the previous types the space between the epidermis covering the body and the organs such as gonads and guts are filled with either mesoglea (jellylike material and few cells) or parenchyma (large water-laden cells) through which materials can diffuse, but where little metabolic work is done.  The simplest body cavity to contain organs is called a pseudocoel because it lacks a lining of epithelial cells as in those with a coelom (as found in all eucoelomate higher phyla).

The importance of the coelom for provision of circulatory function is indicated by small organisms such as the bryozoans.  In the photo below of several polyps (or zooids) of a colonial species, Pectinatella magnifica, the particles in the space between gut and body wall are circulated with the body fluid propelled by patches of ciliated cells on the lining.

Body fluids of many organisms such as the above also serve a skeletal function of support for the body when fluid is confined within the body and compressed to keep the organism inflated.  The exact evolutionary relationship of the bryozoans is not certain.  They are a very old group that may have no close ancestry to advanced phyla, or they may be derived from more advanced forms due to reduction much as occurred in the pogonophorans.

Blood vascular systems as circulatory systems
The origin of the blood vascular system is speculative.  It seems consistent with the gradation seen in animal complexity that the lateral branches (or a dorsal branch) of the digestive system seen in flatworms took on another function as the animals grew longer and developed an anal opening for the central branch.  Over time
muscles providing peristaltic movement of contents were gradually converted into hearts as needed.  The annelid worms and the fishes provide examples of some of the steps along the way to the system seen in mammals.

Blood of vertebrates
Blood cells of vertebrates are often categorized as white blood cells and red blood cells.  Most vertebrates, including fish, amphibians, reptiles, and birds, have large, nucleated, football-shaped red blood cells. Mammals have small red blood cells that are flattened disks (usually characterized as biconcave disks) that lack a nucleus when mature.  Vertebrates have hemoglobin in their red blood cells and thus help keep the viscosity of the blood lower.  The cells, in addition to lowering blood viscosity, may help improve the transfer of materials in the capillaries of organs by making the whole fluid column in the capillary move at the same speed.  The wiping action, in effect, reduces the diffusion distance for materials being exchanged.

[Note  added June 3, 2015: An important part of circulation in vertebrates is thought to be escape of water and smaller solutes, including oxygen, from the arterial end of the capillaries into the interstitial fluid; uptake at the venous end of the capillaries returns much of the fluid, and carbon dioxide; and solutes and fluid that cannot be taken back by the venous end may return to the circulatory system via the lymphatic vessels.  This circulation pattern is driven by higher hydrostatic pressure in the arterial end versus lower pressure in the venous end as well as the higher remaining concentration of larger solute molecules in the venous end.]

Blood particles, called platelets, are important in clot formation that seals off breaks in the blood vessel walls.  White blood cells are of several types important in function of the immune system.  These constituents of blood are formed in marrow found inside bones of the body.

Joseph G. Engemann         August 6, 2014

EVOLUTION: SPATIAL DIMENSIONS AND NATURAL SELECTION

NATURAL SELECTION

Survival is affected by many different things.  This post will discuss the impact of length, surface, and volume on natural selection.  Such simple physical components of an organism can have great affect on the organisms relationship to its environment as well as to physiological and mechanical functions.  The fourth dimension, time, is certainly an important component of natural selection but it is not discussed in this post.

THE LINEAR DIMENSION AND SURFACES

If an animal only grows in one dimension, length, its mass is directly proportional to its length.  Some subterranean animals find this a way to get bigger without required larger dimensions of tunnels they occupy.  For attached, or sessile, animals increased length gives them access to food items farther away from an area proportional to the square of the distance.  Surface area of the organism, ignoring the factor of tapering ends usually involved, increases in proportion to the product of length and width or circumference.  For a flat, encrusting type organism, that doubles in length and width of surface dimensions, the larger form has four times the surface area.

VOLUME OR MASS

Of course, organisms all have a third dimension, depth or the dimension at right angles to both length and width.  The product of length, width, and depth gives the volume or mass of the organism.  Organisms with complex shapes can have their volume calculated from the sum of volumes of all their parts.  A simpler measure can be equivalent to the volume of water displaced when it is immersed; its weight is also a good approximation, if it lacks mineralized parts each gram equals approximately one cubic centimeter.  The animal that doubles each dimension has volume or mass increased from one unit volume to eight units of volume as illustrated below.

THE PRACTICAL CONSEQUENCES OF INCREASED SIZE

The inequality of the ratio of linear, surface, and volume measures has great impact on design of animal bodies produced by natural selection of genetic variations.  If shapes are identical, linear measures are directly proportional to length, surface areas are proportional to the square of the linear dimension, and volume or mass is proportional to the cube of the linear dimension.

Rates of delivery of materials to and within organisms varies greatly due to variations in permeability of membranes, circulation of protoplasm within cells, binding with other molecules, circulatory systems, surface area modifications, and additional chemical and physical factors.

Mass or weight

Dinosaurs were thought to be near the maximum size for a terrestrial organism because the mass increased with the cube of the linear dimensional increase whereas the strength of the skeletal support in leg bones only increased with the square of the diameters of the bone.  If they grew bigger they would need bones too big to be contained within the organism.  Likewise muscles to move the mass increased in strength proportional to their cross-sectional area and reached the limit of practical size; muscle and bone would be unable to keep up in needed strength for greater size.

Birds, and presumably some dinosaurs, have hollow leg bones that have greater strength with less increase in weight.

The increased size of most advanced animals made the ratio of length to surface area of organs exchanging nutrients, oxygen/carbon-dioxide, and heat from body surfaces, lungs, and gut have survival improved when gills, pouches, folds, and other mechanisms increased the surface without increasing overall size.  An example is the longitudinal fold called the typhlosole in the gut of the earth worm.  The Tasmanian isopod also had a typhlosole.  However, the worm has it in a dorsal position and it has more internal structure.  The isopod has it in ventral position and it is simple in structure.  In the first picture below, the typhlosole is projects up from the bottom of the tubular gut- which has some food included.

Such modifications enabled animals descending from flatworms achieve thickness and complexity.  Flatworms are limited in thickness in part by the inability of sufficient oxygen to diffuse to active tissue more than a few cells away from the surface.

To enable many of the advances to take place, a circulatory system was necessary to effectively take out most of the need for diffusion over the distance from surface of uptake to surface of release of transported nutrients, wastes, and oxygen.  Hemoglobin and other respiratory pigments enabled greater quantities of oxygen to be transported because the combined form of oxyhemoglobin did not contribute to oxygen saturation of blood fluid.

The dorsal blood vessel and heart are shown above the gut in the two pictures below.  In the first picture arteries, labeled A are going off to each side; in the second picture the heart shows an ostium (O), the valve through which blood enters the heart from the hemocoel (the blood filled body cavity that serves the role of capillaries and veins in arthropods).

The arteries carry blood to the thin-walled pleopods, abdominal leaf-like appendages with thin walls where oxygen and carbon dioxide are exchanged with the surrounding water.  The blood then carries oxygen to the various tissues of the body on the way back to the heart.  Along the way it picks up nutrients absorbed by the gut, eventually entering the heart through the ostium.  The blood bathing the internal spaces does the job of capillary networks in higher organisms.

The gut of the Tasmanian isopod has very large cells lining it.  The photo below is an enlargement of the gut or intestinal lining (I) where it meets the rectum (R) lined with small cells.

Larger organism have greater complexity and require proportionally larger muscles and capillary networks as a result to insure adequate circulation.  Such things allow them to overcome the decreasing rate of provision of needed substances and removal of wastes found with diffusion based circulation that is adequate for microorganisms. 

[Photos are from Engemann, J. G.  1963.  A Comparison of the Anatomy and Natural History of Colubotelson thomsoni Nicholls, a South Temperate, Fresh-Water Isopod and Asellus communis Say, a North Temperate, Fresh-Water Isopod.  Ph.D. thesis, Michigan State Univ., East Lansing.  146 pp.]

Joseph G. Engemann           August 4, 2014

SCIENCE: MYOPIC RESEARCH

EYE-LINES OF FISH AND BIRDS

Myopic research is used here to refer to faulty research that omits consideration of important factors that give a different answer than the one given by the researchers.  There are many ways by which such failings can be generated.  The research criticized here [Ficken, R. W., P. E. Matthiae, and R. Horwich.  1971.  Eye marks in vertebrates: aids to vision.  Science, 173:936-939.]  happens to involve vision of birds and the evolutionary cause of eye-lines of certain birds.

 Their research showed a correlation of eye-lines of certain shore birds with feeding on small mobile prey.  Because the eye-line narrowed from a wide base immediately in front of the eye to a sharp point aimed directly at the tip of the beak, they concluded it was an aide to vision, functioning as an aiming stripe.

I had researched the literature on concealing coloration during the late 1950's when trying to understand a dramatic color pattern of a reef fish. [Engemann, Joseph G.  1960.  The effect of coloration on Great Barrier Reef animals.  Pap. Mich. Acad. Sci., Arts, and Letters, 45:9-15.]  I knew that eye-lines are often an integral part of a stripe along the body of many snakes that makes the eye less obvious when it moves.  I also had seen many coral reef fishes that had eye-lines perpendicular to a line drawn from eye to mouth as in several of the fish from Heron Island, Great Barrier Reef, Australia as illustrated below.

The fourth one down in the middle column shows how the eye can not easily be distinguished when it is part of a dark line.  The dark spot on the tail of the fish below the referenced eye-line is called an ocellus since it mimics an eye and deceives predators that try to aim at or in front of the head so they will catch the fish if it darts away.  The three in the upper left also have the ocellus on the tail as well as a vertical eye-line.  The vertical eye-lines make them blend in with their background when stag-horn corals are present.

After reading the research report of Ficken et al., I did a follow-up study of bird eye-lines and found that the passerine birds that were insect eaters usually had eye-lines, much more so than seed eaters.  It seemed apparent that the insects were more likely to provide food to the bird if they could not see the dark eye approaching as easily.  Thus the selective force was not so much a vision aid as a concealment aid.

COMPREHENSIVE VIEW NEEDED FOR RESEARCH

Multiple causes can interact in the selective force directing evolution of biological features.  Multiple causes should be considered by researchers in all fields when it is appropriate.

REDUCING MYOPIC RESEARCH

Broad experience is helpful in making one check all the angles pertaining to a research project.  The focused research utilizing computerized internet searches should be supplemented with broader reading in varied research fields.  Cross-application of concepts is more apt to result from such an approach.  Preparation in graduate training should not be limited to the research project as many of my peers were wont to do when they avoided seminars on other topics.

The evolutionary concept of natural selection and/or survival of the fittest has broad application potential beyond biology.  Evolutionary change is likely to produce a more successful society than revolutionary change,  Can that occur if extreme views are contesting for control?

Joseph G. Engemann        July 31, 2014

EVOLUTION: INTELLIGENCE AND CREATIVITY

INTELLIGENCE AND CREATIVITY

Intelligence and creativity are both dependent on brain power but are not equivalent to one another.  Intelligence is more related to brain capacity for storage and recall of information and wise application of that capacity.  Creativity is less related to capacity than it is to unprecedented application of existing capacity.

Intelligence is more likely to be thought of as residing in the left brain, and with language and linear thinking, such as dominates in mathematics, is processed in the non-visual part of the cerebral cortex.  Conversely, creativity seems to reside in the right brain where spatial, visual, and global thinking is processed.  The highest functional state of both intelligence and creativity occurs when the opposite sides are compatibly working on the same project.  Sometimes that may require a highly disproportionate amount of work for a particular side.

EVOLUTION OF BIG BRAINS

Big brains are correlated with big bodies, but the correlation is not 100%.  Small brains can be associated with remarkably complex behavior as anyone who has studied ants and other tiny animals may know.  The driving force for the large brain is not behavior, but seems to be the need for large brain capacity to process visual information.  The transfer of the image from the retina to the brain uses fibers that covey information as while keeping a spatially correct flow of the visual signals.

The lens of the eye focuses the corresponding image of the arrow on the retina in reverse (as shown and inverted as not shown).  The optic nerve portions shown partially cross-over for processing on the opposite side of the visual cortex in the brain.  The extreme outer parts of the object form the inner part of the retinal image that goes to the outer part of the visual cortex and is not duplicated as are the inner parts of the object image.  The figure above of Cajal, 1899 can be found in Polyak, 1957.  [Polyak, S.  1957.  The Vertebrate Visual System.  Univ. of Chicago Press, Chicago.  1390 pp.  Pages 781-791 discuss crossing over in the visual system with several diagrams from S. Ramon y Cajal, 1899.]

If your eyes are focused on an edible morsel, the visual image involves many sensory nerve fibers.  When the brain makes the decision to pick up the morsel, the complex movements require many fewer motor nerve fibers for the coordinated action of muscles to make the fingers pick it up.

Although the growth of the visual cortex to accompany better eyes may have been the major selective force for evolution of larger brains, the enlargement of all of the cerebral cortex was beneficial so there was less selective force for keeping the non-visual part small.

 WHY I STARTED THINKING ABOUT THIS TOPIC

After twenty years of teaching primarily invertebrate and aquatic biology type courses, about the year 1980, I was called upon to present the zoology portion of the introductory course sequence.  As I was preparing to present a lecture on the brain and nervous system my curiosity about the evolution of things made me want to explain why damage to the left side of the motor region of the brain is reflected in paralysis of related muscles of the right side of the body.  It was apparent the cerebral processing of vision kept the related motor processing on the same side for greater efficiency and the the crossing over to the opposite side for motor nerves occurred further down the brain stem.

Studies of paired molluscan nerves with right and left tracts corresponding to the right and left portion of our spinal cord had been shown to have association neurons in successive ganglia that could transfer information around a break in one half to bypass the break.

ASYMMETRY OF THINKING - LEFT BRAIN, RIGHT BRAIN

The symmetry of vision and its processing in the brain is most efficiently accomplished by the crossing over of the optic nerve fibers going from eye to brain.  There is no such need for symmetry in the brain when it comes to language or linear thinking in the brain, nor is there such a need for global thinking or other non-linear aspects of thought.  So an area of the brain thinking about something does not need a duplicate but reversed thought on the other side.

Many, if not most, thoughts do not depend on coordination of left and right brain.  Thus the one who is concentrating on a visual concept may have difficulty finding the right words to express it.  And the one eloquent and efficient in linear thinking may have difficulty understanding or expressing the spatially significant part.  Fortunately, most things have a bit of both types of thinking involved so the brain gets training that can make intelligence or creativity more evident.

IS THERE A SPIRITUAL PART OF THE BRAIN?

Most linear thinking has a spatial component, and spatial things have verbal and  mathematical components.  But God and spiritual things are not so simply analyzed.  No physical parts but infinite power, extent and grandeur are hard to grasp mentally and impossible to grasp physically.  So maybe that indicates a spiritual part to us that makes us capable of such transcendent thoughts?

Joseph G. Engemann     July 25, 2014

GOD

God: Lection Divina

GROWTH IN SCRIPTURE READING

Lectio Divina is an approach to spiritual reading of the Bible.  The five components are described in a brief account by Stephen J. Binz in the July/August issue of the the WORD among us.  A 152 page book on the topic by the same author is also available from wau.org/books online.  It is an approach to scripture reading, not a method.

First, read, one reads or listens to the word of God in some passage of the Old or New Testament.  The blend of daily readings listed in the WORD among us can be a good starting point.  I have been doing that for perhaps a dozen years.  My early attempt to read the bible from cover to cover was never completed as I bogged down in the first few books.  Later, I found that opening the bible at random and sometimes looking up particular topics of interest was quite a satisfying source of inspiration.

The real key is realizing that it is all inspired by God although the historical accounts in the Old Testament often leave one wondering until it is understood as leading up to the New Testament of the life and teaching of Jesus Christ.  For example, the stern approach of the Ten Commandments becomes understandable when viewed by the two commandments of Jesus to love God and to love others as we love ourselves.  When we realize God's awesome grandeur and great love for each of us, how can we not but want to behave as the stern first three or four commandments require.  Similarly, if we see how much God loves each of us and wants good for us, how could we desire to treat them less lovingly, therefore we have no need to be reminded by the remaining commandments.

Second, meditate, think of the message or meaning of what you have read or heard.  Consider what message it might contain for you today.  Be relaxed as you reflect, expect God to inform you.  Often the same passage may give you different insights at different times as your needs change.  Reread parts as needed.  Footnotes and references to other passages may be profitable.  For example, a reading for July 1 from Matthew differs from Mark regarding who entered the boat first before the miracle of calming the sea.  The reaction of the apostles and the miracle are obviously the important messages.  Perhaps Matthew's source was following up the group and Mark's was near the front, probably a fact of no consequence.  Some passages may leave me puzzled.  Some were coded to avoid provoking civil authorities persecuting Christians; scripture commentaries may help in such cases if footnotes do not help.

Third, pray, respond to God with your thoughts of praise, of his goodness, of your repentance for misdeeds, your needs and needs of others you know.

Fourth, comtemplate quietly and relaxed awaiting God's message to you.

Fifth, proceed to apply what you have learned from the first four steps in your life.  It doesn't have to be a dramatic change, just keep at it.

I have a beautiful picture of the title page of the bible I been reading for the last twenty some years.  I decided not to include it because of copyright considerations, so look at yours.  Crack the book for me and read a passage that catches your eye.  Thanks.

Joseph G. Engemann    June 30, 2014

MAJOR PHYLOGENY ERROR EXPLAINED

THE IMPACT OF DIFFERENT RATE ON ESTIMATES OF ORIGIN

Current phylogenetic trees that include Ecdysozoa and, to a lesser extent, Lophotrochozoa are grossly incorrect.  Because DNA neucleotide sequences are subject to selection and have had different rates in different groups the direct calculation of rates from comparative differences produces flawed evoutionary trees.

This can be shown graphically by comparing two branches of a phylogeny using the different assumptions involved.  The determination of when and how fast the differences in longevity develop is subject to error also, but, in the case of the descendants of pogonophorans, may rapidly move to shorter life cycles as soon as the transition from abyssal to shallow depths occurs.  Thus very few new species may make the connection of ancient pogonophorans to those that became the earliest shallow water deuterostomes.

 The first figure illustrates two types of error made in calculating phylogenies, generation time error and calibration error.

Generation time error is the one that produces incorrect branching in a phylogeny.  The figures illustrate generation time error for two species assuming that half the change occurs in each line as in the 5 and 5 of the right figure of each pair.  When 90% of the change occurs in the right branch, the estimated time from origin at the ancestral node is nearly doubled.  With pogonophorans having generation times several thousands of years longer than modern non-abyssal species, the node where deuterostome phyla branched off is clearly during Pre-Cambrian times as is also suggested by the Paleozoic emergence of chordates.

Calibration error is one that can cause overestimates or underestimates in the time of divergence in two lines from the ancestral node.  The two right figures keep the generation time error intact, if it is in error.  The calibration error occurs when the time per nucleotide change is based on a calibration species whose rate of change is different from the species to which the rate is applied.  Selection of a calibration species or a rate of change is not likely to be a major problem when closely related species are studied.

If you think about the result of the generation time error introduced by the central position of pogonophorans in the protostome, deuterostome radiation, it is not surprising that their relatively unchanged DNA shows affinity with widely diverse phyla.

A similar problem is probably operating in the nematodes being a significant group in the erroneous group, Ecdysozoa.  The small size of nematodes is probably a selective reason nematodes have a single gene per gene family and thus a more rigid selection producing relatively unchanged genotypes over a long. time.  Thus the "long-branch attraction" is not recognized as the error compounded in the Ecdysozoa concept.

The last figure illustrates one possible view of the development of two species having different longevity from a common ancestor.  It is perhaps worthless as an illustration because the common ancestor of related species, one with a one year life cycle, the other with a two year life cycle, could very well have resulted from all the change in one line, or both from greater change from some extreme value.  Rates of change are also unlikely to be so uniform.

Until I stumbled across what seemed to be an unlikely ancestral role of the pogonophorans I would have been been very likely joining my peers in welcoming the Ecdysozoa and Lophotrochozoa.  I hope I have included enough information in the blogs on this site to help my peers make the same transition I have made.

Joseph G. Engemann      June 16, 2014