Death and Sex 

Don’t misunderstand me: I’m not talking about death from a case of over-exertion. I’m writing about biology. If we’re honest, most of us humans are pretty pissed that one day we’ll have to die. It’s been somewhat of a preoccupation of humans for thousands of years. Most anthropologists would explain the early origin of religions as a way by which humans have tried to deal with this, with promises of a next stage.

Just in case anyone is in the way of thinking that death is a curse put upon us following some sin in the Garden of Eden, let me explain that sex was a great advance in evolution that makes it possible for us to exist at all. If you were really hoping to live eternally you should have been born a germ. All the bacteria and other single-celled organisms, such as amoebas, alive today represent a continuity of living protoplasm over the last three plus billion years. They have just kept growing and dividing in half when they got a bit big. Of course not every individual is still alive otherwise we’d be drowning in bugs. But there has to have been a continuity of their protoplasm. More on that later.

A long time ago, some of these single cells stayed stuck together and the ‘idea’ of multicellular organisms began. Now the planet is populated by millions of species of multicellular plants and animals all with finite lifespans. Some insects live just a matter of days, some trees live a few thousand years, but we all, because of our multicellular nature, have to die. Our human bodies are made up of approximately 300 billion cells. You can’t just make a duplicate copy of that bag of complexity. All we complex creatures can do is produce some microscopic special cells that will grow into a whole new billion-cell life form. We die and they take our place. 

OK, so then why don’t we all just produce some genetic copies of ourselves in single-cell form, sort of ‘virgin birth’? Why sex? We’re told that evolution works through survival of the fittest, or more precisely survival of the one that has most kids. But if I could just bud off a copy of myself, in a year or two I’d have two offspring; whereas with sexual reproduction it takes two people to produce one offspring; so the math doesn’t add up. Here’s the point. Most of us have heard of mutations – little changes in the DNA that occur from time to time and are often not a good thing (can lead to cancer), but just sometimes by sheer luck produce an improvement. Since the beginning of time that little bit of luck has been what evolution has worked on to develop/evolve slightly improved models. But if it was that alone we’d still be looking like slugs. 

What sex loses in numbers of offspring per individual it makes up for in recombination. This is the reshuffling of our DNA as our gametes are produced.  It’s called meiosis. This is why no matter how many children a couple has, unless they’re identical twins they’ll all be fascinatingly different. Over the last billion years or so evolution has played on this great variety produced by sexual reproduction and the result is not only the wonderful variety of plants and animals in our world, but also ourselves. If sex hadn’t been ‘invented’ we wouldn’t be here. But, to return to my opener, the pay-off is that our individual bodies do wear out and die. 

But remember those ancient bacteria that began it all? They’re closer than you think. When early multicellular organisms started to develop, one challenge was to deliver energy locally in the larger more complex cells. Either by kidnapping or a friendly deal – “I’ll protect you if you’ll work for me.” – some small aerobic bacteria got swallowed up into the cells of the multicellular organism. They’re still there today in every cell of our bodies – called mitochondria, the ‘powercells’ where glucose is ‘burnt’ to produce energy, still with their own separate thread of DNA handed down from all those billion years ago. 

A man’s sperm is simply a tiny packet of half his genetic material. You got your mitochondria from your mother and so on back down the female line. Incredibly, only about 33 different lines of mitochondria have been found amongst all human beings! I’ve had mine tested and so I know that my mother’s mother’s mother’s people had been in northwest Europe for approximately 30,000 years. 

A human egg cell is quite large as cells go, containing many thousand mitochondria embedded in protoplasm representing a continuity of living tissue since the beginning of life on this planet. So ladies, you are part of an ‘eternal life’, and, because of sex, we guys can at least hand on a few molecules of DNA. 

Enjoy ! 

It’s a Dog’s Life

When I was young my family had a dog called Tina. We loved her dearly. Eventually she grew old and was clearly in a lot of pain limping around and whimpering. The vet could do nothing to help, and so after we all hugged Tina and cried a lot, my Dad took her to the vet who ‘put her to sleep’ as we did not want Tina to suffer anymore. My question is: Why don’t we humans have the same rights as dogs?

This question was brought to the fore in America last November when 29 year old Brittany Maynard, suffering incurable brain cancer, died peacefully using a prescription medicine, with the full support of her husband and mother. However, this is only possible in very few states in the USA. In Brittany’s case she and her husband had to relocate from California to Oregon where they have a Death with Dignity law. 

Right now I have no intention of dying just yet – I’m having too much fun. Nevertheless, the principle of the right to die with dignity, and the suffering of others, came to my attention through the review of a new book which I read recently. The book is Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End (2014) by Dr. Atul Gawande; and the review I read in the New York Review of Books was by Marcia Angell. Dr. Gawande reports that on average every American spends the last year or more of their lives disabled and in a nursing home, often in much discomfort either physically or mentally or both. “These days, swift catastrophic illness is the exception.” Gawande writes.

 In less developed parts of the world the situation is doubtlessly worse. What concerns me is that in the 21^st century, in a country which is supposed to have ‘separation of church and state’, there is so much resistance to a person being able to say: “You know what? It’s time for me go”, and then legally to be able to get the help to achieve that.

The reviewer, Marcia Angell, has her own story to tell. Her husband died from cancer just last June here in my state of Massachusetts. We had a referendum here a couple of years ago on death with dignity. The Catholic Church weighed in with a lot of expensive ads on TV and the measure was defeated. As a result Marcia’s husband’s end was as she puts it “unspeakably difficult” and drawn out. 

Look, if you want to lie there in pain believing that only God has the right to call you up to heaven, and that he’ll do it when he’s ready – “I’m busy right now, wait your turn.” – fine, but don’t impose your silliness on me. Sadly, only three states in the USA have provisions for death with dignity. Here in the northeast I’d have to move to Vermont. Then in the northwest there is Oregon and Washington with such legal provisions.

Even if you believe in the healing power of prayer, you surely accept that we all have to go sometime. It would be nice to think that the more evil your life has been the more you would suffer at the end, and vice versa. Sadly, it doesn’t work that way. As reported by the Los Angeles Times, Julie Selsberg is campaigning to change the law in Colorado after she watched her father Charles suffer terribly in his last days. The bill that some legislators are bringing for consideration in that state stresses death with dignity, not physician-assisted suicide. Suicide means you want to die. People who are prematurely stricken with cancer, such as Brittany Maynard, don’t want to die, they just want to go with dignity. In the other 47 states where there is no such provision, then desperate people do take the law into their own hands and it can get problematic which naysayers love to pounce on. It’s time we moved into the 21^st century folks.

When my time comes, I’d rather not suffer for a long time thank you very much, just to satisfy someone else’s childish beliefs. It could also save a lot of money in hospital costs.

As I wrote in my last, also controversial, blog (I’m getting old and crotchety), it’s time for us to grow up, leave hopes in miracles behind, and embrace the factual truths that science has painstakingly revealed to us over the last few centuries;  and in this case reduce unnecessary suffering at the close of life. Je suis Tina.

Je suis Charlie. It’s time we all grew up.

A few days ago twelve Parisians were gunned down for expressing an opinion. They were executed in the name of Allah, the Arabic word for God. These Al Kaida and ISIS characters have given themselves the right to kill anyone who doesn’t worship their god the way they like. Just a few years ago Protestants and Catholics were killing each other in Northern Ireland because they didn’t like each other’s version of their religion. 

In America where religion abounds no one can hope to advance politically without constantly saying “God bless America”. I wonder what Native Americans think of that. The Christian Europeans didn’t bring them much blessing. Each religionist believes passionately that his religion is the truest expression of God’s reality and will. And so Muslims kill Jews, Jews kill Muslims, Christians kill Jews, and Muslims kill Christians, and so on and so on and so on. Isn’t it time we gave religion a rest? I’m serious. It’s done enough harm. I know, atheism didn’t work out too well in the USSR. And yes, we still have this nut-case running an atheist prison camp called North Korea. But there’s got to be some better way for the future folks. 

I’ve just read Edward O. Wilson’s latest book The Meaning of Human Existence (2014). Wilson is a famous biologist and professor emeritus at Harvard University. In this book he makes a convincing case that because of the way our brains have evolved we have an built-in conflict in our natures tied up with strong tribalism producing strong group loyalty and willingness to sacrifice for one’s own people; but also a tendency to mistrust the other, the foreigner, the other race, the other tribe, the other religion.

Because of this fierce loyalty to one’s tribal religion, and because of our basic fear of death and all the unanswered questions, otherwise well-educated people still believe in the most absurd stories and claims handed down to them in their religion. In 1950, centuries after it was proven that we live on a ball hurtling through space, Pope Pius XII announced ex cathedra i.e. infallibly, that Jesus’ mother Mary had in fact ascended into heaven about 1900 years earlier, (not that Pius had been there to witness it of course). Perhaps Jesus, who incidentally had performed the same trick a few years earlier, had swept into orbit in his private spaceship and picked her up. At the time of Pius’ announcement, one prominent biologist commented that at about 30,000 feet poor Mary would have passed out. At this point if you’re not overly religious you might be having a chuckle. But others will be offended at me making light about these revered religious people and stories. And that in the end is why several of the staff of Charlie Hebdo magazine were gunned down in Paris. It’s time we all grew up. We’re on our own on a lonely planet, facing some serious challenges concerning climate, population, water, food etc. We need to leave our tribalism behind and work together across the world. And yes, it starts with me.

Travels with Charlie

I chose this title aware that I am stealing it from John Steinbeck’s travelogue of 1962. Steinbeck’s book of that title helped give me a love of America as a young man. But I’m choosing this title now for a few words about another travelogue by a young man published in 1839 – The Voyage of H.M.S. Beagle by Charles Darwin. If you’ve read my blogs before you will know that I’m keen to un-demonize (for Americans at least) this 19^th C. Englishman that few know, and fewer have ever read. To be honest, I only got around to reading this book of his – a bestseller at the time of publication – recently. I want to give you a few insights into Charles that come to light through this book. 

Charles graduated from Cambridge in the summer of 1831 at the age of 22 with a B.A. 3^rd class, which means he just scraped through. His exasperated doctor father sent him to Cambridge with the idea of him becoming a country parson after Charles had dropped out of Med School. But after graduating his girlfriend dumped him. So, despite the fact that he’s afraid of the sea because he gets violently seasick, he gets a job as ‘companion’ to the captain of a British navy ship that’s commissioned to do some detailed survey of the coasts of Argentina and Chile plus some South Pacific islands ‘for about two years’.  His father says No. But his uncle intervenes and a couple of days after Christmas 1831 the Beagle sails from Plymouth, England with young Charles on board. The captain, Robert FitzRoy, fortuitously gives him a Christmas present of a recently published book The Principles of Geology by Charles Lyell which Darwin starts to devour between bouts of throwing up as the Beagle heads out across the Atlantic. 

Darwin is not the official naturalist on the ship. That job is held by Robert McCormick. But four months into the trip when they dock in Rio de Janeiro, McCormick quits. He was no doubt upstaged by the ardent collecting by Darwin of everything he could find or catch, including shrimp from the ocean. It couldn’t have been easy for FitzRoy either. He and Darwin shared a small cabin on a 90 ft sailing ship carrying 74 men.  The two men got into arguments over slavery – Darwin was appalled by what he saw of it in Brazil.  He writes: “These deeds are done by palliated men, who profess to love their neighbours as themselves, who believe in God, and pray that his Will be done on earth! It makes one’s blood boil, yet heart tremble, to think that we Englishmen and our American descendants with their beautiful cry of liberty, have been and are so guilty.” FitzRoy was a very conservative Christian but apparently wasn’t so bothered by the slavery they encountered. 

 

Most informed people know that the Beagle visited the Galapagos Islands; and certainly Darwin’s observations there were to prove key later, but the Beagle had been at sea for three years and nine months before they reached the archipelago; and Darwin’s description of the five-week stay there occupies one chapter out of 21 in his book. On leaving, after a stay of five weeks, the Beagle headed west across the Pacific and home to England a year later, a voyage of four years and ten months, much longer than Darwin thought it would be when he embarked. Darwin’s genius was that despite any hardships he made enthusiastic use of every minute and turned the voyage into the defining time of his life. 

The majority of the time on this long voyage was spent by the Beagle’s crew exploring and mapping the coasts of Argentina and Chile including the dangerous Cape Horn and Tierra del Fuego. There were several occasions when Darwin took off with one or two companions on horseback with a mule pack exploring the wild hinterland for up to three weeks at a time often camping rough. One marvels how – without cellphones – he managed to always connect back with the Beagle before it sailed on. Not once but three times he experiences an earthquake in Chile, observing with horror the devastation of a town, as well as taking note that in one place the coast had risen several feet after the main quake, leaving seaweed high and dry. Informed no doubt by Lyell’s book he is constantly noting the geology and rock strata, and is dumbfounded to find fossilized sea-shells high in the Andes. 

Wherever he went, Darwin collected – one reason for the mules. They must have been tripping over the stuff on board the little brig, but at every opportunity he would send crates back to England to be studied by the relevant experts of the day. He collected just shy of five and half thousand specimens!  1,529 small creatures preserved in alcohol, and 3,907 dried specimens – plants, skins, bones, fossils, rocks; all catalogued in 12 volumes; while filling 24 diaries about his experiences and observations.  

As a young upper-middle class Englishman of the early 19^th century he is rather snooty about what he deems laziness amongst the Latin Americans of that time, but is impressed by the work of English missionaries in Tahiti and New Zealand, bringing an end to cannibalism and tribal warfare and reducing the mistreatment of women. But he is deeply shocked at the bad treatment of the aboriginal people in Australia by the deported convicts from England. 

He loved the tropical islands with their coral reefs which the Beagle visited, including atolls, and wondered how they formed. He reasoned that the coral reef would grow towards the surface while the volcanic island sank eventually producing an atoll. This concept was dismissed by experts at the time, but has now been shown to be true.   

At the island of St Helena in the South Atlantic on the way home he finds a letter waiting for him from his sister in which she informs him that as a result of all the specimens and information that he’d been sending home he has created quite a stir in England. Darwin would never leave England again, would quickly marry, be devoted to his wife and help raise a large family, while pondering his voyage of a lifetime and all that his observations meant. His genius lay both in his unquenchable curiosity coupled with a constantly questioning mind. It would be another 23 years after his return home that he would publish his other famous book On the Origin of Species in 1859. Good trip Charlie.