This post is not about the ancient city of Ur, not about intelligence, not about biology, and definitely not about accident. Rather, it is about the exclamation mark at the end of the title.
I refer to a Press Trust of India release that I happened upon in the pages of the Times of India of December 4, 2012. As you notice from the scanned image below it is entitled “Did genetic accident lead to human intelligence?” The implied internal punctuation mark is the exclamation mark (!) after genetic accident.
I truly could not suppress my anger at the ignorance that explodes out of the piece, on a number of counts. I found stupidity everywhere, in the title and also in the body of the piece.
A “genetic accident” 500 million years ago “enabled humans to think and reason evolved.” And, to think that humans have existed no more than, say, 200,000 years! Where is 500 million and where is 200,000? What happened in the interim? Apparently nothing! The phrase “human intelligence” in the heading implies as much!
Why the focus on human intelligence? Oh, sensationalism! Imagine anyone reading through a piece titled “The Ur genes for intelligence are 500 million years old.” I may have read, but not many others. The putative title I had given does not accommodate an exclamation mark, implied or explicit.
Researchers at University of Edinburgh “found that intelligence in humans developed as the result of an increase in the number of brain genes in our evolutionary ancestors.” Oh, my! Where do I come from? Not from my father and mother; not from Kolipakkam, my paternal ancestral village; not from Mandakolathur, my mother’s paternal ancestral village; not from Tamil Nadu, because it did not exist when I came into this world. So, where did I actually come from? From the Big Bang!
You must read Steven Weinberg’s classic The First Three minutes (ftp://89.209.81.27/public/Sci_Library/Phys%20Library/PPop_Popular-level/Weinberg%20S.%20The%20first%20three%20minutes(168s).pdf). It says a lot about the relative abundance of hydrogen, helium and a few other elements in the early universe. Yes, I have come from them, and so have you.
I do not dispute that what brought about what we call intelligence may have been the result of genetic mutation, 500 million years ago as per the reported research. Yet, to claim that mutation, having happened, as a popular ditty goes long, long ago, so long ago, nobody knows how long ago, caused human intelligence is much akin to my being sourced from the hydrogen, helium etc. of the first three minutes.
Every gene mutation is an “accident”. I will clarify. As we understand now, genes do not mutate with the end in sight. No teleology. No designer willing a change. Some mutations survive and others die out – the real meaning of survival of the fittest. But, every mutation is an accident, a probability actualized. So, what is so special about the “genetic accident” that brought about intelligent beings? Nothing. Indeed, it is not an accident at all.
It is in the book Genome: The Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters, Matt Ridley ends up, much against his expressed annoyance, describing a chromosome in terms of a human gene, a particular version, residing on the chromosome which leads to some ailment or the other. When you have a gene, either it or a mutation of it has the potential for contributing to a disease. It was this thought that crossed my mind when I read in the article, “…the same genes that improved our mental capacity are also responsible for a number of brain disorders.” So, what is new about this, in light of what I had said earlier? What is the news value? A gene is potentially a disease causing agent!
The article quotes the scientist who led the research: “One of the greatest scientific problems is to explain how intelligence arose during evolution.” Well, that is fantastic. I salute the scientist for venturing onto a risky, yet potentially path breaking effort. This is what science is.
But, if they called it a “genetic accident” I would tend to think that it was a slip. Perhaps the scientists fell for the potential for attracting the attention of the audience to the scientific efforts. Even while admitting scientists are humans, this is difficult for me to accept.
But come to media, particularly PTI. What kind of science reporting are they doing? From the title to all the statements not directly attributed to the scientists are fundamentally ignorant of the principle of evolution, far more than I, a layman, am.
To give one last example, the scientists have “discovered how humans and other mammals evolved to have intelligence.” This is a meaningless statement, for the simple reason the scientists have done nothing of the sort. A meaningful statement would be like, “scientists have honed in on a critical genetic step in the evolution of intelligence in life forms.” But again, no exclamations at the end of the sentence.
I was taken in by the implied exclamation mark. Just imagine how many more would have been taken in by a real one. Perhaps I should thank the Times of India for not stooping so low.
Raghuram Ekambaram
I refer to a Press Trust of India release that I happened upon in the pages of the Times of India of December 4, 2012. As you notice from the scanned image below it is entitled “Did genetic accident lead to human intelligence?” The implied internal punctuation mark is the exclamation mark (!) after genetic accident.
I truly could not suppress my anger at the ignorance that explodes out of the piece, on a number of counts. I found stupidity everywhere, in the title and also in the body of the piece.
A “genetic accident” 500 million years ago “enabled humans to think and reason evolved.” And, to think that humans have existed no more than, say, 200,000 years! Where is 500 million and where is 200,000? What happened in the interim? Apparently nothing! The phrase “human intelligence” in the heading implies as much!
Why the focus on human intelligence? Oh, sensationalism! Imagine anyone reading through a piece titled “The Ur genes for intelligence are 500 million years old.” I may have read, but not many others. The putative title I had given does not accommodate an exclamation mark, implied or explicit.
Researchers at University of Edinburgh “found that intelligence in humans developed as the result of an increase in the number of brain genes in our evolutionary ancestors.” Oh, my! Where do I come from? Not from my father and mother; not from Kolipakkam, my paternal ancestral village; not from Mandakolathur, my mother’s paternal ancestral village; not from Tamil Nadu, because it did not exist when I came into this world. So, where did I actually come from? From the Big Bang!
You must read Steven Weinberg’s classic The First Three minutes (ftp://89.209.81.27/public/Sci_Library/Phys%20Library/PPop_Popular-level/Weinberg%20S.%20The%20first%20three%20minutes(168s).pdf). It says a lot about the relative abundance of hydrogen, helium and a few other elements in the early universe. Yes, I have come from them, and so have you.
I do not dispute that what brought about what we call intelligence may have been the result of genetic mutation, 500 million years ago as per the reported research. Yet, to claim that mutation, having happened, as a popular ditty goes long, long ago, so long ago, nobody knows how long ago, caused human intelligence is much akin to my being sourced from the hydrogen, helium etc. of the first three minutes.
Every gene mutation is an “accident”. I will clarify. As we understand now, genes do not mutate with the end in sight. No teleology. No designer willing a change. Some mutations survive and others die out – the real meaning of survival of the fittest. But, every mutation is an accident, a probability actualized. So, what is so special about the “genetic accident” that brought about intelligent beings? Nothing. Indeed, it is not an accident at all.
It is in the book Genome: The Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters, Matt Ridley ends up, much against his expressed annoyance, describing a chromosome in terms of a human gene, a particular version, residing on the chromosome which leads to some ailment or the other. When you have a gene, either it or a mutation of it has the potential for contributing to a disease. It was this thought that crossed my mind when I read in the article, “…the same genes that improved our mental capacity are also responsible for a number of brain disorders.” So, what is new about this, in light of what I had said earlier? What is the news value? A gene is potentially a disease causing agent!
The article quotes the scientist who led the research: “One of the greatest scientific problems is to explain how intelligence arose during evolution.” Well, that is fantastic. I salute the scientist for venturing onto a risky, yet potentially path breaking effort. This is what science is.
But, if they called it a “genetic accident” I would tend to think that it was a slip. Perhaps the scientists fell for the potential for attracting the attention of the audience to the scientific efforts. Even while admitting scientists are humans, this is difficult for me to accept.
But come to media, particularly PTI. What kind of science reporting are they doing? From the title to all the statements not directly attributed to the scientists are fundamentally ignorant of the principle of evolution, far more than I, a layman, am.
To give one last example, the scientists have “discovered how humans and other mammals evolved to have intelligence.” This is a meaningless statement, for the simple reason the scientists have done nothing of the sort. A meaningful statement would be like, “scientists have honed in on a critical genetic step in the evolution of intelligence in life forms.” But again, no exclamations at the end of the sentence.
I was taken in by the implied exclamation mark. Just imagine how many more would have been taken in by a real one. Perhaps I should thank the Times of India for not stooping so low.
Raghuram Ekambaram
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