Pet Dominance

I kind of chuckled at this article today: Cats Do Control Humans, Study Finds

I had a cat growing up, who was brought into our household before I was, and lived to nearly 20. She absolutely knew how to get what she wanted, whether it was as unsubtly as sitting herself down on top of my homework or my text book when she wanted to be pet and I was studying, or yowling at the top of her lungs to get me to find her and let her in.

The thing I think that we forget, is that every relationship is dependent upon communication. Cross species, this is a little bit more difficult because there is no common language. At least not as we recognize it. But in order for the relationship to be successful, no matter whether it's between two humans, or between a human and their cat, one has to be able to communicate their needs to the other. I would be more surprised if cats weren't learning to "control" their people. But again, I think this is an issue of semantics. I wouldn't call a cat learning what call elicits the most expedient response "Control" but rather effective communication.

also while we're on the topic of pets-- Pet vs petted, past tense. Is "petted" out? Is this a linguistic trend? or just poor grammar?

social networking

Has ego and self-absorption always been at the heart of socialization, or is this something we've fed and bloated into being, and named facebook, twitter, and myspace? Or even blogs for that matter. I mean, how self-important do we think that we are that the world wants to read what we have to write, or what we did two seconds ago that's 160 characters or less? Why do we think the internet, and every person we've friended, wants to know that we just did the dishes? or took the dog out? or sorted the laundry?

How much of our lives do we want to publicize? Is it just a bid for attention from a culture that's been starved? Are we all just suffering from the fact that we didn't get enough love as children?

I'm not sure if I even agree with everything I just wrote or that I have any idea what I'm talking about, but I had to ask the questions.

Novelty and Teeth!

I did manage to stop procrastinating and finish my book, though now that it's done I find myself resisting the compulsive urge to revise at once, which I refuse to do.

It isn't that it doesn't need revision (what novel doesn't? especially the later half, which didn't get rewritten a dozen times already, like the first half did as I struggled to find a way to address the concepts and the characters in the proper order), but that I know that I need to put it away for a few weeks, maybe some months, and let it rest, and go back to it with fresh eyes so that I can read what I actually wrote on the page instead of what I think, or what I'm expecting to read.

So instead of working on revising my recently completed work (I am workshopping it, however, which since it doesn't require MY reading and commenting, but someone else doing so, I think is totally allowable), I'm going back to revise my previous manuscript, which is just as fun, because I've been wanting to reread it again anyway, and now it gives me an excuse to do so! (I feel totally dorky sitting around reading my own writing for pleasure. I mean, it just seems kind of egotistical. But I can't quite stop myself all the time because I love my characters and I love the stories I'm telling, maybe that's the way it's supposed to be. If I don't love it, how on earth will anyone else?)

I've also got some chapters to go over for said workshop by Friday, so I've still got some work on my plate this week. I got terribly behind last week, which was unfortunate, but I'm fairly well caught up now. I hope.

But I'm not caught up to this blog-- though my husband was telling me about how they're experimenting with using stem cells to create your own tooth fillings of real tooth to grow back into your teeth, which frankly makes me want to celebrate and I might have to find the article to post for all of you to see, because one of the things that frightens me most about living as long as we do now, as a people, is the idea of outliving my teeth. I don't know about the rest of you-- but I much prefer chewing with my own teeth than I do having metal surfaces to accomplish the same task.

Wow. That was an incredibly long and run on sentence. Recognizing it as such, I'm not going to fix it.

Self-Esteem and the Imprecision of Language

Sometimes I read these articles and I wonder why the research actually had to be done. This one in particular is about Self-Esteem, and how high Self-esteem doesn't always mean that you're psychologically in a healthy place. This right here is my favorite part of the article-- because it sums up the results pretty succinctly, and in such a way that I just stared at it for a moment with the thought "we didn't already know this?"

“These findings support the view that heightened defensiveness reflects insecurity, fragility and less-than-optimal functioning rather than a healthy psychological outlook,” said Kernis. “We aren’t suggesting there’s something wrong with people when they want to feel good about themselves. What we are saying is that when feeling good about themselves becomes a prime directive, for these people excessive defensiveness and self-promotion are likely to follow, the self-esteem is likely to be fragile rather than secure and any psychological benefits will be very limited.”

It just seems common sense to me. Secure people don't have any reason to lash out or get defensive. They can accept that other people have different opinions and not be threatened by those differences. I think the real issue of this article is the semantics between "Secure" and "Insecure" people, vs. "high self-esteem" and "low self-esteem." They're not the same thing. That's what this study proves-- semantics. It doesn't tell us anything we don't already know, it just tells us how to categorize it, linguistically.

But that in itself is kind of fascinating too-- here we are using science to define words that we already use. To redefine words, maybe. To find the right word to fit the scenario they've observed. How much time does science spend with research that serves the same function as a dictionary?

This also brings me back to the article a few weeks ago about simplifying science and physics by assuming there's only one universe, not a multiverse. Part of his argument, too, was semantics. How to label discoveries and laws and findings. He objected to the idea that we had to label things as true only for OUR universe, as opposed to multi-universally true. I didn't understand why this was an issue-- but now I'm getting a better idea, maybe, where he's coming from. Scientists, especially scientists operating in the math-based, hard science fields (chemistry, physics, etc) are notorious, in my experience, for being unable to communicate effectively with the world outside their specialties. These are people who are brilliant in their field, but unable to explain themselves to the common person in a classroom. They make fabulous researchers, and horrible teachers. Something just doesn't connect, there. Now I'm kind of wondering if it isn't just language-- and the imprecision with which we use it. The imprecision which is inherent in its use, just like how they needed to now do research to show that "high self-esteem" is not a word that is interchangeable with "secure" in psychology. We juggle these words and throw them around taking into account the variable meanings-- but in science, in MATH SCIENCES, precision is everything. Exact numbers, exact formulas, exact measurements. It has to be perfect. It has to be Exactly Correct. One wrong number or letter or function destroys the entire experiment.

Is the gulf between science and communication with general humanity really just a question of precision of language? Is it just semantics?

MIA

This is not going to be a post about an article. This is a post apologizing to my readership (such as it is) for my absence. There was some significant trauma within my family and some significant celebration, both of which required my absence from the internet because my grandfather lives in the dark ages without a computer, nevermind access to the world wide web, and I was unable to steal wireless from the surrounding areas due to the fact that he lives on 88 acres with no neighbors. Of course, if wireless had been available, I wouldn't have been utilizing it, since because of the trauma, my family flew in from across the country, and it was vital that I spend as much time with them as humanly possible in the short time we had together.

I am once again reminded how much I value my family.

Now I'm going to stop writing before I launch into a completely unprofessional post listing the reasons why I love Superman even though he's too perfect. I think I need to wait another couple of months before I go comic book hero again, since I only just went on about Thor. Besides which, I have three chapters to workshop for a friend, and two chapters to write to finish my novel in progress, and this is just one more way to procrastinate.

Note to Self

I want to address this article later: Genetic Difference Found in Wild vs. Tame Animals

It's fascinating, and I don't want to forget about it.

Oh, Evolution, what will we do with you?

Here's what I don't understand:

If we can witness adaptation and change in species over time, why is that not proof of evolution?

I mean, I understand that evolution means more than adaptation and change of a species, it means the rise of a new species from an old one, off-shooting successfully. But don't we have proof of this everywhere through genetics? We can see the relationships of all these animals to one another, how closely they're related, how closely the genetic code of all mammals are related. The individual mutated genes that cause the differences in two species. How is this not adequate scientific proof to support Evolution indisputably as a process which caused the diversification of life in the past, and continues to cause it in the present and future?

Is it simply that none of us were present at the beginning of time to witness the first single celled organism divide into two different single celled organisms? Is that what's holding us up? I'm just not sure I understand what the controversy is here. It only makes sense that adaptation of populations in different environments would produce different species of the same animal over time. We can SEE that in modern populations. As far as I'm concerned, evolution is proved by the selective breeding we engage in with domestic animals.

It isn't that I don't recognize the religious implications of Evolution. I distinctly remember sitting in my confirmation class in my small town church when someone asked our priest the question of what the church thought/what we were supposed to believe. And I remember our priest saying "Look, as long as you believe that God made the world, then that's all that matters." It isn't about the how specifically. It isn't about the step by step, day by day account. It's about the act of creation. I don't see how THAT can conflict with the theory of Evolution--maybe the big bang theory, although that too could be considered God's Hand, but not Evolution. Evolution explains the diversification of life, it doesn't dispute or disprove God.

So. What's the problem?
I wish I had a science council in my pocket that I could pull out and ask these questions to. Quick Reference Body of Scientific Intellectuals.
Wouldn't that be nice? Or wait--maybe that's what the Internet is for.