Curtailed Cognition—Part 1

The results of recent research by Yale University on a population of 20,000 Chinese people over the time span of 2010-2014 is very sobering, because the study is the first to demonstrate that air pollution reduces one's cognitive ability. We've known for decades that air pollution is physically damaging to our lungs, but now the physical damage to the brain has also been shown. Our intelligence is being threatened.

Some 95% of the world's population is known to breathe unsafe air. That problem is particularly acute in China, whose air pollution has been shown to be three times greater than the upper limits described by the UN's World Health Organization; which is why the Yale study was conducted there. The researchers demonstrated that air pollution caused a significant drop in test scores—particularly in language and math—creating the equivalent of a lost year in the average person's education.

So now we have further evidence of the health-damaging impact of air pollution. What do these results mean? How great is this threat? What should we do about it? Of course, the rational conclusion would be to take dramatic and immediate measures to reduce air pollution. Don't hold your breath, however (no intentional pun, here). Since most all forms of pollution and environmental degradation disproportionately impact the poor, we can't expect politicians—who owe so much to the rich—to do much of anything about the problem.

In related areas, very little has been done to slow global warming or the use of pesticides, so we can't expect much to be done about air pollution either. Politicians seem to be minimally concerned about the future, since the impact of their actions—harmful or helpful—often takes many years to bear fruit. Their attention is on the next quarter's bottom line, and their chances of getting reelected, not on distant events to come.

So what will the future bring, if air pollution persists? Are we doomed? Will we be getting increasingly dumber? What harm will we incur as a species, if we don't act? No one knows the answers to these questions.

Well, there's one thing that can be counted on: the pharmaceutical industry will swing into action by developing drugs to deal with the curtailed cognitive symptoms—especially if those drugs need to be taken for the rest of one's life (thereby ensuring continued income for big pharma). Our culture is good at treating symptoms—rather than root causes. We already know that citizens' lungs get messed up with air pollution, so big pharma has answered the call by developing inhalers. Similarly, we have medicines to treat diabetes and heart disease—all aimed at easing the pain and limitations of these problems, without the need to improve lifestyles. Drug companies make lots of money when industry makes people sick. 
 
So, will big pharma come up with medications to counter the brain damage caused by air pollution? It's a good bet that they will. We already have medications to treat the symptoms of Alzheimer's disease and other brain problems. We can count on the pharmaceutical industry to rescue us from having to do much about air pollution.

I am currently taking an online course on modern diseases and debilitation of old age, which makes another cogent point on this issue. The Dutch professor of my course, a physician, spent a few years in the emergency ward of a hospital, often treating the aftermath of accidents, such as when vehicles collide. He later went into family medicine and often found himself dealing with emergency situations brought on by heart attacks and strokes.

It occurred to him that he was repeatedly faced with health accidents that were brought on, not by a sudden automobile crash, but in the wake of a few decades of unhealthy living. In either case, he was dealing with a calamity—one that either happened in the ER from a crash a few hours earlier, or the other due to a gradual crash over decades. Are we creating a slow-motion crash of brain damage from air pollution—a crash that is as avoidable as heart attacks and diabetes, which could be dealt with by creating a healthy lifestyle?

More on dumbing down next time...

The Brain and Life Span

I posted a blog on 3/31/14 titled “Monogamous Dummies,” wherein I described a then-current result of studies of fruit flies, which had made the surprising discovery that polygamous male fruit flies demonstrated themselves to be more intelligent than monogamous males. Another surprising finding of this study was that monogamous males lived longer than their polygamous cohorts.

The researchers had no explanations for these results, other than to note that, within a given species, those individuals possessing a larger brain (and thus who are usually more intelligent) did not live as long as their smaller-brain comrades. A possible reason offered is that the brain of any critter demands a significant proportion of that critter's energy. Thus, big-brained creatures may sort of run out of energy sooner and expire before their dumber fellows.

It is a fact that the species which immediately preceded us Homo sapiens, the Cro-Magnon, had a bigger brain than we do (about 10% larger). Thus, as we humans have evolved, our brains have shrunk a little. Does this say that we are dumber than Cro-Magnon? That's very difficult to say, but the life of modern humans is certainly easier than that of our deep ancestors. While they had to work hard to forage for food, we walk into the supermarket and leisurely fill our cart with oodles of goodies. While they had to keep a sharp lookout to avoid being eaten by large predators, we have either done away with most of those predators or locked them up in zoos.

And what about the life span of Cro-Magnon, compared to modern humans? That's also not an easy question to answer, but it is surely affected by technology and availability of high-quality food. Our modern healthcare tools can be very effective at extending the life of people. Cro-Magnon did not have access to antibiotics, dentists, or surgical techniques. So maybe we H. sapiens live longer, not because we're dumber, but because of our modern medicine?

These findings also suggest a reason why evolution has gradually decreased the size of our brain. If we don't need the brain power we once had (because we have smart machines to care for us), why not let the brain shrink a bit—especially if it lengthens our life span? Is this not a wise trade-off that evolution has made?

That possibility is a little disconcerting, however. What might happen when we develop super-smart artificial intelligence machines? Will our brains shrink to the point that our dogs will someday be teaching us simple tricks and taking us to the vet to be neutered?

Alien Intelligence

The search is fully on for signs of intelligent life on planets other than Earth. Humans have long pondered whether or not life arose elsewhere—and in particular, if it could be intelligent life. Up until the last couple of decades, this conjecture was little more than idle speculation. But now we have telescopes that have discovered thousands of planets circling nearby stars—some of those planets might harbor life. Additionally, our definition of the extreme conditions under which life can survive has greatly expanded, so we can now expect to see life surviving under fierce conditions that we once thought were impossible. More and more, it seems that the discovery of extraterrestrial life is more a matter of “when,” not “if.”

Very recently there's been yet another finding in this arena—right here on Earth—of a new type of intelligence that was under our noses, but was never before recognized. This finding is very similar to recent discoveries of terrestrial lifeforms—dubbed “extremophiles”—that thrive in conditions we once considered to be too hostile to allow life. The new discovery is a species of ocean critters called ctenophores (pronounced ten-o-fors) that are intelligent creatures who evolved their brains and nervous systems in a very different manner from the rest of Earth's species. They are some kind of alien.

From the earliest understood forms of Earth life, all the way up to us humans, the progression of nervous systems from primitive cells to the human brain have followed what we came to believe was a singular path. All life's nervous systems (so we have believed) genetically evolved to employ common neural messengers, such as serotonin, dopamine, and nitric oxide. This mechanism is the same, from nematodes to ants to humans. We've all evolved our nervous systems in the same fashion.

A Russian scientist (Leonid Moroz) who emigrated from his native land to the US two decades ago, insisted upon looking more deeply into the qualities of ctenophores. These critters had been identified and cataloged for a long time—and were considered to be a close cousin of jellyfish. When Moroz captured a few of these critters and began examining them, however, he found that, although they had evolved muscles and a nervous system like other creatures, they took an entirely different route from all other life forms.

Ctenophores are a very ancient life-form. They display an example of what is called convergence: life evolving into similar-looking critters, but doing so by following a different evolutionary path. For example, eyes have independently evolved many times, following parallel but quite different evolutionary paths. Porpoises and sharks are very similar creatures, but evolved through completely different paths. One is a mammal, the other is a fish. In the case of the porpoise and shark, we find very different critters which arrived at the same solution, because—although they started at different beginning points—they each had to solve the same problems: swimming.

What is fascinating about ctenophores is that, had their singular evolutionary route been favored by nature, life-forms on Earth today would be very different. Life would likely have eventually still evolved nervous systems and sophisticated brains, but they'd be housed in quite different kinds of animals. There would be no humans, as we know them.

This discovery has relevance to our search for extraterrestrial life. Just as the existence of extremophiles has caused us to open our minds to other kinds of life elsewhere, ctenophores seem to be advising us to open our minds even more, to understanding that intelligence may have evolved in alien ways that we have yet to understand, and to be on the lookout for some strange possibilities. We can learn from aliens right here on Earth.

Dumb Cats

My sister and I have had a running repartee for many years, about the relative smartness (or dumbness) of cats and dogs. She insistently contends that cats are way better than dogs, when it comes to cerebral acrobatics. Cats look smart, behave regally, are extremely wily, can read your mind, are fetchingly clever, etc. Her list of intelligence adjectives seems endless.

Since she’s my older sister, and I was taught to respect my elders (mostly by her), I have rarely refuted her extravagant claims—not really agreeing with her, but not really arguing either. I’ve nobly held my silence on the matter.

My experience has been quite the opposite, however. For some 40 years my household has been continuously inhabited by both feline and canine critters. I have found my dog buddies to be considerably cleverer than the resident cats. Dogs learn faster and easier than cats do. Dogs better understand and respond to the spoken word. A dog wants to be trained how to be a contributing citizen, whereas, although you may be able to demonstrate the tiniest bit of schooling in a cat, it will cooperate only if it gets exactly what it wants. One may call that intelligent, but I call it just devilish manipulation.

Nor have I wished to ardently proclaim my dear sister to be wrong. I have been willing to concede that there just might be a cognitive difference between West Coast cats and those here in the Shenandoah Valley. Just maybe they have a subspecies of feline out there that enjoys prodigious amounts of gray matter. I’ll grant that there’s a chance it’s possible… though exceedingly improbable.

But now comes proof of my sister’s bogus belief; and from no less an authority than a professor at Canterbury Christ Church University in Kent, England. We all know, of course, that the Brits are very erudite and trustworthy folks. Psychology Professor Britta Osthaus (note this is coming from a woman, Sis) says cats just do not understand cause-and-effect connections between objects. “They performed worse than dogs,” says Dr. Osthaus. “If we know their limits we won’t expect too much of them, which in turn is important for their welfare. I am not trying to say cats are stupid, just they are different”

Sorry, Sis. I’ll try my best not to rub it in.

What’s Intelligent?

One byproduct of choosing to live as a hermit is an ongoing parting of the ways with mainstream culture. By virtue of being rather out of touch with society—despite my maintaining some contact through the Internet—I find that I’m able to “speak the people’s language” less and less. Society moves on, changing its fads and trends, leaving me by the wayside. Alternatively, I find that I increasingly follow my own peculiar path, as I develop a new outlook on life.

A particular deviation that I often experience is noting how differently from society I begin to interpret and use some words. Words can acquire new connotations for me, as I begin to alter my perspective. One of the reasons I took up the life of a hermit was to slow down and examine the multitude of beliefs and perceptions I’ve acquired over the years. When I do so, I’ve found that many of them no longer seem relevant to me. I can let many of them go, cast off their respective shackles, and open up to new realizations.

An example of a departure that I’ve experienced is how the word “intelligent” is employed and implied by people. I’m less and less inclined to be able to relate to everyday usages, which imply that intelligence is the exclusive domain of humans, or that it can reasonably be measured by an IQ test, or that it is correlated to higher education or material success. When used in this way, for example, granting intelligence to one person rather than another can become a hierarchical or even a classist process.

When I get this feeling that I’m out of step with society on word usage, I like to go back to its roots and recalibrate myself. So, digging in the dictionary, I find that the Latin root of “intelligent” is to perceive, to understand, to comprehend. This tells me that intelligence can be more a matter of understanding things, than it is knowing facts, or doing well on a test, or even getting an advanced education.

The fact that intelligence means understanding more closely fits my interpretation of the word, since I’ve sometimes watched well-educated people exhibit a poor understanding of their world, in the harmful ways that they act. In contrast, I’ve watched what are considered simple-minded people act very intelligently, demonstrating their good understanding of their world. Even a squirrel—when very attentive to its environment—acts intelligently.

Thus one way I’ve come to view intelligence is how well one pays attention to one’s surroundings and how appropriately one then takes action, based on that accurate perception. I think intelligence is less what one knows than what one does. A person with an IQ of 150 who abuses his world may be regarded as intelligent by culture’s standards, but his actions display an elevated level of ignorance and foolishness. It is this type of irrational behavior that has led us to the current mess the world is in. That surely isn’t smart!