*Disclaimer: MegaPost tomorrow, unless unforseen circumstances dictate against debut time.
I'm really tired today. Why? Mostly because today was the last day of the lecture portion of my winter quarter classes up here at the University of Washington. Other than that, i suppose nothing big is going on. I did have to pay $32 dollars for a book that is in effect regurgitated lecture material, all to benefit the self-serving interests of my Animal Behavior professor. "How so?" Well, maybe i can shed some light onto that...
My animal behavior professor, the same one that teaches the class that i had to do research on river otters for, is a very big proponent of evolution, evolutionary thought, evolutionary biology, evolutionary psychology, comparitive evolution, the evolution of evolution, and so on. Hell, he'd probably even study the evolution of the phrase "and so on..." Seriously. So what does any self-respecting individual with an obsession do? Either buy a high powered rifle and proceed to stalk the said obsession, or write a book about it. Guess what he did. Actually, to be honest, he probably has stalked the idea of evolution...i wouldn't be surprised...the man is twisted... (For all those of you out there currently looking at me with that..."ahem...and what about you..." look, yes i did pick up on the irony...) Anyway though, he wrote a book called, "Evolutionary Biology: The New Gene-Centered View of Life." Ah, but that wasn't all. My current hypothesis is that the book wasn't selling all that well and so to cover the expenses, and to make a good profit, he made that book a required reading for the class. No, this is not some grandiose conspiracy theory on my part. It becomes so obvious if you sit through one of his lectures and then read a chapter from the book. It was like he used some sort of voice-to-text recognition/typing program to write this book.
Now then, with that rage out of my system, i must admit that the book is somewhat interesting. It is also somewhat frightening, partly because i feel like i am listening to his lecture all over again, and partly because some of the examples that he uses to illustrate some theories and hypotheses. For example, here is a paragraph he wrote about a how men can extend their lives:
Whatever the precise cause, the connection between maleness and higher mortality is undeniable: men who are castrated when young live longer, approaching women in their average longevity. And yet, evolution has not responded by producing men without testicles, nor would we ever expect that to happen! Natural born castrati would be winners in a sense, in that they would almost certainly live longer, but because they couldn't reproduce, evolutionarily they would be losers (Barash 2001).
Barash, D. P. (2001). Evolutionary biology: The new, gene-centered view of life. Transaction Publishers. New Brunswick, NJ
So there you have it ladies and gentlemen...well actually, this just applies to the gentlemen... In order to live as long as the female population, you just have to lop off the one thing that apparently seems to be bringing all us men into quicker mortality. Doesn't it just sound like a rip-roaring fun time?
Ahhh, well other than that little bit on how to live a truly long, happy(?) life, i have nothing more to add tonight. I am too tired to provide any really good images or pictures, but tomorrow should prove to be interesting, hopefully. I have my final exam in that animal behavior class... Maybe after that i will be in the mood to live longer...
Before i go for tonight though, i'd just like to take the time to thank Mr. Bradbury for his participation in my little story telling activity thing. It was really helpful. I really would like more feedback from everybody else...including Mr. Collins and Mr. Miller. Just look at yesterday's post, under the title "Heinz, not just ketchup anymore..." or something like that, and you'll see what i mean. I want to collect everyone's responses to that story and see what happens. It could be interesting. That, or it could be a colossal waste of my time and resources...
Nice.
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