Dr. Jim Reads Darwin, Chapter 7, Part 2 from the Illustrated Origin of Species, Edited by Richard E. Leakey--Omo I, Omo II, and the Discovery of the origin of our species ( Homo sapien ) dating back 160,000 years ago beginning with p. 127.
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Dr. Jim Reads from Darwin's Origin of Species, Chapter 6, p. 114 beginning with Special Difficulties of the Theory of Natural Selection. One of the interesting points made in this section of Darwin's magnum opus is found at p. 116 where he had been detailing how nature presents itself with a great deal of variety but little in the way of innovation. "Why, on the theory of Creation, should there be so much variety and so little real novelty?" he wrote. "Why should all the parts and organs of many independent beings, each supposed to have been separately created for its proper place in nature, be so commonly linked together by graduated steps? Why should not Nature take a sudden leap from structure to structure? On the theory of natural selection, we can clearly understand why she should not; for natural selection acts only by taking advantage of slight successive variations; she can never take a great and sudden leap, but must advance by short and sure, though sl
Mind-Body Connection and Decision-Making I've been fascinated by and studying the ability to make wise decisions that promote long term health and wellbeing in humans for a very long time. In fact its been a preoccupation of mine since I was child. One's ability to curb temptation in all it's forms--food, drug, alcohol, cutting, sexual behavior, displays of rage/angry outbursts, etc., predict long term wellbeing. Before turning to science, I'm sure I spent at least a thousand hours puzzling over the issue informed by reading spiritual literature about the freedom or bondage of the will (Martin Luther (the monk), Jonathan Edwards, Puritan writers, C.H. Spurgeon, and other. I studied Martin Lloyd Jones' works on Romans and Ephesians and studied all I could about temptation, Romans 7, I Corinthians, II Corinthians, Ephesians, Galatians, Philippians, I and II Peter, Revelation, etc. I've come to the ultimate conclusion that generally speaking reli
Dr. Jim reads Darwin's Origin of Species, Laws of Variation, Chapter 5, Part 2: Darwin wrote at p. 102 "For myself, I venture confidently to look back thousands on thousands of generations and I see an animal striped like a zebra, but perhaps very different constructed, the common parent of our domestic horse, the ass, the hemionus, quagga, and zebra."
Dr. Jim Concludes his reading of Bowenian Chapter on Differentiation of Self, Part 4: When the custody evaluator can remain "anchored in emotional neutrality" in writing it up, the result can promote more reasoned and regulated "self-determined direction" and listening where "pressuring for agreement or to have [one's] way" is discarded in favor of finding solutions to the problem. That is to see where win-win is possible. Kerr and Bowen (1988) wrote "There is no limit to emotional neutrality. It is broadened each time human being can view the world more as it is than as he wishes, fears, or imagines it to be." (p. 111).
Dr. Jim reads About Bowen's Differentiation of Self, Part 1 In 1975 Wilson wrote about three key properties of social organization: c ohesiveness, altruism, and c ooperativeness. In the animal kingdom only four groups of animals have been able to significantly develop these properties: (1) colonial invertebrates—coral/the Portuguese man-of-war; (2) social insects (ants, termites, certain wasps and bees), (3) nonhuman mammals (particularly the elephants, chimpanzees, and African wild dogs), and (4) humans. It's important to recognize that high levels of social integration are not inherently "good" for the adaptiveness of a species. The key to the "level of complexity" of our social organization involves our capacity for abstraction in the service of win-win social groupings and self-government. This capacity enables us to "establish long-remembered contracts and to profitably engage in acts of reciprocal altruism that can
