Ones and Zeros

I came across the phrase “normalized deviancy” recently. It’s the idea that we can get used to things that are not normal and we come to behave as if they were normal. Things like 1-2 hour commutes to work or wearing ties (or heels) perhaps. But this phrase has the embedded idea that there is a “normal”; I’m not so sure of that.

Anyone who wants to read the history of the world, or even just the many ways that people today live around the world should see that normal is a very flexible idea. Even in just one country the variation in the way we live can be high. But deciding what “normal” is this way is using it as a descriptive term. How about as a prescriptive term?

So what should “normal” be? We could decide that by figuring what we want, what’s good for us, or what we’re evolved to be. But I’m not sure that’s much better. Now we have to decide what is good to be able to measure what normal should be. So how do we describe what is good?  There are different value systems and what’s good in one environment isn’t good in another; there’s also a physical aspect to this as well as a moral or ethical one.

What we think of as “normal” is really seems to be an adaptation to our situation and our environment. My commute seems normal since I do it routinely and many people I know also have similar commutes. Flying into a rough strip in Africa or northern Canada is not normal because I only read about it online or in books. It’s healthy and a good survival trait to be able to adapt to one’s surroundings.

PTSD in returning vets might be an extreme example. In a war zone, being hypervigilant and not wanting to drive under overpasses help you live longer. Since the danger is high these are very strong adaptations. But they’re also adaptations not useful back at home so it becomes a problem.

Some adaptations, like pilots in Africa thinking rough brush airstrips are normal, are not completely successful. The rate of accidents for cargo aircraft that use these strips is significantly higher than similar pilots in developed countries. However it’s probably a reasonable guess that the accident rate is lower than it would be if the pilots didn’t adapt!

When I reach for something, a doorknob, a tool, or a pen, my hand automatically adapts to the shape of the object and I pick it up without thinking. I’ve picked up a similar object probably thousands of times before. A man with arthritis knows his hand won’t work as reliably. He learnes to recognized that and to take a bit more time and to beware of how it might go wrong. He adaptes to change.  One day I may have to as well.

Humans can be highly adaptable. Our brains are basically pattern recognition machines that can easily learn new patterns and responses to those patterns. The trick we have is to do is to keep adapting. One way is to let one generation die off and the next take over. This works slowly but reliably at a population level but is a lousy strategy for an individual.

A better way is be aware and to recognize changing patterns. And to respond to that change successfully we have to watch and be aware of things happening around us.  That’s requires effort and attention instead of going on mental autopilot.  Life is a full time job.

In an effort to encourage more discussion in comments I’ve deactivated the little test needed to post a comment.  I’ll continue with the existing light-handed moderation.  I.e. spam, gratuitous insults and anything  impairing useful discourse will be deleted.  Anything else goes.

Last February, on the event of Charles Darwin’s 200th birthday, Gallup polled Americans and found that believe in the theory of evolution. About the same amount had no opinion (in other words the Gallup people called at dinner time). That leaves about 25% do not believe Darwin’s theory.

I’m suspicious of polling. They abstract many people’s potentially nuanced points-of-view into a very few categories. I’ve been on the receiving end of poll questions and found the experience frustrating. But however we quibble about poll numbers it remains true that many people don’t believe the humans evolved from other animals and we weren’t just created by divine intervention somehow.

In earlier periods it was held that humans were special and since animals didn’t have language, make societies, use tools, or think abstractly then there was a massive difference. Humans had to have a divine spark in them that animals didn’t have. This allow us to exploit and damage the ecosystem with God at least implicitly on our side.

Then we found insect societies and other animal communities that indicate some type of society - a wolf pack or pod of dolphins for two examples.

Biologists noted that any society required communication. And they found examples of that in numerous species. Then, they managed to teach gorillas and chimps to communicate with us too.

And, of course, tool use is common in other apes (non-human ones that is), and some birds as well. Otters use rocks to crack shells, they have favorites they keep.

Now, there’s examples of higher-level cognition in animals too.

So if you’re the type of person that requires humans to be special in some critical way, a believer in humanity’s descent from God and not from apes, then you’re feeling pretty crowded by now. All the special human characteristics also have examples in other species too. Either you a) just ignore those pesky scientists, or b) start reacting against “godless liberals”.

Politically, the rise of Reganism in the US and Thatcherism in the UK and the more recent reign of Bush, which was philosophically an extension of Reganism, is part of that reaction.

Note, however, that evolution and the connection of humans and animals is clear. I’ve read that over 98% of our DNA is the same with chimps. We use the same or very similar proteins as all the other animals on the Earth. Those proteins are made from the same amino acids by same or very similar DNA. We can see the evolutionary changes over time in different and related species. It’s quite clear that we not only grew up here on Earth but that we share a common ancestry with all the other animals and plants here. No one seriously disputes that.

The key difference in humans from other species is the combination of design features we have and the level to which we have them. Tool use, opposable thumbs, language, social structures, and more are all special in combination. We are specialized to being generalists. Humans seem to be the only animal that is highly effective at adapting and learning, and passes that knowledge on to future generations. We seem like we might have a part of our brain that specializes in tool use, we think about tools as an extension of our bodies. We use tools and all our other generalist capabilities to be very adaptable.

Faced with this information we have several choices. A first might be to ignore science and scientists. Refuse to adapt, become a button pusher and have no knowledge of what is behind the buttons or technology we’re using. This also means we’re subject to those who actually do know that technology.

Second, we could embrace science and reality. Live up to our fully adaptable humanity and be reality-based. We will never know the world and the universe completely. But science is a way of making a working approximation of what we do know and being able to test that approximation and to improve it. We gain some degree of mastery over our fate this way.

Third, as the T-shirt says, we can reject reality and substitute our own. This can be a problem as we live in the real world. If we ignore reality too much, we will suffer. In a simple case, jumping off a five story building and expecting to walk away is ignoring reality. But there are less obvious ways of ignoring reality that may involve voting against your own interests, making bad decisions, or not anticipating consequences.

For many things it’s quite obvious when we’re being reality-based (#2) and when we’re just making things up (#3). But sometimes it can be hard to judge this, we can’t all be scientists in all areas and know all of human knowledge, we have to trust others sometimes, many times.