Trapped by Evolution is an excellent article looking at the many ways that human altered environments prove fatal to many animals.

 “When humans alter the environment, they often cause problems more subtle than simply destroying habitat, the researchers argue.  The changes can create a situation in which an animal’s evolved behavior hurts its chances of surviving or reproducing, which in turn can send the species downhill, and fast.”

 

Obviously pollution and habitat destruction has been hugely destructive to many species. But this article looks instead at ways that an animal’s instincts, instincts that normally protect the animal in the natural environment, work against the animal in certain human altered environments.

This article gives a number of examples of this phenomenon (which the scientists describe as evolutionary traps). The example that struck me was the story of the buprestid beetle. Apparently the male buprestid beetle prefers larger female buprestid beetles, the larger the better. All well and good, until an Australian beer company decided to sell their beer in a beer bottle with a new design that just happened to mimic the ideal female buprestid beetle. Soon the real female beetles were being ignored by the male beetles who were much more interested in copulating with these newly discarded beer bottles.

 As a result the buprestid beetle population plummeted; luckily there is a happy ending. The scientists studying these beetles discovered what was happening, and they went to the beer company and explained the situation. Then the beer company kindly changed their beer bottle design to a design that was much less desirable to male buprestid beetles. The result is the survival of these buprestid beetles.

Another example:

“In the mid-’90s, sea-turtle hatchlings born on Florida beaches were dying because, after emerging from their eggs, they turned inland instead of heading out to sea. Scientists discovered that hatchlings normally rely on light on the horizon over the ocean to decide which direction to migrate. But the light from nearby homes and hotels was fooling them. Florida has protected the turtles by requiring building owners either to use light of a different wavelength or to shield the lights from the beach.” 

 

But what does this have to do with television?

The instincts of the baby turtles tell them to go towards the lights. And the instincts of the male beetles tell what kind of female to look for. These instincts are extremely valuable in the natural world, but they lead to disaster in our human-altered world.

Similarly, our human instincts tell us to socialize, and to socialize with the most interesting, and high-status people available. Our instincts also tell us not to expend energy unnecessarily. As with the turtles and the beetles our instincts help us tremendously in the natural world.

But instead we live in a human-altered world. Television, because it so precisely feeds our social instincts, has been ubiquitous. It was inevitable that television would take over and become our main source of entertainment and news.

As with the turtles and the beetles our instincts have lead us to disaster.

Why we unconsciously include television personalities in our social circles.

Why I Hate Beauty

Robert Putnam on Community

 The result is a TV obsessed world where:

- civil society is greatly diminished

- depression is increasing

- mental laziness is increasing

- anti-Intellectualism is increasing

- violence and violent ideologies are increasing

All this, at a point in history where rationality and clear thinking are absolutely essential. Instead, too many people are burying their heads in the (TV infested) sand.

In the Scientific American article “Television Addiction is No Mere Metaphor”, the authors provide this metaphor:

Perhaps the most ironic aspect of the struggle for survival is how easily organisms can be harmed by that which they desire. The trout is caught by the fisherman’s lure, the mouse by cheese. But at least those creatures have the excuse that bait and cheese look like sustenance. Humans seldom have that consolation. The temptations that can disrupt their lives are often pure indulgences. No one has to drink alcohol, for example. Realizing when a diversion has gotten out of control is one of the great challenges of life.

Here are two science fiction books that look at the danger of people allowing themselves to be controlled by “that which they desire”.

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

Dictatorship by brute force and terror versus dictatorship by providing “that which we desire”.  Neil Postman does a brilliant job comparing the two by looking at “1984″ versus “Brave New World”.

“Dirge: Book Two of The Founding of the Commonwealth” by Alan Dean Foster

Much lighter in tone than “Brave New World”, the author does an excellent job of pointing out the dangers of blind desire.

Note: “Phylogenesis: Book One of The Founding of the Commonwealth“ has a different thesis, but I would also highly recommend it as a fun and uplifting read.

I wish I had a long list of Anti-TV novels to review. Unfortunately, I could only find four:

 “Feed”

 “The TV Kid”

 “Fahrenheit 451″

 “Television”

Also, honorable mention to “The Traveler“, a thriller which mentions TV as a form of social control to be rejected by those in the know.

If you know of any others, please let me know!

- “Feed” by  M.T. Anderson   -  As a Science-Fiction aficionado, my favorite was “Feed”. This novel takes place in the future when TV and the internet have combined and are fed directly into the minds of the characters. This technological advance was supposed to make everyone smarter, but instead the most popular show is “Oh? Wow! Thing!”

- “The TV Kid” by Betsy Byars  -  is a much more gentle and light-hearted book than Feed. The main character Lennie loves TV. It takes an adventure for Lennie to learn the importance of life and friendship outside of TV.

- “Fahrenheit 451” by Ray Bradbury  -  is another novel set in the future. This book is often studied in high school and is usually described as a cautionary tale about censorship. But Ray Bradbury himself …says the culprit in Fahrenheit 451 is not the state — it is the people. Unlike Orwell’s 1984, in which the government uses television screens to indoctrinate citizens, Bradbury envisioned television as an opiate.

- “Television” by Jean-Philippe Toussaint  -  is an extremely well-written book that unfortunately doesn’t have much of a plot. Basically this novel is about a writer who spends the summer putting off writing a historical book & instead explores life without TV. (Hmm, wonder how this book came about…)

Novels, even though they are fictional can convey powerful political messages (for both good and evil).

Traditionally the power of fiction was understood, this was partly why Literature used to be considered an essential subject for the well-educated scholar.

This was also why book-banning was not unheard of. People understood that books (even, or especially fictional books) could challenge the established order. And could also encourage and glorify people’s worst vices.

What a contrast to TV & movies.

Pointing out a moral failing of a TV/movie is dismissed as hopelessly old fashioned. Shows like “24” and “Dexter” are defended as “just fiction”. Meanwhile these same critics are happy to point out where a TV/movie promotes women’s rights and racial harmony and happily speculate on their benign effects on society.

Examples of influential Novels:

- “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” was the best-selling novel of the 19th century (according to Wikipedia) and helped convince a huge number of Americans that slavery is wrong. This book became very important to the abolitionist movement.

- The novels of Ayn Rand became bibles of the Objectivist Movement.

- “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich” illustrated the cruel conditions in the Soviet Union.

- “The Turner Diaries” became a bible of the white supremacists and an inspiration to Timothy McVeigh

- The novels of Jean-Paul Sartre became essential reading for Existentialists.

- “Left Behind Series“ is a very popular and influential series of novels that make theological arguments about the nature of God.

And as a Science Fiction Fan, I’d like to point out:

- Feminist Science Fiction

- Libertarian Science Fiction

- Social Science Fiction

Update: Intestesting article in Psychology Today:

Happily Ever After. Fictional tales that surround a “just world” may influence belief in the fairness of the real world.

Read & Grow Rich: How the Hidden Power of Reading Can Make You Richer in All Areas of Your Life by Burke Hedges

Despite the kind of cheesy title, I actually really liked this book. The Author, Mr. Hedges was not a big reader, but reluctantly decided to read a self-help book that his sister-in-law had recommended. This book not only inspired him to read more books, it actually inspired him to change his life, to make the changes necessary for him to grow rich, both materially and spiritually.

Reading self-help books, although very helpful for many people, is also considered kind of déclassé. This is ironic since traditionally, studying the humanities (including Literature) was considered a form of self-help, a respected way to understand humanity and oneself.

This is something Mr. Hedges touches upon when he lists a number of historical self-help books such as Pilgrims Progress and Walden. Both are popular self-help books, that are also considered Literature.

The author also stresses the importance of self-education through reading, and gives some historical examples, including:

- Abraham Lincoln who went to school a couple of times a week when he was 7 years old (a total of 18 months according to Wikipedia), and that was it. The rest of his education he got from reading widely.

- Frederick Douglas, a slave with no formal education, who learned to read by listening while the wife of his owner taught her children to read. He was self-taught through reading, and became a major force in the abolitionist movement.

What I particularly liked about this book was the author’s sincerity in wanting to spread the word on the benefits of reading, which he does is a very lively way.

Where the book lacked, was that the author neglected the importance of reading for enjoyment. After all, the more you “read for pleasure”, the easier reading becomes (practice makes perfect). And the easier reading becomes, the more likely the reader will stick with and comprehend more instructional books.

I also really enjoyed the historical references that Mr. Hedges makes. It’s obvious he did his research, and I definitely learned a lot!

Mark Stibich, Ph.D of About.com: Longevity has come up with an excellent:

Top 10 Reasons to Turn Off Your TV

My favorite reason is # 2 (and a big reason why I gave up TV)

Television Makes You Stressed

With the average of four hours a day gone, it’s no wonder everyone is feeling stressed out and overwhelmed. We put aside paying bills, finishing projects, making phone calls and cleaning our homes to watch TV. We feel overwhelmed because of all the things we should be doing (exercising, spending time with family, eating right) go undone. And when we feel overwhelmed, tired, and exhausted we don’t have energy to anything but — you guessed it — watch TV. It is a dreadful cycle. So take a break from TV for a week and see what happens to your life.

For years I had wanted to be better organized. But it wasn’t until I had substantially cut down on my TV watching (my weaning from TV was gradual) that I became inspired to actually take concrete steps towards a more organized life.

Congratulations to the participants of this year’s TV-Turnoff week !!

I had wanted to do a roundup on this year’s TV-Turnoff week, but it looks like Sarah of  Unplug Your Kids beat me to it, and of course did a such great job, I’ll just link:

Unplug Your Kids: Inquiring Minds Want to Know…

Unplug Your Kids: Impressions of a Week Without TV

 White Dot helpfully put up this article by Jean Lotus:

16 tips to manage toddlers–without resorting to television

The City of Lafayette went all out and had a number of free activities for kids who sign up for TV-Turnoff.

We Can!™ and the Acting U.S. Surgeon General Promote Turnoff Week 2008

And Wikio TV Turnoff Week Links

The yearly TV-Turnoff is organized by the Center for Screen Time Awareness.

Great Job all !!

You’ve probably already read about this new study
that found that Obesity can spread from friend
to friend.

According to the New York Times article:

The answer, the researchers report, was that people were most likely to become obese when a friend became obese. That increased a person’s chances of becoming obese by 57 percent. There was no effect when a neighbor gained or lost weight, however, and family members had less influence than friends.

It did not even matter if the friend was hundreds of miles away, the influence remained. And the greatest influence of all was between close mutual friends. There, if one became obese, the other had a 171 percent increased chance of becoming obese, too.

The same effect seemed to occur for weight loss, the investigators say. But since most people were gaining, not losing, over the 32 years, the result was, on average, that people grew fatter.

But how does obesity (or weight loss) spread
from person to person?

According to Dr. Nicholas Christakis (the lead
investigator for this study) there are at least
two potential mechanisms:

One possible mechanism is that I observe you and you begin to display certain behaviors that I then copy. For example, you might start running and then I might start running. Or you might invite me to go running with you. Or you might start eating certain fatty foods and I might start copying that behavior and eat fatty foods. Or you might take me with you to restaurants where I might eat fatty foods. What spreads from person to person is a behavior, and it is the behavior that we both might exhibit that then contributes to our changes in body size. So, the spread of behaviors from person to person might cause or underlie the spread of obesity.

A completely different mechanism would be for there to be not a spread of behaviors, but a spread of norms. I look at the people around me and they are gaining weight. This changes my idea, consciously or subconsciously, about what is an acceptable body size. People around me who start gaining weight reset my expectations about what it means to be overweight or thin, and this is what spreads from person to person: a norm. It is a kind of meme (but it is not quite a meme) that goes from person to person.

In our empirical work so far, we have found substantial evidence for the latter mechanism, the spread of norms, more than the spread of behaviors. It is a bit technical, but I will tell you why we have some evidence for norms. In our empirical work on obesity, we found two lines of suggestive evidence for a spread of norms. The first line of evidence caught everyone’s attention, and frankly it caught our attention when we noted it. It showed that it did not matter how far away your social contacts were; if they gained weight, it caused you to gain weight. This was the case whether your friend lived next door, ten miles away, 100 miles away, or 1000 miles away.   Geographic distance did not mater to the obesity effect, the interpersonal effect.

what about TV and norms? Since most of the actors
and actresses, reporters, pundits and “real people”
on TV are very slim, shouldn’t TV be keeping us thin?

Again Dr. Christakis:

How can it be that there is a role of norms in the spread of obesity when the ideology in our society regarding thinness is the same as it ever was? The super models are just as thin as they ever were.  Interestingly, there has been some change in the weight status of celebrities (there were always overweight celebrities, but I think there may be more now than there used to be); but super models are certainly as thin as they ever have been.

This is the difference between ideology and norms. People see these images of super models, but they might be less influenced by them than by the actions and appearance of the people immediately around them. For example, we see that people might behave badly and engage in criminal acts. We still have the ideology that the Bill of Rights holds and the Constitution holds and that there is goodness and there is evil. But people still behave badly when they are surrounded by people who behave badly.  Again, it is the difference between norms and ideology, and this is how we square the circle in terms of why it is that there can be a spread of obesity, or an obesity epidemic, even though as a society we still seem to revere a different kind of body type from the one we are increasingly seeing. 

But TV doesn’t just spread ideology, it also spreads norms, both good and bad.

Nevertheless, I did find this study quite encouraging.
If you give up TV (or severely curtail it), your
lifestyle change will have a positive effect on
those around you.

Again Dr. Christakis:

We also have found in our work that things beyond obesity and smoking cessation spread in networks. Happiness spreads in networks. If your friend’s friend becomes happy, it ripples through the network and can make you happy. We see clusters of happy and unhappy individuals in the social network like blinking lights in this complex fabric that is made up of people where some people are happy and some people are unhappy and there is a kind of gray zone between them. There is an ongoing kind of equilibrium that is reached in this social space. We have found that depression can spread, and drinking behaviors can spread, and the kinds of foods people choose to eat can spread…

So one person can make a difference!

Note: Dr. Nicholas Christakis, in the article,
mentions his brother Dimitri. I wonder if that
would be *the* Dr. Dimitri Christakis who has
done excellent research on the effects of TV
on children, and who has courageously come out
against young children (under two) watching
any TV.

Lisa of The Toby show wrote a very heartening
piece about being inspired (partly by Unplug Your
Kids and tvSmarter!)  to cut back on her son’s
TV watching.

She writes about having the best of intentions to
keep TV to a minimum, but how easy it is for it to
creep up to higher levels. Educational and “age-appropriate”
videos can seem so benign and innocuous that watching
more is completely easy (like falling off a log).

I haven’t gotten very much feedback on tvSmarter,
so it is very encouraging to know that it helped
*change* someone’s life (at least a little bit).

When I check my tvsmarter.com stats and see that
someone has spent a fair amount of time checking
out the pages, especially the “children”, “school”,
“reading”, and “aggression” pages, it’s nice to
think that some little kid is about to get his/her
TV privileges severely curtailed!

Here is a comment I posted at the Scientific
American website regarding Television Addiction
Is No Mere Metaphor

Excellent article!

Especially important is the part where the
authors describe how (and why) watching TV makes
the viewers brainwaves slow down (from Beta to
Alpha in adults).

This slowing down of the brainwaves from watching
TV (or any fast-paced video) has been well documented
and established, especially by scientists studying
TV commercials (for the advertising industry).

But, what I find amazing is how this important
fact is virtually unknown among the general public.
With the exception of this excellent article,
science writers (and bloggers) have not written
at all about this far-reaching phenomenon.

Considering that 8-14 year olds watch (on average)
over 4 hours of TV/videos per day, and that
2 year olds watch (on average) 1:30 hours per day,
this is extremely important information for parents
to have.

(Also, the general public does not realize that, at
the neurological level, there is a difference between
voluntary attention and involuntary attention.)

So please, any science writers and/or bloggers
out there, be a hero and write about this very,
very important neurological effect of TV on our
minds.