Month: March 2009

A couple of years back I read a theory in Charles Pellegrino’s book “Ghosts of Vesuvius” that has fascinated me since, that the Biblical story of Cain and Abel is an echo of the genocide of Neanderthals by Homo sapiens.

It is known that Neanderthals and Homo Sapiens lived around the same time. Doesn’t it only seem reasonable that this story may be the story, passed down from fireside to fireside, of the end of neanderthals?

Note the similarity. Homo sapiens were farmers, like Cain, while Neanderthals were herdsman, like Abel. The story, instead of being about how murder first entered the world, might instead be the story of how Homo sapiens dominated by being the variant willing to kill to win.

Other stories in The Bible are widely speculated to be related to historic events. Noah, it is speculated, is the story of flooding of lower populated areas caused by the breaking of ice dams around 10,000 BC, a theory discussed extensively and somewhat persuasively in Graham Hancock’s book “Underworld.” Remember, these were the areas that were populated at the time. People did not have luxury mountain cabins in Aspen back then; they had a dwelling near water. As another example, some of the stories in the passages about Moses are likewise speculated to be related to surrounding and caused by the eruption of Thera.

Thus two of the most prominent stories of the bible, that of Noah’s Ark and of The Exodus, may be stories of some of the biggest events of history, which have simply echoed through time due to the raw impact of the events.

Would not the first genocide also qualify as significant? Isn’t it then reasonable that this story of Cain and Abel could also be the story of one of history’s most significant events?

Originally published 3/27/09 in Science 2.0.

I was listening to a presentation being given by futurist David Houle a few days ago. He began to talk about how technology is changing the way that people communicate and work, particularly with the exponential global growth in cell phone subscribers. As he relayed stats, he discussed implications for how society works. This made me begin to think of something that had been pestering the back of my mind for a while, the implications of the rapid adoption of Facebook.

Recently I read in The Economist, in an article titled Primates on Facebook, about a study that was done of the number of friends people tend to have on Facebook. What is interesting is that the findings are fairly consistent with limitations theorized by Robin Dunbar, who believes that the brain limits the size of a social network an individual can develop. An implication of this that came to my mind is that of the potential of reduced (not eliminated) social mobility. By social mobility I don’t necessarily mean upward, but at all.

What do I mean?

Most people go through life making batches of new friends, friends whose interests match theirs at some given point in life. If, however, there is a cap on the size of a social network, and the legacy social network is preserved longer than it would be otherwise by way of Facebook or similar technology, then it would seem that the tendency to develop new friendships would have to be somehow inhibited.

Think about it. How many relationships have you developed in the last couple of years that have changed your life significantly? If your ability to begin these relationships were somehow inhibited by an otherwise full network on your side or the others, such that you did not develop the same friendship, what would your life be like?

This could have important implications. In another article recently in The Economist titled The Road Not Taken a theory was discussed that says that higher home ownership percentages are negative for an economy due to the decreased mobility of the workforce. I had not heard this before, but it immediately made some sense to me, especially in these times of economic stress. It also matched a long held personal belief that government intervention to increase home ownership is messing with nature, at least beyond some point, and thus may have adverse consequences, something that seems to be more evident now.

The reason I mention this is that the idea that increased home ownership percentages might be negative for an economy is, at least initially, a bit counter intuitive. The same goes for the idea of reduced social mobility due to the increased use of online social networks like Facebook – it is a bit counter intuitive. Seemingly the increased communication would be good, for all kinds of reasons. The problem may lay in the fact that we are all, well, primates.

Originally published 3/23/09 in Science 2.0.