It is divided into roughly 261 (about; the number changes\nall the time) of the entities we call \u2018countries.\u2019\u00a0\u00a0 Each of these \u2018countries\u2019 organizes its wealth and population to\ncompete in a massive global game.\u00a0 The\ngoal of this game appears to be to get prizes that include the rights to\nterritory, resources, more \u2018activity\u2019 that the rulers of the country can\nextract something they call \u2018taxes\u2019 from, and to put more of the things we call\n\u2018jobs\u2019 into the territory.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
The \u2018teams\u2019 (\u2018countries\u2019) have no limits to the tactics they\ncan use for this.\u00a0 They have weapons\nthat can destroy the world.\u00a0 The leaders\nof the countries have deployed the weapons and made them ready for use.\u00a0 If the game demands it, the people who\ncontrol these weapons assure us that they will use them.\u00a0 They can kill millions or even billions of\npeople if they want.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
To gain advantages in these contests, the countries\nencourage and subsidize the rape of the world; during active periods of game\nplay, all matters other than the ongoing conflict are pout on hold:\u00a0 inequity, corruption, poverty, disease, and\nrisks the health of the planet are pushed to the bottom of a long, long list of\nmilitary related priorities.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
This arrangement does not exist by consent of the people of\nthe world:\u00a0 The members of the human\nrace have never been asked what we want.\u00a0\nDo we want <\/i>the \u2018countries?\u2019\u00a0\u00a0\nDo we want <\/i>this crazy game to\nhappen?\u00a0 No one knows what the human\nrace wants because there has never been any attempt to find out.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
How did this situation come to exist?\u00a0 <\/p>\n
What forces in our past made things work this way?\u00a0 <\/p>\n
If we don\u2019t understand this, we can only sit and stare at\nthe events in utter confusion.\u00a0 We will\nnever be in a position to do anything about them.\u00a0 If we do know, we have a starting place.\u00a0 We can understand why the planet we call\n\u2018earth\u2019 works this way.\u00a0 (There may be\nother worlds with intelligent life.\u00a0 It\nis very unlikely they all<\/i> work this\nway.\u00a0 The book Possible Societies<\/a><\/i>, a\npart of this series, explores this issue.)\u00a0\n<\/p>\n We actually have a great many incredible tools that can help\nus understand these things.\u00a0 Most of\nthese tools are brand new and have never been available to researchers\nbefore.\u00a0 This chapter deals with a very\nimportant part of the puzzle, the \u2018descent\u2019 of man.\u2019\u00a0 It shows that there is abundant evidence that modern humans are\nthe descendents<\/i> of animals that were\nvery intelligent, but not nearly as intelligent as we are.\u00a0 Evolutionary forces pushed these animals to\norganize their modes of existence or \u2018societies\u2019 in certain specific ways.\u00a0 <\/p>\n Humans evolved from these animals and our societies evolved\nfrom their<\/i> societies.\u00a0 If we want\nto understand why our societies work as they do, we need to understand the\nforces that caused their societies to work as they did.\u00a0 <\/p>\n Evolution is a controversial topic.\u00a0 I want to go over the controversy a little\nhere to show why new evidence that has only become available since the pandemic\nhas made it impossible to deny that we evolved and still accept the basic\nprinciples of mathematics and the things we can see with our own eyes.\u00a0 <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Darwin\u2019s book \u2018The Descent of\nMan<\/a>\u2019 was published in 1871.\u00a0 The\nbook made a case that humans are descendents of non-human animals in the \u2018ape\u2019\nfamily.\u00a0 The term \u2018ape\u2019 was loosely\ndefined at the time because almost no research had been done on the category of\nbeings.\u00a0 They looked similar to humans\nin many ways, but people didn\u2019t really know much about them.\u00a0 Darwin claimed they looked like us because\nthey are our ancestors.\u00a0 We are their\n\u2018descendants.\u2019\u00a0 We \u2018descended\u2019 from\nthem. <\/p>\n Many people objected to the ideas the book presented.\u00a0 In most cases, the critics didn\u2019t even\nbother to consider the arguments themselves.\u00a0\nThey wanted people to reject the very possibility that humans may have\ndescended from apes, without even the evidence.\u00a0 (The evidence is very solid and it is hard to reject the\nconnection if you understand it, but if people can be convinced to not read <\/i>the\nbook, they can easily reject it based on the premise that we just don\u2019t want to\nbelieve it.)\u00a0 <\/p>\n The people in governments and other organizations associated\nwith what is commonly called \u2018the establishment\u2019 tried very hard to keep people\nfrom reading the book.\u00a0 This makes\nsense:\u00a0 they need the people to think a\ncertain way for the people to keep listening to them.\u00a0 If Darwin\u2019s arguments were right, the established ideas about how\nhumans came to exist and the reasons we are here are clearly wrong.\u00a0 If people accept that we were created by a\nsupernatural being (or beings for polytheists) then they will accept that\neverything around them works as it because this is the way things are supposed<\/i> to work.\u00a0 There is intention behind it, and we are\npowerless compared with the intention of one able to create universes with a\nfew incantations.\u00a0 We must do what the\nleaders of the system want us to do without question.\u00a0 To even question the system is to insult an all-powerful being\nwho can smite us in an instant for our arrogance.\u00a0 <\/p>\n Authorities banned Darwin's book in many places.\u00a0 In places where the leaders had the power to\ndo so, they went even farther than this, passing laws that allowed them to\narrest and imprison people who even told others (particularly children, whose\nminds had not yet been fully trained to accept the system) this book\nexisted.\u00a0 <\/p>\n Before Darin\u2019s book was published, many people in\nprofessional, scientific, and academic circles knew about the premise.\u00a0 Scientific articles had been published and\nread by a few scholarly people.\u00a0 But\nordinary people had not seen the ideas and didn\u2019t have any simple ways to\nunderstand them if they did.\u00a0 Darwin\u2019s\nbook was designed for ordinary people.\u00a0\nHe used simple and intuitive examples, backed by evidence that was easy\nfor people to verify and understand to make its point.\u00a0 It was a lot like Galileo\u2019s books in this\nregard:\u00a0 It allowed ordinary people to\nunderstand that the people in charge of the systems around them really weren\u2019t\nas smart as they wanted people to believe and didn\u2019t actually understand now\nthe world worked.\u00a0 This made it\ndangerous.\u00a0 <\/p>\n When I went to school, the laws against teachers telling\nchildren the book existed had been repealed.\u00a0\nTeachers couldn\u2019t be arrested <\/i>for\nthis, but school boards could still make rules against discussing the topic\nand, in the United States at least (where I went to middle school), most school\nboards wouldn\u2019t allow this.\u00a0 Teachers\nweren\u2019t happy with these decisions.\u00a0\nThey wanted to be able to present these ideas to their students and let\nstudents make up their own minds.\u00a0 <\/p>\n One of my teachers was in this category.\u00a0 He told us about the controversy.\u00a0 Some of the students talked to their parents\nabout it.\u00a0 Some of the parents\ncomplained to the school board.\u00a0 A short\ntime later, the teacher who talked about it was gone and we had a replacement\nteacher.\u00a0 I asked what had happened to\nthe former teacher.\u00a0 She said she wasn\u2019t\nallowed to discuss it.\u00a0 <\/p>\n Some people asked questions about evolution.\u00a0 <\/p>\n She told us about the policy.\u00a0 There were things she was allowed to say and things she wasn\u2019t\nallowed to say.\u00a0 She was allowed to tell\nus there was a new and highly controversial theory\n<\/i>that conflicted with established views about how we got here.\u00a0 The school board had determined that it was\nnot appropriate for students to get involved in controversy, so we couldn\u2019t\ndiscuss the details of the theory.\u00a0 <\/p>\n I was a rebellious teenager.\u00a0 I saw the world being destroyed around me.\u00a0 I saw my friends older brothers coming home\nfrom the war in body bags.\u00a0 I blamed the\nolder generation.\u00a0 I blamed the ones who\ntrying to keep me from learning about things they didn\u2019t want me to know about.\u00a0 If someone tells me I am not supposed to\nread a book, I want to read it.\u00a0 I went\nto the school library.\u00a0 They didn\u2019t have\nit.\u00a0 The county library had a copy, but\nit was off limits for any who were under 21 (along with dangerous magazines\nlike National Geographic that showed people who were not clothed to the\nstandards of western religions).\u00a0 One\nday I found a copy of Darwin\u2019s book, along with Desmond Morris\u2019s \u2018The Naked Ape<\/a>\u2019\nat a community flea market.\u00a0 <\/p>\n I was surprised that there was any controversy at all over\nthis book, because Darwin didn\u2019t appear to be taking any position on\nanything.\u00a0 He didn\u2019t say <\/i>the standard ideas were wrong.\u00a0 He just said \u2018we have evidence that tells us\nsomething interesting.\u2019\u00a0 His evidence\nwas compelling.\u00a0 I tried to talk to\nothers about it, but found this quite difficult.\u00a0 Most people said they didn\u2019t want to talk about things the man\nwho thinks we are monkeys was saying.\u00a0\nIt was a \u2018highly controversial theory,\u2019 by someone who was obviously a\ntroublemaker and should not be taken seriously.\u00a0 <\/p>\n In college, I met a few who were a little more open\nminded.\u00a0 They seemed willing to accept\nthat it should be accepted as one of the many creation stories accepted around\nthe world.\u00a0 We should weigh it against\nthe Hindu creation theory, the Buddhist creation theory, and the American\nIndian creation theories to see if it could displace the \u2018known facts\u2019 that had\nbeen accepted for all of history.\u00a0 But\nit shouldn\u2019t be a preferred<\/i>\ntheory.\u00a0 It went against the grain.\u00a0 We should not accept it until we have\nabsolute proof.\u00a0 <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n In 1961, Francis Crick, Rosalind Franklin, James Watson, and\nMaurice Wilkins, won the Nobel prize for discovering something they called the\n\u2018genetic code<\/a>.\u2019\u00a0 They said there is a coded message in a\nmolecule in the nucleus of our cells.\u00a0\nThis molecule was called \u2018DNA\u2019 or \u2018deoxyribonucleic acid,\u2019\u00a0 This molecule has links, each of which may\nbe one of four amino acids.\u00a0 <\/p>\n These links are arranged on a sugar frame (called\ndeoxyribose) in sets of three.\u00a0 Each\nlinks are called a \u2018codon.\u2019\u00a0 There are\nexactly 64 different possible ways to arrange 4 amino acids in sets of three,\nso there are exactly 64 \u2018codons.\u2019\u00a0 You\ncould say, therefore, information is written on the DNA molecule using an\nalphabet with exactly 64 letters.\u00a0 <\/p>\n These scientists discovered that the codes are not just\nrandom letters that spell out nonsense.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n They mean something.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n They found that each codon (each of the 64 letters)\nrepresented one of the amino acids that go together to make up life.\u00a0 The message (at least a part of it) was a\nkind of parts list and assembly instructions for proteins.\u00a0 A special organic structure called a \u2018ribosome\u2019 <\/a>was able to \u2018read\u2019\nthese letters.\u00a0 It would then use this\ninformation to create complex proteins.\u00a0\nThe \u2018genetic code\u2019 they discovered shows how the list of letters became\nproteins.\u00a0 <\/p>\n The information they got didn\u2019t come from analysis of DNA\nitself.\u00a0 They only had one very grainy\nphotograph of an actual DNA molecule<\/p>\n <\/p>\n This is the Nobel prize winning X-ray diffraction photograph of DNA taken by physical chemist Rosalind Elsie Franklin and PhD student Raymond G. Gosling in 1952. Measurements of the images in the photo allowed Franklin\u2019s colleagues, James Watson, Francis Crick, and Maurice Wilkins, to determine the layout of amino acids in the molecule, allowing them to work out something called the <\/p>\n The information about the code came from models they had\nbuilt.\u00a0 These were styrofoam balls\nconnected with wires.\u00a0 They got the\ninformation about the size of the balls and the directions of the links from\nLinus Pauling\u2019s book \u2018The Nature Of\nThe Chemical Bond<\/a>.\u2019\u00a0 No tools\nexisted, at the time, to sequence DNA itself.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n In the 1980, scientists found a process that they could use\nto sequence DNA itself.\u00a0 If they had a\npiece of DNA with less than about 150 links, they could determine the exact\n\u2018letters\u2019 (in the 64 character alphabet, described above) of these links.\u00a0 <\/p>\n At the time, this was basically a novelty with no real\npractical use:\u00a0 the DNA message in\nhumans is more than a billion characters long.\u00a0\nThey could sequence up to 150 characters in about a day of hard\nwork.\u00a0 They couldn\u2019t sequence a chromosome <\/a>(about 46\nmillion characters).\u00a0 They could chop it\nup into tiny pieces, then sequence the pieces.\u00a0\nBut they didn\u2019t have any way to tell which piece was first, second, and\nso on.\u00a0 They could read up to 150 of these\ncharacters, equivalent to reading a random 2 line piece of text in a series of\nvolumes that is more than 330 feet thick.\u00a0\n(This is how much space would be required to write the billion character\ncode in human DNA on paper.)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/p>\n In the early 21st<\/sup> century, researchers found ways\nto fit the sequences together.\u00a0 They\ncould chop up the long DNA molecule into short pieces that could then be\nsequenced.\u00a0 (After the pandemic hit in\n2020, this became very import and people could do it by machine.)\u00a0 They could then feed these pieces into super\ncomputers to look for places where there were overlaps.\u00a0 They could figure out where the lines fit\ninto the entire genome.\u00a0 This depended\non computer power that simply wasn\u2019t available until about 2020, when the first\nmassively parallel sequencers <\/a>came into use.\u00a0 A group of scientists around the world created an organization\ncalled the Human Genome Project that would allow them to work together try to\nsequence the entire <\/i>genome of\nhumans.\u00a0 <\/p>\n <\/p>\n There is a reason I am stressing the dates and going through the\nprocess in detail.\u00a0 I want you to\nrealize that the information we have about DNA, including the information that\nprovides mathematical proof of the link between apes and humans, is brand\nnew.\u00a0 <\/i>A full human genome was only\npublished, for the first time, in 2022, only two years before the writing of\nthis document.\u00a0 Evolution may have been\ncalled a \u2018theory\u2019 before this, but now it is not possible to consider it\nanything other than a scientific principle without rejecting both the basic principles\nof mathematics and evidence we can all see with our own eyes.\u00a0 This matters because if we accept that we\nevolved as a scientific principle, we must accept relationships between the way\nwe live and the way our evolutionary ancestors lived as something other than\nmere coincidence.\u00a0 <\/p>\n <\/p>\n On April 14, 2003, this organization announced it had general\noutline <\/i>of the way the entire human genome fit together.\u00a0 They didn\u2019t have the genome itself.\u00a0 But they had a framework that would allow\nthem to begin to fit the hundreds of millions of different bits of information\nonto and this would eventually give them the genome.\u00a0 <\/p>\n By the end of 2019, they had 98% of the genome sequenced and\nassembled on this framework.\u00a0 They were\nstill missing vital pieces of the puzzle.\u00a0\nBut they knew exactly what they were missing and could begin putting the\npuzzle together.\u00a0 <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Then something important happened:<\/p>\n On December 10, 2019, several people in Wuhan China were\nhospitalized with a disease that was eventually called \u2018severe acute respiratory\nsyndrome 2<\/a>\u2019 (or \u2018SARS2.\u2019)\u00a0 The\ndisease was very similar to a disease that broken out several years earlier,\nwas highly contagious, and appeared to be extremely serious with the potential\nfor a very high mortality rate.\u00a0 It was\na very dangerous disease.\u00a0 <\/p>\n Wuhan had one of the most advanced genetic research labs in\nthe world.\u00a0 The hospitals sent samples\nof body fluids to this lab.\u00a0 Researchers\nfound a virus in all infected samples that was not present in samples of people\nwithout the disease.\u00a0 They concluded the\nvirus was the cause of the disease.\u00a0\nThey sequenced the DNA of the virus and published their findings.\u00a0 <\/p>\n The earlier outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome 1\nhad caused the Chinese government to create a response plan, in the event\nanother similarly dangerous disease was detected.\u00a0 It was a draconian plan that basically locked down any area where\nthe disease was detected to prevent transmission.\u00a0 People wouldn\u2019t be able to leave their homes, not even to work,\nget food, or get medical care.\u00a0 The\nhealth authorities in Wuhan considered the evidence and decided to activate\nthis emergency plan.\u00a0 <\/p>\n On the fifth of February, 2020, several people on the Diamond\nPrincess<\/a>, a luxury cruise ship, came down with a disease that resembled the\nWuhan disease.\u00a0 The ship was docked in\nJapan at the time and the Japanese Authorities were very worried about it\nspreading from the ship to the shore.\u00a0\n(The Olympics was scheduled for just a few months later.)\u00a0 They issued a draconian quarantine\nedict.\u00a0 The news media covered it\nall.\u00a0 <\/p>\n People on the ship started dying.\u00a0 The media found they could hold people\u2019s interest 24 hours a day\nby covering the event.\u00a0 I remember\nwatching the news and seeing the bodies being wheeled out of the ship by people\nin full protective gear.\u00a0 <\/p>\n The genetic sequence of the virus was so similar to the\nsequence of other common viruses, that only a few labs had equipment capable of\ntelling them apart.\u00a0 There was a global\npanic.\u00a0 People didn\u2019t know if they had\nit and, at the time, there was no way to tell who had it:\u00a0 only a few labs globally had the equipment\nneeded to tell the sequences apart, and this equipment was incredibly\nslow.\u00a0 (At first, the samples were run\none at a time and it took about 72 hours to do a test.)\u00a0\u00a0 <\/p>\n Global governments tapped the industry to make as many of the\nmachines as possible as rapidly as possible.\u00a0\nEntire industries that had been devoted to manufacture of consumer goods\nor war materials were retrofitted to make more machines.\u00a0 Governments offered incredible financial\nincentives to people who could find ways to automate the process, speed it up,\nand increase the number of tests that could be done at the same time.\u00a0 Factories began to stamp out sequencing\nmachines by the millions.\u00a0 <\/p>\n At the end of the pandemic, these machines were available\neverywhere.\u00a0 As recently as 2020, you\nwould have needed a multi-million dollar grant at a university to do even the\nmost basic genetic testing.\u00a0 Now, you\ncan buy a fully-automated machine that can turn out results in less than an hour\nfor less than the price of a broken-down used car.\u00a0 You can sequence either DNA or RNA (the machines can do both) in\nyour own garage if you want to do this.\u00a0\n<\/p>\nThe Final Stage in Evolution<\/h2>\n
Absolute Proof<\/h2>\n
![\"Nobel](\"https:\/\/fbhd.s3.us-west-1.amazonaws.com\/2\/dna+photo.jpg\")
<\/a>
\u2018Genetic code\u2019 that determines how DNA molecules store and transmit information that living things use build and operate their structures.<\/p><\/div><\/p>\nA Pandemic Creates New Tools to Sequence DNA Quickly and Efficiently<\/h2>\n