Share Time~

Meh.  I read several books at once and I am in the middle of all three.  However, I will share of Dawkins today.  Although many things interest me. I especially like to form brain-loaded probability theories and strategic maneuvers.  If you think about it, it is rather mathematical or if you prefer, it runs like background programs all playing at once.  Are you aware that you do these things?  I am aware that I do.

Note:  The "MY BONUS SECTION" is in place as I question patriarchy.

Special Note:  If you don't like it, don't read it.  Then again, you might not know if you like it or not unless you read it.  ~ Maggie ~ July 6, 2009 @ 7:18 p.m. EST

From Dawkins’ The Blind Watchmaker:

Pg. 231

“Our brains have been built by natural selection to assess probabilities and risk, just as our eyes have been built to assess electromagnetic wavelength.  We are equipped to make mental calculations of risk and odds, within the range of improbabilities that would be useful in human life.”

Further down the page...

“Evolution has equipped our brains with a subjective consciousness of risk and improbability suitable for creatures with a lifetime of less than one century.  Our ancestors have always needed to take decision involving risks and probabilities, and natural selection has therefore equipped our brains to assess probabilities against a background of the short lifetime that we can, in any case, expect.”

Pg. 233

“Not only are our brains equipped by nature to assess risks of things in a short time, they are also equipped to assess risks of things happening to us personally, or to a narrow circle of people that we know.”

MY BONUS SECTION:  Pgs. 249 - 250

“Mitochondria and chloroplasts have their own DNA, which replicates and propagates itself entirely independently of the main DNA in the chromosomes of the nucleus.  All the mitochondria in you are descended from the small population of mitochondria that travelled [sic] from your mother in her egg.  Sperms are too small to contain mitochondria, so mitochondria travel exclusively down the female line, and male bodies are dead ends as far as mitochondria reproduction is concerned.  Incidentally, this means that we can use the mitochondria to trace our ancestry, strictly down the female line.”