ryansutter·net

I just finished reading Sean Carroll’s excellent book The Making of the Fittest: DNA and the Ultimate Forensic Record of Evolution. What a great book.

As somebody who has been interested in evolution since he was a kid (although for years I thought I was debunking it) I think there is little more fascinating than learning about the discoveries of the last 20 years in DNA research that have put the final nail in the coffin of creationism. It is possible that a thinking person could have doubted evolution 100 years ago or even 50 years ago, but now those days are past. Not only is science increasingly revealing the fossil record of evolution of life on this planet, but they’ve figured out how and why it happens. Where does the genetic material come from, how does it develop new traits in species, how do new species form, the forensic record containing the answers to all these questions is now available for us to see and read as every species on earth is carrying it’s evolutionary history around with it in it’s cells. I am really happy to be living in this time.

Despite what the ID proponents will say, despite what the good old fashioned Biblical literalists like my Jehovah’s Witness family will say, the jury is in, the case is closed. As improbable as it may seem, this is what happened. Life evolved and keeps evolving. Deal with it. People who believe otherwise are no different in any major respect than flat earth proponents or people who believe in leprechauns. I know this, have known this, for some time now, but to see the evidence so nicely laid out, to read such an erudite and loving piece of work as this book, is a true joy.

Sometimes I am embarrassed that I had a creationist background. I am ashamed that for years I fought on the side of such an ignorant and antiquated view of the world. I think to myself, “God Ryan, you should have figured this out years and years ago.” and then I think about why I didn’t. I didn’t figure it out because I was happy. I was happy to believe what I believed. It was what I had always been taught and I had never really had a particularly good reason to question it. I didn’t read science books, I read science fiction. I spent most of my time making music nto questioning whether the things I was taught as a child were true. If I had looked into these things earlier, I would have left earlier. As it stands, I figured it out as soon as I really paid attention.

The lesson I derive from all that is that it pays to pay attention. Comfort in a belief, acceptance that you know something without really examining all sides of it can be extremely dangerous. I feel basically confident in the rough outlines of what I believe today because they make sense, they fit the evidence. I can’t think of anything that I believe that is contradicted by life or the universe as I observe it. However, it is humbling to know just how wrong I can be. It’s a poignant reminder that I need to always be on guard, always learning, always testing what I think I believe and always paying attention to new discoveries.

Considering the mountain of DNA evidence that is pouring in today and the rapidity with which that evidence can be shared with the world via the Internet, I really have to wonder how long before even the Watchtower Society is forced to adjust their position and find some sort of way to accept evolution into their teachings. To deny it at this point is akin to denying gravity or heliocentrism. I know that funamentalist religions are always slow to get around to accepting reality but I gotta wonder if they can really postpone it forever? Won’t subsequent generations of Jehovah’s Witnesses eventually grow up with such a grounded understanding of genetics and evolution that no amount of fairytale slinging will be able to deter them from developing their own readings of the scriptures that allow for evolution? It’s that or the Organization will continue to fade. We shall see.

For the last five years I have been in flux. It began when, after 30 years around Jehovah’s Witnesses, my faith shattered and I became a freethinker, humanist and secular Buddhist. I reprogrammed myself, or more accurately, re-educated myself. I studied more broad than deep. My goal wasn’t to become an expert in any one area, but rather to survey the big questions, learn the leading thoughts and major thinkers, the proofs, the evidence, the questions answered and those which were not answered yet. I studied biology, history, theology, philosophy, ethics, logic, politics, linguistics, and more. Eventually I reached a point where I was encountering less and less brand new information and instead finding more refinement of things I had already learned. It’s been a pretty intense five years and I’ve completely overhauled my understanding of where I came from, the meaning of life, and how things got to be as they are and what it means to me. As there have come to be fewer and fewer surprises in my broad survey I’ve felt more and more secure in my positions and where they are today. I feel well supported by the evidence. No, I am not done learning, how could I be, but I am aware that I’ve got the outlines down in many important area and will be filling in details for years to come.

At the same time I have been pursuing my re-education project, I have also been attempting to rectify other major problems I my life. An unstable personal life, trust issues and fear in relationships, trouble maintaining friendships and reltionships, some depression, financial problems, and a lot of disorder pretty much personified me for most of the decade prior to the big sea-change five years ago. In these past few years I’ve done all I can to fix as many of these areas and issues as I can and have made great strides. I own a home, I’m remarried, I have some stability and I’ve made many more steps towards being happier, healthier and more stable. Again, as with the re-education project, I’m not done. Everything is not sunshine and light. But I have made some big breakthroughs. I have a better life in most respects than I’ve ever had. Hell, I even have a boat.

Throughout all of this I have maintained a creative pulse most of the time. I recorded The Context, Songs of Bo Redoubt, The Legendary Adventures of Prosciutto Pig and (with Trumpet Marine) Louder, Longer, Lobster. I wrote a novel called Trajectory for NaNoWriMo and also kept up a fairly popular blog for a few years and condensed it into a book called Hira-Hira which I am currently looking to find a publisher for. On the technical creativity front I developed a Mac application and released it as shareware, designed and started development on a couple iPhone applications and have started the XJWNet social network. I’ve even made a few media appearances on Atheist Talk, Humanist Views, and The Infidel Guy show. That’s actually not a bad list of projects to get into in five short years. A couple books, a couple pieces of software, four albums, and more. When I typed this paragraph I was surprised to find that I’ve done that much stuff because, well, I feel like I’ve been sort of aimless, stagnant, and uninterested in what I’ve been doing, which seems like a silly thing to think on the surface but really is true. I’ve been active, yes, but it’s all been an example of “fake it till you make it”. In all honesty, I’ve been faking it.

I’ve been doing the things I think I want to do without any major sense that I do, in fact, want to do them. I put together a band because I had been in a band continuously since I was 12 until I was 30. I wrote and recorded music because it was something I had done for a very long time. The problem for me has been, though, that I really have felt like I’ve been doing this things more because I think I should want to do them than because I genuinely do wish to do them. I have been half-hearted about most of my pursuits. I’ve sought long and hard for the source of this half-heartedness. Finally I asked myself what was the first thing I ever wanted to be? Was it a musician or a computer programmer or anything like that? No. If Rhett hadn’t pulled me into music, I probably never would have done it. If life hadn’t required that I learn a trade to earn a living I wouldn’t have become a software developer. What I’ve always dreamed of being, from as far back as I ever dreamed of being anything, was a writer. Not running a record label, not performing music and recording albums, not running an innovative software company… Writing.

Ever since I read The Invisible Man in elementary school it is what I’ve wanted to be. It was the first dream I had that was mine and mine alone and I’ve held on to it in one form or another ever since but I’ve always buried it in other causes. I buried my words in music, I became a published author by writing about technology, I have treated writing like a skill that was simply one component of a larger discipline instead of making it a stand-alone discipline of it’s own. That has been a mistake. As much as I have gotten out of my creative pursuits, they have always been only partially mine. As much as I’ve enjoyed being part of Rhetts dream, I now realize that I have missed out on my own. I get it now. It all makes sense to me for the first time. I was right when I decided to be a writer, when I started to self-identify as one as a kid, and I was wrong to let that identity get buried.

A writer is what I wanted to be when I grew up and now I’ve grown up and that’s what I am going to be. What a relief to have that figured out.

– Post From My iPhone

• I’m back. Done hikin’, done fishin’, back workin’. #
• just tried Wally’s, good but no Mayslacks #
• Dad eventually pulled over at a frozen lake, which represented the sublime beauty of impermanence, but he was pretty annoyed about it. #

I haven’t been musically active since the last Trumpet Marine gig last year at the Terminal Bar. Well, that’s not entirely true. I have actively disbanded Trumpet Marine and given up on any idea of ever pursuing it again. That counts as a musical activity of sorts. I have written nothing of note and haven’t even bothered to get on stage the last few times I went to an open mic.

I have had occasional moments of pondering as to why I couldn’t care less about making music these days and I have really got no idea. It is something I will do again when I do it again, I guess. I’m sincerely hoping that the return of Eric and Cindy will drag me back into it. Maybe I’ll even write something new or record a new album. I hope the PC in my recording studio still works. I haven’t turned it on all year.

I need to put together a plan. I have things to do. Enough lazing around. On the other hand, the breather is nice.

What a wierd week to start blogging again. Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett died today. I’m laying out in my hammock in the yard and a car just drive by playing the Jackson 5’s “I Want You Back”. I can’t even begin to say how odd it is and how sad it makes me to find out that Michael Jackson is dead. Such a piece of my childhood… Farrah doesn’t impact me the same way. Odd odd odd.

I’m currently reading a few books other than Infinite Jest. I’m about halfway through Sean Carroll’s The Making of the Fittest. This one is really appealing to the evolution geek in me in the way that The Ancestor’s Tale was. I love books that are focused on how and why evolution happens instead of trying to spend all their time trying to convince you that it did. This book starts with the idea that the reader already understands evolution up to a point and is really just looking to get a peek behind the scenes on how it works. What specific DNA changes caused howler monkeys to develop trichromatic color vision? What specific mutations gave rise to icefish having no red blood cells and antifreeze in thier veins? How does the statistical math work for spreading a trait throughout a population? What about the probability of mutation in the first place? How does natural selection preserve some traits and abandon others? All of this is covered and covered well with excellent examples, cutting edge research, and fascinating depth. Loving it, I’m telling you, loving it!

– Post From My iPhone

The day before yesterday I started in on David Foster Wallace’s book Infinite Jest. I can already see that it is going to be an Illuminatus! Trilogy sort of book, one that warps my brain and kicks it up and down the block a little. This is good.

I’m sitting in my car, in the parking lot at work, finishing up lunch and reading. It is absolutely gorgeous outside. I just captured a bug. I don’t know for sure but I think he might be an emerald ash borer. Nope. I looked it up. Not an emerald ash borer. Turns out the little guy is a tiger beetle. I let him go out of the car in the parking lot and he immediately died. Maybe the pavement was too hot? Poor little fella.

As you may or may not know, I semi-recently took over the responsibilities of webmaster for Humanists of Minnesota. In a conversation with Scott Lohman, the president of that august organization, I suggested that perhaps author James Morrow might be a good guest on the MN Atheists weekly radio program. I also told him that I had corresponded with Mr. Morrow in the past and he seemed like a really good guy. I gave Scott the email address and didn’t hear anything else about it until I was listening to podcasts on my iPhone the other day and what should I hear but James Morrow on the MN Atheists radio show being interviewed by Scot Lohman!!! Woohoo! How awesome is that? I think to myself, boy I’d like to hear an interview with one of my favorite authors and blammo, there one is.

So that was exciting.

In other exciting news, I recently completed a 20 1/4 mile hike over the course of two and a half days on the Superior Hiking Trail with my brother-in-law and cousin-in-law. I had never hiked that far or carried that much gear or backpacked overnight or slept I a tarp-covered hammock or caught trout and ate them for lunch on the trail. There were many firsts and it was awesome.

After I got home I took another vacation with Syd and Es and Trent up to Hideout Resort in Blackduck for a week of fishing. I caught a 4 1/2 pound largemouth bass. Yeehah!

Been a great summer so far.

– Post From My iPhone

I have long dreamed of using the iPhone as a blogging device and I do, but only in the most trivial of ways. I post pictures and tweets and things like that, not thoughtful writing.

The reason is simple. I mostly like the little virtual keyboard on the iPhone, but not enough to type long form works on it. I still journal using my laptop and I even continue to carry my Palm Tungsten C with the folding keyboard for writing and editing longer pieces, but I rarely feel compelled to post those things that I write, maybe because I prefer the immediacy of typing and posting directly to the blog that I get from tweeting or posting a picture and both of those devices require a WIFI connection and extra steps to post a blog entry. How lazy I have become. I used to blog using a 1991 Apple Powerbook 170 with a SCSI->ethernet adaptor. That, my friends, was dedication. Now I can’t be bothered to use a device if it doesn’t have 3G, if I have to save then post. Sigh… Shoot me now.

The ultimate solution to all this would be for Apple to do one teeny tiny thing. They simply need to support the Bluetooth keyboard profile on the iPhone. It should be a simple matter of updating the driver on the device. Trivial. There is no technical obstacle that I can imagine. The obstacles are twofold, one philosophical and one all about the bottom line. First, philosophically, Apple doesn’t want to admit that their clever little keyboard on their device isn’t just as good as an honest to god full size folding keyboard. I agree that for thumb typing, their keyboard is superior to the physical keyboard on my Palm, but it can’t hold a candle to typing for real on a real keyboard like the folding keyboard I have for my Palm. Thumb typing sucks no matter how you look at it. As a writer and software developer I live at a keyboard. I’m a fast typist. At least ten times faster on a real keyboard compared to thumbing away on this thing. So, their philosophy sucks. The other reason, of course, is that they fear that a person with an iPhone and an external keyboard might feel that they don’t also need to buy a Mac. They may decide that the iPhone takes care of all their computing needs. This is also silly. The iPhone requires a computer to sync with and has lots of other things it can’t do that mean it’s no replacement for a laptop.

In short, Apple needs to just allow the peripheral makers to fill this niche. MacAlly has had a product waiting in the wings to do just this for a year or more and Apple won’t enable the functionality on the iPhone side despite the fact that they support sooo many other BT profiles. I am a fan of Apples products but I am not a fan of how they occasionally decide they know best what their customers should and should not do with those products. They can be real wankers…

– Post From My iPhone

• The Lakers would never have won the NBA Finals if KG hadn’t hurt his knee. Celtics forever. Kobe sucks. #

• Just got back from three days backpacking the SHT. Two words: Damn sore. Also, I caught three trout! #
• calculated how far we hiked this weekend… 20.24 miles… man I love Google Earth #

• It’s a great day to be a-drive #
• @substars Ba dum bum! in reply to substars #