Agassiz’s work on embryology, glacial action, fossil records, the importance of observation and science, the role of the intelligentsia, the delivery of modern education, the failings of religion to acknowledge the obvious – all these impacts set up a new base line for thinking about natural history and the significance of mankind. But along with the positives there were glitches and the total package that was developed, before most people can remember, helped set up our current herd mentality - a mentality that is taken for granted as an accurate ‘reflection of reality’. Agassiz advanced some brilliant concepts but, as stated earlier, wisdom eventually ended up even more locked up than it had been before he did his ride.
So back to the little kid with common sense being sidelined by the adult with a trick question and some mental coercion. Agassiz had a solid core to his thinking but larger herd forces steered minds away from that core and focused them on relative trivia where Agassiz had ugly blemishes. Agassiz actually seemed to underestimated or limited the brilliance of the Mind that he recognized and felt that he was promoting. And his own shortcomings made his support somewhat of a liability.
What forces were at work? Had ‘religion’ developed such a terrible reputation along with its positives that anything that seemed linked to a central creative personality took a hit by supposed association? Are humans, mere children with regard to time vs the age of the earth and in turn, the age of the designer? If the physical universe and earth are the tracks of such an entity, is the refusal to acknowledge the obvious, a simple analogy of human children so often rebelling against the wisdom of a parent – get off my back and let me run my own affairs? Are there even more complex underlying concepts involved that stack the deck against common sense and jamb eyes and minds that have incredible capacity yet seem to want to opt for unexplained foolishness?
It is odd to me that ‘transmutation’ was such a big issue and that both Agassiz and Darwin made it a personal flash point. Darwin was correct that living things have amazing adaptive capacity and Agassiz and Cuvier were correct that there are clearly defined lines between significantly different life forms. No matter how embryos change or how growing organisms change, the end result is always within relatively narrow bounds. As our knowledge of biology and of computerization has grown we know that creative minds can design amazingly flexible products that can adapt to all sorts of unique circumstances. Consider a grain harvester that can adapt to a variety of grains and cutting situations and operating speeds and moisture levels and air temperatures. Aircraft can function at sea level as well as at 30,000 feet above sea level even though their wings and engines and internal conditions are significantly impacted by these changes. These amazing capacities did not happen by chance. Visit museums and sense the sweat and tears and personalities that the displays picture. Are these advances transmutation illustrations or are we observing brilliant flexible design by very intelligent minds designing a proxy mind-system which is also given creative powers that allow it to ‘think and take adaptive actions’. Remarkable flexibility, but there are always clear limits – no different with living organisms. And if there are ‘mutations’, it is basically a certainty that we are talking about a glitch that leads to misfunction, poor performance, or death – not to some remarkable boost in performance. And it is a no-brainer that change for the better is always a ‘system matter’. Change one facet of a system significantly, independently of the rest of the system, and again, failure, not improvement, is always going to be the result. Quality control monitors are not there to thwart the gradual improvement of a designed product – only to get rid of the duds. Mutation equals mistake or flaw. The word 'mutation' is brutalized in our current 'dumbness' vocabulary. Rather than being assigned accurately to 'failure', it so often replaces 'brilliantly engineered, purpose oriented adjustment'.
Can Darwin be forgiven for not appreciating these simple facts? Maybe. But we know a lot more than Darwin so we clearly have far less excuse for opting for dumb before obvious.
Agassiz made a big deal out of seeing natural history and the structure and mechanisms of everything around us as an information gold mine with regard to the Mind that put it all together. He wasn’t a religion pusher but he was driven by real science and by common sense – and like the rest of us, he had human glitches, that got him off track and into trouble on occasion. His buddy, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote a poem for Agassiz’s 50th birthday that was a remarkably accurate coverage of Louis’s career;
And Nature, the old nurse, took
The child upon her knee,
Saying: "Here is a story-book
Thy Father has written for thee."
"Come, wander with me," she said,
"Into regions yet untrod;
And read what is still unread
In the manuscripts of God."
Yet, the ‘dragged out end result’ of Agassiz’s impact has given us a herd mentality that makes ‘dumb’ the default at the expense of ‘obvious’. And for the little kid by the kitchen table to protest the situation or for Sherlock to find support for his ‘dog theory’, their confident, observation driven response is drowned out by the howls of the mob.
So by combining ‘transmutation’ with natural selection and adding a major sprinkling of the fog of time, a viral packet was created that very gradually spread through a herd that was already weakened by numerous pathologic theology viruses. Underlying issues and circumstances compromised the immunity of the herd and an illogical base line became so integrated into the cells of society that a new ‘counter virtual reality’ replaced the real thing. The education system embraced the replacement so tightly that most teaching and research positions now demanded unwavering loyalty to the concept and personalities like Louis Agassiz were marched out of the public eye for their obvious sins with minimal replay of their overall, somewhat embarrassing, thought cargo.
Anyone on the stage of Life who manages to incorporate such a foundational and basic but mindless concept into their thought system is going to be seriously handicapped at generating decisions that will mesh effectively with reality. When assembling clues and micro clues prior to making judgments that impact the Realities of Life, the three clue Sherlock magnifying glass is going to be foggy, distorting, delivering an inverted image or will be shorted out to a video image from a virtual and imaginary universe.
Obviously, dealing with this very real and ‘in everyones’ face’ issue forces us into the realm of God, and religion, and atheism, and an up-front God vs a milk toast inconsequential God who is sort of there to explain the unexplained but in effect is really of no day to day consequence. Louis Agassiz in recent times has been dredged up as a poster boy for some religious thrusts but I suspect that there is a suspicion felt by many that such promotion is linked to a narrow recruiting movement rather than a simple call to sanity – no strings attached.
But so much of our current thinking is based in part on the mindless and gutted concept of a complex and obviously interconnected life system being the product of chance rather than being locked to an obvious designed and built model. When a detective cannot see the tracks of a personality when confronted with clues that are precisely that and he writes the tracks off as being meaningless, good judgments are not going to be generated. Here is detective ignorance at the most basic level that is going to impact every investigation Sherlock is ever going to make.
Personality profiling clues, so incredibly valuable, are lost. Capacity to evaluate the reliability or lack thereof of witnesses is degraded. Herd instability is impacted. What I see as the obvious covid reaction blunder has multiple links to this basic ‘logic collapse’. The ‘look at the science hammer’ is being swung by intelligent hypocrites who have lost track of wisdom. The covid mental virus has infected the world.
It is obvious that we exist in a brilliantly designed system. Conscious humans are the pinnacle of that system. Are we designed to be lemons from day one? Perhaps our warrantee is voided by failing to utilizing readily available rules that are not overly complicated but do require some attention, planning, and self disciple? For example, is it asking too much to put oil in your car’s crankcase and is it asking too much to ingest some Vitamin C on a regular basis to keep your teeth from falling out! Everyone generally agrees with cause and effect, to some degree, but bad habits tend to build up and the herd has developed deep and long term failings in this regard - failings that fit the one-two-three-blastoff model.
A micro clue that any observant person can see all around them, and perhaps it should be classed as a major clue, is the universal human tendency to usually divorce the future from the immediate and to opt for short term pleasure and ease and cost economy even if it is clear that these actions are not wise when viewed in the long term. If you realize that an action will kill you within 10 seconds, you likely will take a wise course but if the action may or may not kill you in ten years, there is a tendency on the part of most herd humans to not be overly conscientious regarding the matter. Factor this obvious tendency into mass habits gradually developing in the herd and tiny failings can grow into major problems where a lemming-like ‘march to the sea’ makes it difficult for individuals to break free from the momentum of the herd.
Look at how smoking gradually grew in popularity, how long it took to broadly accept the folly of the habit, and how difficult it was to reduce the negative impact on the herd. Look at how hard it is for an individual to kick the habit.
If you have had experience with cattle you might be able to marvel at how they, in their low IQ state, act in ways that has a depressing similarity to human herds or even human individuals. Say the cattle are used to a certain fence pattern and their pasture is eaten down and you want them to move through a gate to a new and much greener pasture. You open the gate. The fresh territory is inches away from the heads of several of the cows, but to get them to move through that unfamiliar opening in their accepted fenced area does not happen quickly. Habit is a powerful force. You can beg "Please – trust me – just try it! You can always turn around and go back to the desert if you don't agree that things are better over here". But your words and sign language will be ignored. Be it dumb cows or intelligent humans, you are looking at a vital micro clue in the landscape of Life!
And be it green grass vs barren pasture or solid and productive ideas vs folly and suffering, the 'engrained habit' analogy holds.
At the time of the Black Death, there wasn’t much herd familiarity with insulation and effective housing and water supply systems and sewage disposal wisdom. Throwing sewage into the street and drinking well water from wells that a modern observer would be horrified at was std herd practice. Vitamins and a concept of a balanced diet were not things that anyone thought much about - in large part because they didn't know about it! Population had grown during previous years with good weather and then suffered greatly due to bad weather and famine prior to the Black Death period. The rules of reality were the same then as now. Bacteria and virus diseases were there as well. If we desire a return to those grim times, it would not be hard to engineer a retrofit and 'savour' the experience! Was the bacteria the problem or were the underlying issues the place to look for more basic causes. And where did the bacteria come from? Plunk a virus or a bacteria on a sterile plastic slab and challenge anyone to design and build a duplicate that can do its job and replicate and mesh with and spread in the bigger system! We are back to the kid by the kitchen table. Complicated system components have amazing inter-relational structure and don’t materialize out of nothing and the system of Life that has been around a long time stays on a remarkably even keel. Cancer cures smoking. Plague cleans up filthy communities that have sketchy Plan B food systems. Over populations of robotic animals are controlled. But note; humans didn’t evolve from monkeys, contrary to Darwin’s and Wallace’s off-the-wall speculations and unlike automated animals with their impressively effective programming, we have free wheeling, thinking minds and creative powers but also have the capacity to act with flexible wisdom or shocking stupidity.
Laws of physics and chemistry and biologic principles were no different in the past than they are now, but the more mankind got a handle on technology, the quicker the herd was able to learn how to work with law. The pace of science took off but men are not simply programmed machines and that pesky free wheeling brain has pluses and minuses! Mastering technology allowed the herd to build economic muscle that made all sorts of advances possible. In a short time, men were freed from arduous survival tasks to being able to create whatever they decided to go at. They, in effect, became gods relative to their pre technology state.
But that tendency to still opt for short sighted and impatient action before relaxed, thoughtful, patient, long term planning remained engrained in too many minds and the masses controlled the herd direction. Democracy occurs on many levels and isn't necessarily totally logical. Dictators aren’t the answer because they bring their own narrow minded and selfish failings to the table.
Small pox was a big problem. Why? Was the virus the problem or again, was it more a case of underlying issues, an angle pushed by Alfred Russel Wallace. Little matter. Jenner and Pasteur cobbled a quick fix that seemed to have an immediate impact. At that point there was uncertainty on how diseases worked but as it became clear that bacteria and virus agents were involved, the germ theory took hold and vaccinations became a fixture and monument of the new realization of the way things were and had been for ages! A vaccination seemed to work on small pox so let’s try it again and again. Meanwhile, the pattern seemed to form that it is easier to patch up disease once it is irritatingly active rather than trying to head it off with prevention effort. Dissenters like Antoine Beauchamp and Florence Nightingale were turfed out in much the same way as Agassiz. And medical leadership to this day puts FAR more effort into reaction to pressing problems rather than pushing for prevention. $ accounting is simplified greatly! If disease is a warning light of life style errors then it seems that snipping wires or applying masking tape over indicator bulbs are the standard actions. Is the medical establishment to blame? We are all in the 'human club' and we are all formers of and victims of herd mentality. The stress on reaction vs prevention is driven by all members of the 'human club herd'. And the foolish as well as the more capable, who at least have the potential for wise leadership, are all pulled into conformity with the unified herd mindset.
The covid mistake is thinking that the ‘new’ virus is an extraordinary and isolated problem and that there is no politically and socially viable solution other than humanly stopping transmission and developing a vaccine. An over playing of the magnitude of the health impact is also an issue that amplifies the rush to apply drastic actions which themselves have massive negative ‘Life system’ effects. Relative to other current and past health issues, the reaction is out of line and a panic approach means all sorts of related actions are being leaped at and these actions are doing more harm than simply ignoring the direct virus impact.
Could covid be a human design? Not likely. To build or modify a virus to be so amazingly infectious and so effective at spreading in the larger system would be a brilliant achievement. When ‘scientists’ can’t appreciate the staggering chasm between life and non life or between a conscious/creative personality and a heap of chemicals, or between a monkey and a man, they are not sufficiently competent to craft a superior ‘designer virus’ that meshes with an even more complex macro system. They are amateurs confronting a Super System that they underestimate to a high degree. Covid is likely a professional design job, likely via a proxy route, and even more impressive for that added complexity of manufacture. The designed automatic viral model updating system has been in operation for a long time, in many cases triggered by human blundering yet having no connection with positive human intelligence and capability!
(This somewhat corrective note has been added on April 29, 2023: It now appears that the covid virus was a humanly modified entity. This is sort of impressive! What are the implications? No one believes that the virus was created out of nothing - we are talking brilliant and costly modification of an existing virus. Still impressive! But who knew what and when? And why the torrent of accusations and lies and coverups and wild reaction of medical forces and media and government in the face of a less than shocking performance of the "super virus"? What about the shocking government "public fund" expenditures and private profits associated with the vaccine empires and the underperformance of the miracle experimental end product? What about the evidence that the MRNA vaccine may be the most impressive "ambulance hit and run" case the world has ever seen? What about the mindless destruction of so many elements of social stability and economic health? The Covid product hasn't stood out significantly from previous natural virus runs but the associated panic antics sure have. This essay was written with the goal of encouraging readers to evaluate the Covid exercise and learn from it. The "designer" aspect really adds to the experience. It not only shows the power of the natural system to neutralize the folly of human blundering, as the covid virus has mutated to a milder and milder form, but it also serves to highlight the amazing levels of greed and dishonesty and power lust that our human herd is capable of. The "Virus Plus" obviously impacted some people, primarily those "on the edge", but most were minimally effected, myself included. So, having made this small clarification on human involvement, read on!)
How can so many people be so short sighted and so prone to a herd panic reaction to a situation that in past did not trigger the same social chaos? What recently formed underlying mental characteristics of the herd have allowed the ‘covid mental virus’ to form and to infect so many people so quickly and over the whole world? I feel the list is fairly long and a lot of the points are linked to the basic ‘dumb before obvious’ design issue.
- a long period of incredible and increasing prosperity has become accepted as normal and vital and is expected to automatically continue. Details of the complex and somewhat fragile causes of this trend are not fully appreciated by most members of the herd. Self serving 'diddling' of the system has built up some 'fragile heart of glass' aspects in the economic system, that many are slightly aware of.
- a gradual building of reliance and expectation on socialism and expecting a government/medical/insurance/pension consortium to solve our problems as they arise in conjunction with a diminishing appreciation of personal responsibility in managing cause and effect. And at the same time, losing sight of the hard reality and magnitude of cause and effect. It is very possible for death to get out of hand such that the hoped for deliverers can't perform. Perhaps too, there is a growing legitimate subliminal fear of the realities of time and chance.
- a mass indoctrination in the seeming advantage of putting dollars and short term fulfilment ahead of a more morally based and long term view. This ‘self amplifying’ individual and herd-think trend is impacted by democracy and political forces where wise leadership is high-jacked by the basic human tendency to opt for short term fulfilment at the expense of long term success and stability. Personal affairs, world scale economics, agriculture, manufacturing, marketing, general business, medicine, vocational styles – all are impacted by the trend.
- a vacuum has been formed by the adoption of the ‘scientific’ belief that we exist in a complex casino of chance where underlying planning and rules and moral absolutes are of little importance and where our security depends on the wise moves of whoever seems to be currently in charge; politicians, economists, scientists, medical authorities, and media forces seemingly being in the driver’s seat at the moment. Some might ask if they are in the seat together or in bed together! A Casino Odds Ball – A Dance of Dreamers seems to be the thought numbing preserve of the caged masses and the cage serves as a base for the somewhat practical Think and Do style (a style, be it positive or sinister, that at least makes some sense) that is the domain of current ‘experts’!
- theology types have been sidelined by significant negative aspects of their past poor performances and their seeming poor performance and negativism versus the many obvious achievements of the scientific/economic community.
- the art of vaccination has gained a positive aura perhaps riding on the wave of economic advances such that the vaccination is increasingly seen along with antibiotics and the medical profession and 'science' in general, as a symbol of mankind effectively solving the challenges of an ill tempered and hostile natural system.
- deification of Louis Pasteur and his narrow germ theory approach and the eclipsing of his opponents who advanced a broader and arguably a more accurate approach to the issue of disease.
- a recent unease about the likelihood of a ‘pandemic’ hitting a world with a large population and little appreciation of any purpose other than survival and clinging to an expected level of wealth and wellbeing. Linked to this worry has been a popular rehash of the Black Death and Spanish Flu incidents and a mindset is in place for a reaction to any viral cloud on the horizon. Cause and effect and underlying issues associated with these past events or with future events are not a topic that has ever achieved any positive traction. A recently expanded, instant and effectively embedded media system is in place that amplifies any twitch in the worldwide mindset. The 'spread of panic' has a wonderful new channel for rapid expansion.
- a belief that mankind is on his own at heroically combating this ‘new’ threat and a blindness to the likelihood that men may not have a hope of effectively confronting a brilliantly designed and purposeful force that is akin to the tides of the sea.
- a failure to recognize the brilliance of a designed system that has functioned without mankind’s assistance for eons and an equal failure to consider the logic that men are unique entities that themselves illustrate brilliant design and system integration such that healthful function based on underlying maintenance rules would seem to fit the big picture!
Political leaders are locked into siding with the 'science' and medical establishments as well as being fearful of taking anything other than popular short term action. Rebels in the current science and medical and media world are effectively ‘burned at the stake’ when they fail to support the established and conventional party line. Rebel political leaders face the same fate. Wisdom is so far off the map that discussion on how to pick up the trail, in the short term at least, is meaningless! The mental environment too seems to be such that those who have the nerve to stand up for many obvious but unconventional moves so often have strange failings that present a mix of brilliance with idiocy! It seems that only the screwballs are getting attention with their 'yellin'!
Just about any observation that a skilled Sherlock makes provides a micro or macro clue that is worth storing on the mental hard drive as a tool to apply towards future mystery cases. And that is because ‘Life’ is an all encompassing system and a huge aspect of that system involves personalities. And given that it is obvious that all the personalities are linked to one central, and rather large, Personality, perhaps ogre Louis Agassiz, despite his short comings, was onto a Sherlock clue goldmine. Let’s not go wild on faulted theology but let’s be sane and get obvious ahead of dumb! Maybe the Designer should be seen as a Maestro Sherlock and trying to rub shoulders with Him might mean picking up a lot of clues and detective tips that would greatly improve our own skills at solving life’s mysteries.
If physical viral diseases are warning lights that reveal underlying problems, as Albert Howard claimed, and if the 'covid mental reaction' is a mental virus that also reveals underlying problems, would it be wise to ponder what those errors are? Are we at war or are we at school? If the herd situation looks hopeless, what about opportunities for the individual?
