All posts by Ray Grigg

Animals, Education

An Inherent Morality – The Quadra Project

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What is the source of morality? This is a question that has bothered philosophers, theologians and others for centuries. Science, however, is now providing us with some significant insights. A few examples are cited in 7 Principles of Nature: How We Strayed & How We Return (see pp. 101-104) by Aldrich Chan, a neuropsychologist teaching and practicing in Florida.

We already know about capuchin monkeys and their sense of fairness. If two monkeys in adjoining cages are both conditioned to perform the same specific task with the reward of a peanut, they will happily comply. But if one of the monkeys receives a grape, which is a more valuable reward than a peanut, the other will rattle its cage in objection, throw a temper tantrum, and refuse to do its task. And in other experiments with capuchin monkeys, they prefer to share their reward with others rather than just keep it for themselves.

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Cost of Climate Change, Food

The Quadra Project – What’s the Beef?

A team of Australian and Japanese researchers have quantified the damage to human health that is done by eating red meat. If people shifted their diets from beef to such forage fish as anchovies, herring and sardines, the study found, an estimated 750,000 lives could be saved per year (The Guardian Weekly, April 19, 2024). The comprehensive study of 130 countries identified that human health deteriorates as red meat consumption rises.

The study also revealed the clear environmental benefits to shifting away from beef. Instead of feeding these nutritious forage fish to animals, which are how most of these aquatic species are consumed, the nutritional benefits that were passed directly to people would reduce the diseases caused by excessive beef consumption, but also save huge amounts of agricultural land that is presently used to raise cattle for beef.

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Communications

Hallucinations- The Quadra Project

Cultures persist because of a confidence in themselves. Common agreement binds them together, and they endure for as long as their collective understanding is based on reality. But what happens if the assumptions that they make are faulty? The incongruity between the beliefs motivating their behaviour and the actual reality in which they live instigates increasing conflicts until reality asserts itself with a dispassionate shrug and the culture experiences the discomfort of a minor reset or the trauma of a major one.

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Nature

The Lost Words – The Quadra Project

After Oxford University Press released its 2007 edition of the Oxford Junior Dictionary, a keen reader noticed what was not included in its more than 10,000 entries. Some 40 common words had been removed, like dandelion, bramble, heron, leopard, oyster and newt. They all related to nature. And they were replaced with terms such as blog, bullet-point, and voice-mail.

Oxford’s explanation to inquiries about the deletions was that many children no longer live in rural environments so such words are not familiar to them. Other words that were deleted were blackberry, clover, hamster, herring, lark, minnow, almond, mussel, otter, ox, adder, ash, beech, bluebell, catkin, cowslip, cygnet, ivy, nectar, wren, raven, bramble, magpie, starling, weasel and panther in favour of analogue, graph and celebrity.

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Animals

An Owl’s Reality – The Quadra Project

As Carl Safina’s book title suggests, Alfie & Me: What Owls Know, What Humans Believe should ostensibly be about the adventures of the author and his wife as they raise to adulthood a nearly-dead baby Eastern Screech Owl that they found on the ground. So it joined their larger family of non-humans, including two dogs, four chickens, a king snake, a parrot and a parakeet.

Alfie, a female, was eventually released to the back yard where she learned to hunt and live independently. But she remained a family member, visiting for extra mice, even establishing with her mate, Plus-One, a nest in a box on the side of the house where the pair successfully raised three chicks. Throughout the book, Safina closely documents the life of the owl and her family.

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