The I.Q. of an Ant

Modern American humankind considers itself at the top of the evolutionary intelligence tree, so to speak, and scientists attribute that to the size of our brains. The average modern human brain is a few cubic centimeters larger than Neanderthal, Australopithecus, or any other known human predecessor, so scientists have based their perceived superiority on brain size. Aside from the fact that there is no correlation between modern human brain size and intelligence (a tiny human is not necessarily less intelligent than a huge one; a five-year-old is not necessarily less intelligent than a twenty-year-old), it only takes a couple of minutes to survey the world to demolish that theory. For instance, I’ll bet elephants have a larger brain than humans. Of course, they may be more intelligent, too, but we are only at the edge of beginning to think seriously about commonalities among humans and other life forms.

My attention was first brought to the subject of animal intelligence when I lived on my farm in Oregon and I was amused and bemused by the actions of horses, chickens, ducks, pigs, cats, and Sassy, the border collie. But I didn’t really think about the subject until two simultaneous events. My daughter became an animal rights activist and I observed a colony of ants in Burbank, California. My daughter told me way more than I ever wanted to know about animals’ reactions to negative human actions toward them and for two years I walked past the ants on my way to catch the bus home from work. At that time there was a strip of grass with trees and vendor kiosks instead of a street for a couple of blocks and the ants lived across the sidewalk from a bakery. The sidewalk was brick cobbles with roundish tops so that the mortar was like a sunken road to the ants.

The ants went in a steady stream to the bakery shop and back again. They walked in the sunken road. Once in a while I would see an individual or two on top of the cobbles but the overwhelming majority stayed on their road. How did they know it was dangerous to walk on the cobbles? How did they know they would be safe on their road? They must have some concept of danger and safety. That means that they must have some concept of death and life.

I was sure that the bakery and the cobbles hadn’t been there long enough for the ants to develop an instinctive fear of walking on the cobbles. Then there must be some sort of intelligence functioning. I’m a little hazy on insect anatomy but if ants have brains, surely they can’t be much more than a few neurons. Yet here’s a whole colony of them with intelligence enough to recognize the danger of traffic and to circumvent it. This is much more than a great many humans have shown themselves capable of.

A TV documentary that showed some ants in Africa who use mud to roof their trail up a tree trunk confirmed my assessment of ant intelligence. The roof protects them from the predation of birds and other insects. Then I learned a little about how ants construct their colonies; go to war; and how they control herds of aphids, actually milking them for ant food. Scientists attribute these behaviors to something called “instinct,” which is “hard-wired” in the brain. Whatever that means. The fact is, animals are intelligent and they respond to problems in creative, imaginative ways that illustrate some of the concepts and understandings of phenomena that undergird their actions.

Now, if ants can do all that with a few neurons, brain size cannot be the reason for humankind’s perceived intellectual superiority. We’d have to have a brain the size of a baby blimp in order to match the ants’ intelligence.

Technologically Unclean

Technology. We hear the word everywhere. Mostly with the adjective, “new,” attached. We have new technologies for just about everything. There are technologically “smart” bombs and kitchen appliances and I understand that smart highways are in development to save us from our poor driving skills. I recently saw a TV ad for a computerized toothbrush. I’m not sure exactly how the computer is supposed to help you brush your teeth but I suppose there is some kind of theory behind it. Quite possibly, the theory is based on the technical know-how involved in separating you from your money.

My point about technology is that it is ubiquitous. I don’t even need to know how to spell “ubiquitous.” If I get reasonably close, the technology installed on my computer will give me the correct spelling. Grammar is another issue, but the computer is very good with spelling. Given all these smarts, why is medical care in this country all too often about on a par with the practices of a hundred and sixty years ago? Until the middle of the nineteenth century, western medicine knew little or nothing of asepsis. Then it was discovered and demonstrated that sterilizing instruments and washing the hands of doctors dramatically reduced the number of deaths from infection. Whereupon, the doctors promptly declined to practice techniques of asepsis on the ground that it was damned nonsense, as everyone knew that infection was caused by miasma. Medical students refused to wash their hands because it impinged on their academic freedom.

The evidence for asepsis continued to accumulate and the profession was finally forced to acknowledge that their spurning of basic sanitation was killing their patients. That led to the creation of the elaborate rituals of sterilization and cleansing that are now practiced by our medical personnel. Or are they?

Annually, two million cases of infection are caused by the administration of health care in U.S. hospitals. 90,000 of those cases result in death. Those figures are from the website of the government’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, URL: http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/hip/prevention_week.html.
An article on the website of CBS News, Healthwatch, URL: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/07/20/health/main515755.shtml,
gives an even grimmer picture of cases of death by infections caused in hospital health care. The reasons for these dreadful numbers stem from a lack of cleanliness in hospitals and among health care workers, including many doctors and nurses. We have been taught from early childhood to wash our hands, yet there are still large numbers of doctors and nurses who do not practice this simple, life-saving routine as they move among their patients, thus carrying infection from one hapless individual to another. We know that asepsis is imperative in even the most minor surgery, yet doctors often use instruments or operating rooms where the asepsis is compromised. Medical devices are often insufficiently cleaned and sterilized, for instance, underwater birthing units and dialysis machines. Too, tap water is sometimes used instead of sterile water, adding another risk factor to treatment.

Housekeeping staff in hospitals and other health care facilities are insufficiently trained and cleaning tools are no better than they were two hundred years ago. Mop buckets are still in use and cleaning staff still dip the mop into filthy water and slather it over the floors. Hospitals are required by law to undergo accreditation and 75% of them have been cited for being insufficiently clean. The technology and techniques for actually cleaning, rather than merely moving the dirt, bacteria, and viruses around, are in the early development stages. We need “smart” cleaning devices but almost anything would be an improvement over that bucket of filthy mop water.

It is not that health care professionals don’t know how to achieve asepsis. They are all trained in the techniques of sterilization and they are all taught the possible consequences of contamination. It is not that they don’t know that large numbers of people are being infected and that many of their patients die of those infections while in their care in hospitals and other health care facilities. So, if it isn’t ignorance that produces these infections and deaths, it must be indifference. There is no question that most, if not all, of these infections and deaths are preventable. There is no question that doctors and nurses could wash their hands and could change the way their facilities are cleaned and sterilized, if they cared to make the effort. Since they don’t make the effort, one is led to the logical conclusion that they don’t care.

Under the law, indifference to suffering and death is depraved. Depraved indifference to the value of human life is murder and people can be indicted for it.

The Freedom to Pursue Happiness

The Declaration of Independence states that all American citizens possess the right to the pursuit of happiness. That’s all it says. It doesn’t guarantee happiness to each of us. It doesn’t define happiness. It doesn’t provide a map to happiness. The implication is that each citizen will pursue his or her own happiness, defined to fit him or her individually, in his or her own way. The federal government – elected officials, appointees, and professional bureaucrats – in their ever-increasing thirst for power, have taken it upon themselves to provide happiness to our entire population.

As far as I know, no legally sanctioned definition of happiness has been formulated. There does exist, however, an ipso facto definition. It is ephemeral, is not written down, and is unacknowledged. We know it exists because of the steps taken to impose it upon each of us. The government takes our money and uses it, and a monstrous federal debt, to impose happiness upon us. If this unofficial definition of happiness was written down, it would look something like this (I cannot, fortunately, speak or write fluent bureaucratese).

Happiness consists of:
Ø Life, except when the government thinks a criminal has lived long enough or when a fetus is inconvenient or an industry needs cannon fodder to protect its interests overseas.
Ø Liberty, except when it gets in the way of federal government goals.
Ø Equality, as long as it doesn’t interfere with the entitlements congress mandates.
Ø Suffrage, as long as the Electoral College has the final say and not the voters.
Ø Food, but let’s not get radical and let farmers decide what to grow and then allow them to sell their produce in an open market.
Ø Medical care is so important that many decisions concerning individuals’ medical care must be taken, not by medical personnel or the individual, but by insurance and/or government bureaucrats.
Ø Education for all. In fact, a college degree is so important that standards must be lowered so that everyone who wants one can have one. In addition, recognizing that young people must sow their wild oats, let’s not penalize them by requiring them to learn much of anything in order to get their degrees.
Ø Transportation. Efficient transportation is not necessary to happiness. What is necessary is lots of pavement. If it takes longer to get from Point A to Point B by modern transportation than it took by horse and buggy, there are good and cogent reasons. The point is that we have a modern system of interstate highways with the finest engineering in the world in both road-building and auto manufacturing. If you spend your time sitting in your car on a freeway that looks like a parking lot, maybe you should consider using public transportation.
Ø Office work is central to happiness. Each of us yearns, from the time we are tiny tots, to spend the greater portion of our waking hours in a cubicle in a building as far removed from Nature as it’s possible to get. No one with any sense would want to get their hands dirty or experience any elements – sunshine, rain, fresh air – ewwwww.
Ø Money, lots of money is of paramount importance in achieving happiness. Only money in great quantities can confer real happiness. That’s why the tax laws are written to favor the rich. They are already happy and nothing must disturb their happiness.
Ø Freedom of speech makes for happiness, except when it’s libelous or slanderous, or threatens the peace of the realm, or might give the impression that you disagree with the government position on some point, which might incite our enemies to attack us. In order to avert such abuses, the government must exercise ceaseless vigilance by tapping your phone and bugging your home or office. But if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear. Right?
Ø Freedom of religion is a great happiness contributor. In this great nation of ours we are free to practice any faith we like. Of course, if you practice one of the religions that make the government nervous, you might come under some kind of scrutiny by one of those alphabetical agencies but it won’t be because of the religion you practice, it will be because of the threat you pose to national security.
Ø Access to the arts is so important that tax money must be used to support them. In fact, the arts are so important that even when they constitute crimes of hate they are sacrosanct. You want to use human excrement as finger paint on a rendering of a religious icon? No problem. Not only will the government pay you to do so, it will protect you from the consequences of your hate crime. That’s freedom of speech. You want to put a cross up on a hill where it will be visible to an entire town? Sorry, that would violate the religious freedom of non-Christians.

Uncle Sam, I love you, but please let me define my own happiness and pursue it in my own way. I don’t want to hurt your feelings and I know you have only my happiness at heart but the truth is, you are becoming rather intrusive.