HOW DID NEW YEARS FIND ITSELF 11-DAYS LATE?

Northern Hemisphere Winter Solstice + 11 Days = New Year’s Day

That is some strange math.  Why do we start the New Year eleven days after the winter solstice? Frankly, I do not know, but it seems more fitting that the day after the solstice should be January 1^st.  However, delaying time by eleven has a history in our calendar.  In 1752 A.D., Britain skipped eleven days to fix an eleven-minute reoccurring disagreement the accepted calendar had with Earth’s yearly cycle.  Compound this eleven-minute disparity over 1440 years; one gets an eleven-day problem.

Solve for y: (11m/(24*60))*y=11    y=1440

Thus, what year did we begin to drift:

1752 AD - 1440 = 321 AD

Which begs the question, what happened in the year 312?  It wasn’t known as the year 312 on that January 1st, when it began it was the year 1066 A.U.. I have heard some Christian apologists state that because our calendar's epoch is based on Jesus' birth year; the Jesus stories therefore, represent historical figures and events - rather than the more logical explanation that the Gospels were Jewish Midrash developed by Jews after the destruction of the Temple in 824 A.U.. The story of the Passion was written to provide a permanent replacement for Jewish temple sacrifices.  Which is somewhat of a different topic, but we will come back to it later in a follow-on post.  Circular logic is the main problem with arguing Jesus was historical, not mythical, based on the epoch of our calendar.  As the idea of resetting the timeline was not thought of until 10+ generations later than the stories it is based on.  The people who reset the calendar would have no more direct knowledge of the times they were targeting then we have today!

In 1066 A.U. Christians reset the epoch of the calendar 754 years forward, but they were a still the new religion at the time.  And because they were not the ruling party, they didn’t have the power to make the change universal.  Not yet.  Remember Rome accepted Christianity as one of many faiths in 313.  They were new to the Roman political scene, but Christians were on the move up.  For Rome to officially adopt this change, it took 213 years.  In 1279 A.U., Rome fully adopted the Christian modifications from 312 C.E. (as we recognize it today).  1279 A.U. was reset to 525 A.D..  What began in the 4th-Century was standardized in the 6th-Century, the new epoch of the empire, and a religion that now went by the name of Catholic.  From there, the new date took more than a millennium to reach the outside world, spreading by the power of trade and the pain of the sword.  The west began to drift off the Earth’s yearly calendar.  Fascinatingly the 11-day compounding mistake is linked to the complications of dating Easter – of course it was, right?  Luckily today we have Google, and smart-watches to remind us when to hide the eggs.

The main topic I wanted to address with this example is; Once an idea blossoms in a complex society, it takes a long time for it to take hold.  Then in future generations, when that idea is proven false, it can take a millennium, or two, for humans to correct their belief system. Why is this true? Why when new information is presented does society not change its viewpoint based on the new evidence in the same generation?

In the last two decades, many evolutionary biologists have presented evidence on how human preconceptions change gradually over many generations.  The paradox is: Both history and biology tell us fundamental acceptance of new information requires multiple generations to gain critical mass in the human conscience.  Therefore the populace on the eve of 2018 is not ready to absorb evidence gathered during our own contemporary.

The mind has evolved in such a way that many children who reject the nonsensical ideas (such as sacrificing a goat to crocodiles will cause the rains to fall) from their parents, also reject the sensible ideas (such as don't swim with the same crocodiles). Because of this, the 'rejectors' are many times eaten by crocodiles. The obedient survive and continue to pass both sensible and nonsensical ideas once again.

If an American travels to a tribal village where the practice of animal sacrifice is still practiced, we think "how do they still believe this on the eve of 2018?"  However, there is a 50% chance that same American believes the following:

"A celestial Jewish baby, born from a virgin mother, died for three days so that he could ascend to heaven on a cloud and then make you live forever.  Only if you symbolically eat his flesh, drink his blood and telepathically tell him you accept him as lord & master.  So he can remove an evil force from your spiritual being that is present in all humanity because a woman made from a man’s rib was hoodwinked by a talking reptile possessed by a malicious angel to secretly eat forbidden fruit from a magical tree."

If a college or high school graduate were exposed to this story for the first time, the adult nonpartisan mind would reject it as nonsensical.  However when one is exposed to these stories at a young age, the idea of "belief in belief" is embossed on the mind, it takes a toehold.  And then as adults, we dismiss as unconvincing any information that contradicts the nonsensical ideas we were exposed to as children.

The lifeblood of Religion is depended on the vulnerability of the child brain.  Religious leaders are aware of this, and the importance of getting the indoctrination in early is well documented.  Western society turns a blind eye to this tradition.  How many generations will we continue to allow this practice?  It took a long time to remove lead from paint and refined petroleum.  It took a long time after understanding cigarette smoking was harmful to humans for society to change.  We have known for many years that marijuana is better for the body and the mind then opioids, but are still at least a decade away for society to fully admit it.  But the dangers of childhood religious indoctrination has not reached the point where American society is ready to start a conversation about what might be the most detrimental practice to holding back expanding the human potential.

I hope future generations will decide to expand the human potential by encouraging and stimulating young minds on 'how to think' without succumbing to the manageable appeal of proselytizing to the next age 'what to think.'

And maybe, just maybe to skip eleven days in the calendar one more time, to enable humans to recognize New Year’s Eve on the Winter Solstice

What do Red Bottom Louis Vuitton Shoes have to do with an Aneurysm?

Earlier this week, while at work, my best friend experienced a brain aneurysm.  She was sent to the regional ER, who in return rushed her to the trauma center in downtown Atlanta.  I was alerted during the ambulance ride, via a text message while in a meeting on the other coast.  During a planned meeting break, the neurosurgeon from the trauma center called me, explained in layman terms what happened and what will happen over the next five hours.  I was 2,500  miles away at the time, as current commitments were completed in the foreground, the flight plans were modified in background, on a smartphone.  During the meeting no one in the room knew otherwise - other than my boss because he was notified on his device of my ticket change (>$).  The science of wireless technologies took care of the first task of returning to Atlanta, silently.  A task that a generation ago would have taken at a full day, including having an admin walk into the meeting, interrupt the agenda, and finally it would have required a public egress from the forum.

While I was on the overnight flight back to Atlanta, she started her recovery from four hours of brain surgery.  During the flight I could not sleep and instead kept myself busy by reading on a few subjects that are proving to be increasingly relevant in 2017/18; moving from link to link I stumbled on a  2005 Federal court case.  The plaintiff: Keeping science in our public schools, while detaining pseudoscience at bay.

By the time I arrived at the trauma center, it was nearly 07:00 the next morning.  I walked into her room, and what my wife said to me reminded me of a quote from the second to the last paragraph of the court recording I had read a few hours earlier.  The counsel for the plaintiff (for science) summed up the concept of Defendant - Intelligent Design’s ‘irreducible complexity’, which the defendant was attempting to push in public schools as “an alternative viewpoint.”  Dressing pseudoscience in science’s wardrobe. Here is the quote:

Thankfully, there are scientists who do search for answers to the questions of the origin of the immune system [and the brain].  It’s our defense against debilitating and fatal diseases.  The scientists who wrote those books and articles toil in obscurity, without books royalties or speaking engagements.  Their efforts help us combat and cure serious medical conditions.  By contrast, Professor Behe [pushing ID] and the entire intelligent design movement are doing nothing to advance scientific or medical knowledge and are telling future generations of scientists, don’t bother.

This paragraph is meant to force us to discuss the unsatisfying charter of the Intelligent Design (ID) hypothesis.  That is the gap though process that allows us to be okay NOT learning the details of the physical world we live in.  In other words, if the problem is too difficult to solve, file it in the realm of the supernatural and call it irreducibly complex.  “Do not invest any more time or tax dollars into discovering how the wing, eye, or human brain evolved; because they are irreducibly complex and God created them as they are now.”  On the eve of 2018; Trumpism has re-introduced the false equivalence between science and pseudosciences such as ID.

Back to herstory; The surgeon who performed the work has spent his career reducing  ‘irreducible complexity’ of the human brain into small parts using science.  . . .  After four hours of surgery and a good nights rest; by the time I traveled back to Atlanta and made it to the ICU, as I walked in the room my wife said to me: “Since we now must cancel our Christmas vacation, can you for long last buy me that pair of Louis Vuitton red bottom shoes?”  She obviously had a quick recovery, and I am hoping a humor recuperation as well.   Thank you science!