Wednesday, December 22, 2010

prairie voles and songbirds

just got a newsletter/fundraising letter from OSU dept. of zoology (my alma mater, my major). two professors each got grants of over $300K to study songbirds and prairie voles. the songbird study will see if growing up in a good environment affects adult zebra finches vs. those growing up in bad environments (not sure what that would be, maybe lots of cats around), and the prairie vole study is what really caught my eye. these little creatures are 'monogamous animals that form long-term pairbonds and exhibit behaviors that appear very similar to those that we humans might call 'love' for both a mate and for offspring'. the guy is going to look at their brains and see what hormones make them 'love' and especially look at the males and their attachment to their offspring 'to provide a better understanding of what controls monogamy and offspring care by fathers'.
hey, save your money and quit looking at tiny animal brains and read the bible, numbnuts! 'Start children off on the way they should go, and even when they are old they will not turn from it.', and 'That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.'
we get angry when people waste their money on frivolous stuff but welcome it, almost worship it, when it's in the name of science. especially in the name of 'developmental origins of adult disease' and 'understanding the causes of dysfunction in social attachment, such as.........autism'. 
words of wisdom from my lovely bride: 'you find what you're looking for in the last place that you look'. and it seems that scientists have the bible buried pretty deep in their piles while looking elsewhere for answers to life's questions. but i guess you don't get much grant money for studying 'why people don't pay attention to what God says despite continually suffering the consequences of such behavior'. oh, well.

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