06 May, 2019
MICHAEL SHERMER: From a scientist's prospective it's going to be rather different from that of most religious traditions, which holds that we die because this is only a temporary staging area before we go to the big show the next stage in which we go to heaven or hell or wherever some kind of afterlife. For scientists the question has a rather different answer and it has to do with the kinds of causes we look for in science. So you have proximate causes versus ultimate causes. For example, why does sugar taste sweet or why does fruit taste sweet something like that? You would say well because there's molecular receptors on your tongue that are geared toward sending signals to a certain part of the brain that register sweetness and pleasure and so on with fruit. That's approximate answer. And ultimate answer is because foods that taste sweet are more likely to be consumed and those in our natural environment are the kinds of foods that are both rare and nutritious and so the more of them you eat the better and we evolved that tendency.
To answer the question why we die, it's the same kind of thing. Approximate answers include cancer, heart disease, arthrosclerosis. The ultimate answer though is found in two principles of nature, that is the second law of thermodynamics or entropy, which means everything runs down, including our bodies. And the whole universe, the whole universe runs down so ultimately even if you could double your lifespan, triple it, live essentially forever you can't really because the universe will eventually die in a heat death. And then second is the principle of natural selection that drives evolution. And it has to do with a cost benefit analysis of how many limited resources you put into organisms. So obviously natural selection is going to select for infants and toddlers and babies to be well cared for, have super regenerative powers to keep their bodies going in order to get the genes into the next generation, get them up to reproductive age and so on. So we see cells that divide very rapidly in infants and babies. A little cut you could practically watch it heal. It's incredible. Whereas someone my age when I get cut it takes much longer to heal.
And so the question is why wouldn't evolution just make it so that I, now in my early 60s, can't just keep going to 200/300? And the answer is there's no reason for it. Because after I've brought my own offspring into reproductive age and then they've brought their offspring into reproductive age I'm really of no use anymore. I can serve a useful purpose as a parent, of course, bringing my genes up and then useful purpose as a grandparent to help my offspring bring their offspring up to reproductive age, but beyond that really there's no sense in pouring any more resources into great, great, great, great, great grandparents because the genes in the little infant are already going to be well taken care of. So it's sort of a weird way to think about it, but in a way nature operates because of entropy. Nature has to select and choose in kind of a triage where are we going to put the resources. I'm saying it like there's somebody up there allocating resources, the government is doling out checks to organisms. No, there is nothing like that, of course, this is just how natural selection operates. So in short, we die so that our future generations may live because there are limited resources.
- According to scientists the reason we die is because the second law of thermodynamics and natural selection.
- The whole universe runs down, so, ultimately, even if you could lengthen your lifespan indefinitely, the universe itself will eventually die in a heat death.
- We die, one predominant view goes, so that our progeny may live — because there are limited resources.
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Image source: Christian Zimmerman/USGS/Big Think
Surprising Science
- A remote area visited by tourists and cruises, and home to fishing villages, is about to be visited by a devastating tsunami.
- A wall of rock exposed by a receding glacier is about crash into the waters below.
- Glaciers hold such areas together — and when they're gone, bad stuff can be left behind.
The Barry Glacier gives its name to Alaska's Barry Arm Fjord, and a new open letter forecasts trouble ahead.
Thanks to global warming, the glacier has been retreating, so far removing two-thirds of its support for a steep mile-long slope, or scarp, containing perhaps 500 million cubic meters of material. (Think the Hoover Dam times several hundred.) The slope has been moving slowly since 1957, but scientists say it's become an avalanche waiting to happen, maybe within the next year, and likely within 20. When it does come crashing down into the fjord, it could set in motion a frightening tsunami overwhelming the fjord's normally peaceful waters .
"It could happen anytime, but the risk just goes way up as this glacier recedes," says hydrologist Anna Liljedahl of Woods Hole, one of the signatories to the letter.
The Barry Arm Fjord
Camping on the fjord's Black Sand Beach
Image source: Matt Zimmerman
The Barry Arm Fjord is a stretch of water between the Harriman Fjord and the Port Wills Fjord, located at the northwest corner of the well-known Prince William Sound. It's a beautiful area, home to a few hundred people supporting the local fishing industry, and it's also a popular destination for tourists — its Black Sand Beach is one of Alaska's most scenic — and cruise ships.
Not Alaska’s first watery rodeo, but likely the biggest
Image source: whrc.org
There have been at least two similar events in the state's recent history, though not on such a massive scale. On July 9, 1958, an earthquake nearby caused 40 million cubic yards of rock to suddenly slide 2,000 feet down into Lituya Bay, producing a tsunami whose peak waves reportedly reached 1,720 feet in height. By the time the wall of water reached the mouth of the bay, it was still 75 feet high. At Taan Fjord in 2015, a landslide caused a tsunami that crested at 600 feet. Both of these events thankfully occurred in sparsely populated areas, so few fatalities occurred.
The Barry Arm event will be larger than either of these by far.
"This is an enormous slope — the mass that could fail weighs over a billion tonnes," said geologist Dave Petley, speaking to Earther. "The internal structure of that rock mass, which will determine whether it collapses, is very complex. At the moment we don't know enough about it to be able to forecast its future behavior."
Outside of Alaska, on the west coast of Greenland, a landslide-produced tsunami towered 300 feet high, obliterating a fishing village in its path.
What the letter predicts for Barry Arm Fjord
Moving slowly at first...
Image source: whrc.org
"The effects would be especially severe near where the landslide enters the water at the head of Barry Arm. Additionally, areas of shallow water, or low-lying land near the shore, would be in danger even further from the source. A minor failure may not produce significant impacts beyond the inner parts of the fiord, while a complete failure could be destructive throughout Barry Arm, Harriman Fiord, and parts of Port Wells. Our initial results show complex impacts further from the landslide than Barry Arm, with over 30 foot waves in some distant bays, including Whittier."
The discovery of the impeding landslide began with an observation by the sister of geologist Hig Higman of Ground Truth, an organization in Seldovia, Alaska. Artist Valisa Higman was vacationing in the area and sent her brother some photos of worrying fractures she noticed in the slope, taken while she was on a boat cruising the fjord.
Higman confirmed his sister's hunch via available satellite imagery and, digging deeper, found that between 2009 and 2015 the slope had moved 600 feet downhill, leaving a prominent scar.
Ohio State's Chunli Dai unearthed a connection between the movement and the receding of the Barry Glacier. Comparison of the Barry Arm slope with other similar areas, combined with computer modeling of the possible resulting tsunamis, led to the publication of the group's letter.
While the full group of signatories from 14 organizations and institutions has only been working on the situation for a month, the implications were immediately clear. The signers include experts from Ohio State University, the University of Southern California, and the Anchorage and Fairbanks campuses of the University of Alaska.
Once informed of the open letter's contents, the Alaska's Department of Natural Resources immediately released a warning that "an increasingly likely landslide could generate a wave with devastating effects on fishermen and recreationalists."
How do you prepare for something like this?
Image source: whrc.org
The obvious question is what can be done to prepare for the landslide and tsunami? For one thing, there's more to understand about the upcoming event, and the researchers lay out their plan in the letter:
"To inform and refine hazard mitigation efforts, we would like to pursue several lines of investigation: Detect changes in the slope that might forewarn of a landslide, better understand what could trigger a landslide, and refine tsunami model projections. By mapping the landslide and nearby terrain, both above and below sea level, we can more accurately determine the basic physical dimensions of the landslide. This can be paired with GPS and seismic measurements made over time to see how the slope responds to changes in the glacier and to events like rainstorms and earthquakes. Field and satellite data can support near-real time hazard monitoring, while computer models of landslide and tsunami scenarios can help identify specific places that are most at risk."
In the letter, the authors reached out to those living in and visiting the area, asking, "What specific questions are most important to you?" and "What could be done to reduce the danger to people who want to visit or work in Barry Arm?" They also invited locals to let them know about any changes, including even small rock-falls and landslides.
