“The prevalence of twilight-state thinking, our very susceptibility to the condition, argues for its evolutionary importance.  In extreme cases it results in pathology, derangements and delusions, persisting hallucinations and fanaticisms.  But it is also the driving force behind efforts to see things whole, to achieve a variety of syntheses from unified field theories in physics to blueprints for utopias in which people will live together in peace.  There must have been an enormous selective premium on the twilight state during prehistoric times.  If the pressures of the Upper Paleolithic demanded fervid belief and the following of leaders for survival’s sake, then individuals endowed with such qualities, with a capacity to fall readily into trances, would out-produce more resistant individuals.”  (J. E. Pfeiffer, The Creative Explosion (New York:  Harper & Row, 1982), p. 213.)

The power of art to inform culture receives relatively little attention in current times.  Any anthropologist studying aboriginal society finds art central to how a culture operates.  In that context, always, art and spirituality are closely tied.  Perhaps art feels separate from society today because religion has been contextualized as important, but not essential, to how we understand society.  So, art often finds itself ignored.

“Furthermore, drummers apparently know by intuition the most potent brain-stimulating rhythms.  According to Neher, the predominant drumming rhythm used in a number of African dances as well as in Haitian voodoo dances is a fast 7 to 9 beats per second—and that happens to be about the same rhythm produced naturally by “brain waves” in the auditory cortex itself, groups of neurons charging and discharging in electrical unison.  It seems that properly synchronized drumbeats drive the brain, force it into heightened activity.  They work in phase with brain waves, amplifying them the way timed pushes impart more and more momentum to a swing, creating hallucinations and intense feelings of dissociation.”  (Pfeiffer, 1982.)

This website describes a particular view of how human beings evolved.  I propose that art encouraged a particular ontological dynamic that compelled the growth of big brains because big brains more efficiently produce art.  We’re talking a sort of feedback loop, or what R. A. Fisher described as runaway sexual selection, whereby extravagant dancers chosen for their ability to evoke feelings of wonder resulting in copulation were (mostly) males that exhibited bigger brains and childlike features of cooperation and dependency, traits associated with neoteny.  Females kept picking big-brained, childlike dancers.  The women exhibiting the best  ability to form these evaluations, commanding and judgmental protohuman women, were making sure that they were the ones that got these men’s babies, and these women formed the other side of this feedback loop.  Big-brained dance performers got picked.  Big-brained dance evaluators did the picking.  Big brains evolved.

There are studies that conclude that the musically obsessed, composers and listeners with ability to note fine detail have bigger brains.  In addition, low testosterone males and high testosterone females seem to be the most talented composers.

“Creative musical behavior, musical intelligence, and spatial ability were investigated in relation to salivary testosterone (T).  In a cross-sectional study with 117 adults and in an 8-yr longitudinal study with 120 adolescents, composers, instrumentalists, and nonmusicians of both sexes were compared by analyses of variance.  Results indicate that an optimal T range may exist for the expression of creative musical behavior.  This range may be at the bottom of normal male T range and at the top of normal female T range.  In addition, musicians were found to attain significantly higher spatial test scores than nonmusicians, both in an 8-yr-period of adolescent development and in adulthood.”  (Hassler, M., “Creative Musical Behavior and Sex Hormones:  Musical Talent and Spatial Ability in the Two Sexes,” Psychoneuroendocrinology 17(1) (1992):55.)

“Musical composers, instrumentalists, and painters were compared with nonmusicians from a student and from a nonstudent population on testosterone levels in saliva.  This steroid served as a marker for physiological androgyny.  The ANOVA showed a significant group by sex interaction.  Male composers attained significantly lower mean testosterone values than male instrumentalists and male nonmusicians; female composers had significantly higher mean testosterone values than female instrumentalists and female nonmusicians.  Painters of both sexes did not differ significantly from controls.  Spatial ability was assessed in the five groups.  Significant differences on spatial test performance were not reflected in differences on salivary testosterone.  Our results showed that musical composers of both sexes were physiologically highly androgynous.  Creative musical behavior was associated with testosterone levels that minimized sex differences.”  (Hassler, M., “Testosterone and Artistic Talents,” Int J Neurosci 56(1-4) (1991):25.)

Not only is testosterone related to musical inclination, so is handedness.  The left-handed often are more musically inclined.

“It seems possible that an optimal testosterone range exists for the expression of creative musical behavior and that exceeding this optimal range in the course of puberty may contribute to a stop of musical production in boys.  Such optimal testosterone levels may be lower than male average in adult men and higher than female average in adult women (Hassler, 1991; Hassler & Nieschlag, 1989). …  Handedness proved to be an important variable with respect to musical talent in boys.  Male left-handers attained significantly higher mean test scores than male right-handers on Wing’s Standardized Tests of Musical Intelligence (Hassler & Birbaumer, 1988) at each stage of the study.”  (Hassler, M., and Nieschlag, E., “Salivary Testosterone and Creative Musical Behavior in Adolescent Males and Females,” Developmental Neuropsychology 7 (1991):504.)

According to the thesis promoted on this website, it is the random-handed (left-handed), the high testosterone females, the low testosterone males (matrifocal social structure) and the big-brained dancers that are the folks engaged in the runaway sexual selection feedback loop just described.  The neurological literature is filled with examples that support this thesis.

Nevertheless, it is a story.  A story is art.  Art often has spiritual connections.  The question is:  Is this a story that offers opportunities to transform?

“In a study of alcoholism, it was noted that alcoholism is a significant health concern for lesbians, with an incidence rate perhaps three times that of the general population.  The relationships among the development of alcoholism in women, the experience of stigmatization and the complex facets of lesbian identity and lesbian community are explored.  This exploration provides for a more comprehensive and critical analysis of alcoholism in lesbians.  As a phenomenon of women’s health, alcoholism is examined using the perspectives of developmental theory, symbolic interactionism and critical theory.  The author offers insights and implications for health care, research and theory building.”  (Hall, J. M., “Alcoholism in Lesbians:  Developmental, Symbolic Interactionist, and Critical Perspectives,” Health Care for Women International 11(1) (1990):89-107.)

“Yalom et al. (1973) studied 20 16-year-old boys of diabetic mothers, who had received estrogen or progesterone during pregnancy.  These boys showed less heterosexuality and less masculinity than 20 control boys.  Netley and Rovet (1982) showed that among 33 males with 47,XXY syndrome, 24% were nonrighthanded, compared to 10% of a control group. …  In the present study, as well as in Lindesay (1987), only homosexual men were studied.  In Rosenstein and Bigler (1987) and McCormick et al. (1990), both

…

Light moves at a speed of 186,000 miles per second.  Speed as a concept is also integral to biology.  I hypothesize that the speed with which information passes between the two cerebral hemispheres impacts consciousness, behavior and personality.  And, whereas the basic unit of speed in physics is the kilometer or mile, in biology that unit is a generation.  Though maybe not.

Bernard Crespi has written a paper, Psychosis and Autism as Diametrical Disorders of the Social Brain, which focuses on several neurological features as influential in the etiology of particular diseases and conditions.  Corpus callosum size (the corpus callosum is the primary brain bridge between the two cerebral hemispheres) and anomalous dominance (differing cerebral hemisphere sizes) are two of those features, aspects of cerebral lateralization.  I would consider that corpus callosum size not only influences the ease and speed of information transfer, but that corpus callosum size influences the experience of self awareness or split consciousness.

There are correlations between degrees of cerebral lateralization, how much the two cerebral hemispheres vary, and conditions characterized by maturational delay (autism, Asperger’s, stuttering).  Degrees of handedness are influenced by this variable.  Other diseases and conditions are associated with right cerebral hemispheres not…

“The existence of mammary ridges on the embryo concording with ancient synapsids suggests that those ancient animals also had nutrient-supplying ridges on their bodies for which there is no paleontological evidence.  On the human embryo, the mammary ridges gradually coalesce and finally resolve into discrete nipples on day 58.  This event concords almost exactly with the lowermost Triassic, where the fossils of Cynognathus are found.  Discrete mammary glands and a fused secondary palate in the embryo coincide with a fused secondary palate in the fossil record.”  (Swan, Lawrence W. (1990) The concordance of ontogeny with phylogeny.  Bioscience 40: 380)

Because male humans differentiate from the foundation female at six weeks after conception, might this reflect an ancient emergence of testosterone after estrogen?  Might the Pre-Cambrian explosion have had something to do with there being no testosterone to call an end to the party?

…

“No one, least of all Williams and Kafatos, expect the eventual story to be so simple.  But it does seem likely that normal development is controlled by gradually decreasing concentration of a hormone acting primarily at high levels of the regulatory system.  This is also an ideal mechanism for the simple and rapid production of heterochronic…

Rummaging around some old papers stacked behind my desk, I found a 1987 Neuropsychologia piece titled “Associations of Handedness with Hair Color and Learning Disabilities” by Schachter, Ransil and Geschwind.

The researchers puzzle over the seeming connection between increased left-handedness and blond hair.  I would additionally consider left-handedness as a marker for male maturational delay and possible increases in autism and Asperger’s.

What has me muddling over the various connections at this moment is the profound difference between rates of left-handedness in countries where blond hair is common, like Scandinavia, vs. Asia, where left-handedness is about 2%.  This would suggest that autism rates in Asia would be lower.  Of course, percentage totals are profoundly complicated by differing diagnostic protocols and social support systems.  There does not even seem to be consensus that Asian rates of handedness are really lower than in the West, with many academics suggesting that prejudice is so strong against sinistralality in the East that the low numbers reflect only that strong bias.

So, it’s not the case that we’re exploring patterns with clear conventions regarding even basic agreements on the percentages of autism and handedness.

Nevertheless, the following is what is bothering me right now.  As…

Rosanna and I are conducting an overview of matrifocal societies around the world, seeking correlations with the primary elements of the thesis.  I’m estimating that a matrifocal society will have females with higher testosterone and higher estrogen than a modern conventional society, males with lower testosterone and lower estrogen, more frequent anomalous cerebral dominance with both cerebral hemispheres more often the same size, a leftward shift of Annett’s handedness distributions (more left-handers), delayed puberty and tendencies to exhibit specific diseases and conditions characterized by the hormonal tendencies just mentioned.

There is the possibility that matrifocal societies will have language structures characterized by an emphasis on the present tense as in the Hopi and Trobriand Islanders.  This would suggest an affinity to primary process in waking consciousness:  one time, one place, no negatives.  An implication might be a different kind of sense of humor and a possible different kind of creative imagination.

Elia and I were talking last night about the relevance of myth.  Elia suggested that the structure of the mythology of matrifocal societies may reflect the unique neurological constellation we are proposing.  We considered that the myths might show a single story line, main character almost always present (no…

Consider the exhibition of partnership society or matrifocal features in Scandinavian societies and evidence of these qualities in the Canadian, New England, Minnesota and Wisconsin populations.  In earlier pieces, we’ve noted the possible relationships between the need for Vitamins A and D in Scandinavian populations and the exhibition of neotenous features in both sexes of the populations, such as blond hair, blue eyes, lanky builds and lactate tolerance.  Observing the egalitarian social and political aspects of Scandinavian nations, I’ve hypothesized that there might be a direct connection between the neotenous features of individuals within a population and the partnership or matrifocal features exhibited by the society as a whole.

I’m seeing similar patterns in other regions of the world.  Of course, individuals from Finland, Norway, Sweden and Denmark have immigrated to Canada, New England, Minnesota and Wisconsin, carrying their biological and social proclivities with them.  Would this explain why North Dakota and Montana are so conservative by comparison?  Do North Dakota and Montana have different ethnic makeups?

I’m seeking evidence that simply living in a northern latitude influences populations to exhibit neotenous features.  One place to look for information is by exploring differences between indigenous American Indian populations.

…

“Thus…

Ten years ago, I was exploring the possible origin of human culture in tribal societies driven by rhythmic dance and music. Tribal societies are on rare occasions characterized by paternal anonymity, or children who are unaware of the identity of their biological father. Observing that human brain size began to diminish about 25,000 years ago, I hypothesized that this reflected an emerging patrifocal emphasis on speech instead of gesture and a movement away from a selection for big-brained males. If this was the case, I suspected that there might be remnants of the old matrifocal paradigm that still exist within contemporary society. In the neurological literature, I sought humans with unusually large brains, difficulty with language, but who were also ambidextrous or left-handed. I came to find that autistic individuals commonly display these features; in addition, I discovered that individuals with autism are often obsessed with pattern replication and have perfect pitch (Brenton, Devries, Barton, Minnich & Sokol, 2008).

It appeared that hidden beneath the just-so story was a theory, which, if brought to light, could help make useful predictions and illuminate unrecognized relationships. From the beginning, the theory drew information from three different disciplines: anthropology, evolutionary biology…

“The diversity of human skills and the improbability that any one individual could be good at everything makes it reasonable to suggest that different genotypes, for different patterns of CD [cerebral dominance], are associated with various strengths and weaknesses that complement and balance one another in the population as a whole.” (Annett, Handedness and Brain Asymmetry, p. 186)

Thirty years ago in Guatemala, a student of Marian Annett, W. J. Demarest, evaluated Mayan and Ladino (mixed Spanish and Indian) children to see if their handedness distributions were similar to Annett’s UK studies.  Annett hypothesized that the way that the British are cerebrally organized would carry over to humans across the planet based upon the fairly consistent manifestations of left-handedness that are observed.

The conclusion of the Guatemalan study suggested that the Mayan children did not exhibit the same distribution of handedness, implying a different distribution of cerebral lateralization.  The Mayan children drifted further to the left, emphasizing that they might be less lateralized for language.  The thesis of this website would argue that the Mayans exhibit a more matrifocal social structure than Western societies, the left drift in handedness appraisals suggesting an older genotype.

In another study, indigenous Americans located…

I’ve talked about the effect of sunlight on the pineal gland changing testosterone levels of immigrants from equatorial regions. Equatorial people with established, normal, daily 30% fluctuations in testosterone move to northern climates and experience fluctuations that last for months, thus compelling radical changes in a mother’s uterine testosterone levels. Unusually high or low mother’s uterine testosterone levels can cause unusually high or low testosterone levels in her children, translating into exaggerated maturational delay and acceleration (depending on the season of conception) that can contribute to autism.

In previous pieces, I’ve noted these effects on Jewish and American Black populations, with a skewing of populations toward the extremes of maturational delay and acceleration evidenced by a number of diseases and disorders characterized by these hormonal extremes. I would predict that both these populations would evidence higher percentages of autism and left-handedness, perhaps higher in places like Milwaukee and Minnesota than Houston and Miami. In just the way the Somalis in Minneapolis and St. Paul are exhibiting higher rates of autism, I would suggest that this Somali population would exhibit higher rates of left-handedness.

Another population influenced by these processes are the Latino immigrants from South and Central America. Studies could…

A superb 25-year study in the UK by Marian Annett ending in the 1990s seemed to prove that in that part of the UK, left-handedness was not increasing over time. It’s been a difficult issue to parse out, what with left-handedness being repressed before WW II. When conventional wisdom declared that forcing children to switch hands would encourage stuttering, schools withdrew from demanding all children use the right hand. A result has been that though it looks like the number of left-handers has been increasing over the decades, it is obvious that institutions stopping the repression of left-handers has skewed the numbers.

A similar effect is seen in Asia. Society has strongly encouraged that the left hand not be used. The rates of left-handedness in many parts of Asia are 2% and lower. It’s difficult to determine the true handedness percentages.

The same effect comes into play with autism. Though it seems there have been dramatic rises in autism over the last twenty years, many believe we just have more refined evaluation protocols with more attention being placed upon those individuals exhibiting unconventional behaviors.

The thesis presented in this work makes several predictions regarding handedness and autism, two issues that…

In the neuropsychological literature, there is periodic discussion on why left-handed women, women generally, as a group that are less often left-handed than men, birth more left-handed children than left-handed men.

Long story short, the three-discipline, central thesis of this website states that a mother’s uterine testosterone levels determine her children’s testosterone levels and their maturation rates.  The sexes tend to emerge as complementary opposites.  A high-testosterone (T) woman birthing high T girls and low-testosterone (t) boys.  A low t mother births high T boys and low t girls.  A person’s testosterone levels inform that person’s maturation rate.

An individual’s testosterone levels also inform their social structure proclivity.  High T females mate with low t males in our hypothetical matrifocal society.  (We hypothesize estrogen is a vital matching variable, but because we are suggesting that estrogen plays little part in the establishment of maturation rates and proclivity toward left-handedness, I’m leaving estrogen out of this part of this discussion.) When a mother’s uterine testosterone levels radically change, or a high T mother experiences environmental prods further elevating T levels, her progeny can reflect that elevation both in their testosterone levels and in their maturation rates.

What then happens…

Why are specific diseases, disorders and conditions emerging with specific populations at this specific time?  Can the principles that we have recently focused on involving estrogen and social structure lead to clearer answers than those we’ve received until now?

The foundation of this theory I’m calling my “Theory of Waves,” formerly called Shift Theory, is built from social theorist Riane Eisler’s focus on matristic society, Marxist anthropologist Chris Knight’s human evolution theory based on female choice, evolutionary psychologist Geoffrey Miller’s theorizing on sexual selection, Charles Darwin’s work on sexual selection (and Lamarckian selection), Stephen J.  Gould’s addressing heterochronic theory and neoteny, Norman Geschwind’s Cerebral Lateralization conjectures and Marian Annett’s research on random-handedness.  Simon Baron-Cohen’s recent personal encouragement that this theory is significant has provided me the confidence to begin contacting researchers and academics as I seek support and criticism of the Theory of Waves.  I am an amateur theorist with no institutional support.  The concepts herein have not been exposed to peer review.  I am not a scientist.

I view this creation as a work of art.  I pay attention to what seems interesting.  I let myself be guided by what draws me.  I am constantly sifting through patterns, feeling…

For the last two nights while I’ve been dreaming, my mind has been wrestling with an integration of testosterone and estrogen in the model that’s come together the last three weeks. Dreams, metaphors and thoughts combine to synthesize the variables and data. This morning I awoke aware that there’s been a piece that is seeking understanding.

Marian Annett has pioneered new understandings of handedness, generating a host of clues as to how humans evolved and order themselves in society. Annett hypothesizes that one might be random-handed or right-handed, with a continuum of tendencies revealing that it’s not as easy as being one or the other. With our tentative model of evolution and society formation, repeating an earlier posting…..

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We are playing with the concept of four prototype pairings, with eight prototype human beings, four in each sex. We are estimating that because the mother, at six weeks before birth, sets her children’s testosterone levels based upon her own testosterone levels (mother with high testosterone T creates low t males and high T females while a mother with low t creates low t females and high T males) that estrogen will run a similar dynamic. The result will be natural…

“Musical composers, instrumentalists, and painters were compared with nonmusicians from a student and from a nonstudent population on testosterone levels in saliva. This steroid served as a marker for physiological androgyny. The ANOVA showed a significant group by sex interaction. Male composers attained significantly lower mean testosterone values than male instrumentalists and male nonmusicians; female composers had significantly higher mean testosterone values than female instrumentalists and female nonmusicians. Painters of both sexes did not differ significantly from controls. Spatial ability was assessed in the five groups. Significant differences on spatial test performance were not reflected in differences on salivary testosterone. Our results showed that musical composers of both sexes were physiologically highly androgynous. Creative musical behavior was associated with testosterone levels that minimized sex differences.” (Hassler M (1991) Testosterone and artistic talents. Int J Neurosci 56 (1-4): 25)

Surveying papers that either directly relate to my studies or tangentially connect to what I play with, I come across paragraphs that jump out as supporting my ideas or that flail me with a totally dissonant perspective. I track both, though I store the latter with less enthusiasm. Some of the contradicting studies show in their study techniques a rather lax attention…

Marian Annett (Annett & Manning, 1990; Annett & Kilshaw, 1984) has hypothesized a balanced polymorphism in dyslexia that neatly fits with my theory of biological and societal evolution I am calling a Theory of Waves, formerly Shift Theory.  The Theory of Waves predicts a specific structure of health and disease in humans.  Nineteenth Century heterochronic theory’s descriptions of the operation of relative rate and timing changes of development and maturation are directly transposable to Annett’s (1985) right-shift theory.  It fact, superimposing Gould’s (1977) clock model of heterochronic evolution directly over Annett’s (1985) right-shift graph reveals the relationship among human evolution, the etiology of cerebral asymmetry and neurological disorders such as autism.

Right-shift theory (Annett, 1985) states that there is a gene (+) that predisposes most people for language facility.  Annett noted that there is a difference in the distribution of handedness between human and animal populations characterized by a right-shift in human beings.  This right-shift makes clear that not all humans are equally well disposed to language use.  People with a (- -) genotype (18-19 % of the population) evidence no predilection to specific handedness or cerebral asymmetry and so achieve a left- or right-handedness close to random.  People with…

The work of scientists is not often poetry. But they do reveal patterns that are profound.

“A corollary of our hypothesis is that hormonal effects on the brains of offspring may vary with the time of conception. The activity of the pineal gland changes seasonally with alterations in day length. As a general rule, during the dark winter months the pineal becomes active and suppresses both ovaries and testes, whereas in the summer it is inactive and sex hormone levels are higher. For this reason many animals bear young in the spring, an advantageous situation since temperature and food supplies are more suitable for survival. An example of such seasonal modulation of hormonal effects on the brain is observed in the HVc nucleus of the singing bird (Nottebohm 1981). This description of pineal physiology is, however, somewhat oversimplified. An animal’s sensitivity to light may vary through the year. Gonadal hormones may thus become activated in the spring, but as a result of loss of sensitivity to light over the summer hormone levels may diminish as fall approaches. Despite these facts, day length is a powerful influence. Thus, steers increase their weight more rapidly in the winter when artificial light is…

Several things contribute to an evolutionary understanding of small business formation, health, difficulty and demise.  First, there is the examination of the business model and an earnest exploration of the likelihood that the business will find its niche.  It is also important to address how the business can best get the word out that it exists and will perform its services seamlessly so that buyers will return.  For me, there is the examination of the person I am working with, noting the person’s talents, strengths and challenges, and understanding who the person is as a social being in the larger picture of the contribution the individual is seeking to make to the business community at large.

In other words, how exactly is the person I am working with complementary to the pathway he or she is walking?  What makes the person attracted to the job?  What makes the person I am working with unique?

Discussions with prospective clients usually occur in my living room.  I work out of my home.  Talking websites, we sit surrounded by books on evolution and related disciplines.

Immersed in an evolutionary theory characterized by how social structure evidences itself in behavior, physiology and neurology, I…

Writing these daily entries, I discover something new almost as often as I record something I’ve earlier discovered. It’s time to collect some of the hypotheses or predictions of this work.

1) Relative testosterone levels in males and females inform matrifocal vs. patrifocal societal structure. High T females choose low T males for their cooperative abilities, creating more egalitarian, matrifocal cultures. High T males choose low T females for their ability to be the complement to male authority, forming patrifocal cultures.

2) Autistic males, from families of left-handers, will have lower testosterone than the norm, and autistic females will have higher testosterone. In any study of autism, those with familial male maturation delay tendencies, families of left-handers, need to be evaluated separately from those possibly traumatized by an environmental effect.

3) Larger penis and testicle size will be associated with autistic, ambidextrous males and the familial left-handed.

4) Autistic males will exhibit more neotenous characteristics while autistic females should show less neoteny than contemporary populations.

5) If larger testicles and increased sperm production are associated with low-testosterone, promiscuous social-structure males, the two variables will be related in that higher-testosterone males will have smaller testicles or lower sperm production.

6) Left-handed…

I’ve started collecting gestural communications.  When a particularly adept practitioner of hand language appears before me, I take note and pay attention to what he or she is doing.  So far, most of those people have been left-handed and male.  There are exceptions.

In college, about midway through my sophomore year, I had a girlfriend for about ten days.  It so happened that we hooked up about three days before my mom came to visit.  I lived in a single in the men’s dorm.  Dorms had 32 units on two floors and didn’t exactly stay sexually segregated.  There was no monitoring, so by January there were a lot of girls living in boy’s dorms and vice versa.  It was 1972.

I’d achieved the golden ring of dorm living by happening upon the strategy of asking guys to be my roommate who were registering but knew they weren’t coming back the next term.  They’d not show, and the school would offer me a single.  When Mom came to visit, delighted I had a girlfriend (to her knowledge, the first girlfriend I’d ever had), Mom proposed she stay in my room during her visit and I live with Gaia in her girl’s…

A conundrum frequently reveals itself during my observations of left-handed people. An answer to this riddle seems to be connected to an understanding of how bridges, brain bridges, are made.

Lefties are often the most articulate folks I know. Many creative people, folks that drift toward the left end of this arc of maturational delay, are unusually articulate. These are the older-genotype, matrifocal-social-structure naturals, who are high testosterone females and low testosterone males. Obama and three of our last four presidents were left-handed. Bush W. is right handed. Articulateness seems to often accompany the left-handed.

There are major exceptions.

There are those that are left-handed because of trauma to the left hemisphere, which controls the right side of the body. I don’t know the studies that estimate the percentage of trauma-induced lefties, but a marker is if a left-handed person has no left-handers in the family, and another one is if the right hand is extremely nondextrous, in which case the likelihood increases. These folks don’t normally exhibit the skill/talent structures of the maturational delayed, which can include unusual verbal facility.

Then, there are those that are autistic.

The autistic are extremely maturational delayed, often left-handed, sometimes even ambidextrous and…

I study conditions characterized by maturational delay with the idea that those individuals represent an older matrifocal social-structure precursor to the patrifocal people around today.  Our time is an era of synthesis as a very ancient matrifocal and a 6,500-year-old patrifocal social structure merge.  This merger is the social equivalent of our two brain hemispheres becoming balanced, with the unconscious and the conscious becoming friends.  Imagine what life would be like if our unconscious didn’t feel that so much content needed to be hidden.  Imagine the resources that would be available if energies weren’t devoted to keeping up barriers between conscious and unconscious material.  Ways to cross the line to the unconscious is one of the specialties of the matrifocal-focused.  It is one of the gifts they bring to the integration.  These are the artists, dancers, musicians, gifted athletes and the autistic.

I make a number of predictions concerning autism.  Some have been supported by the literature, some have been ambiguously supported and some go unsupported where no studies have been done.  I propose that the following apply to autistics that come from families exhibiting maturational delay, such as left-handedness.  The specifics of how this model makes these predictions can…

Running a web development firm, growing a national organization that now has almost 1,000 participating organizations, involving myself in many local social-change (peace, environment, justice) organizations and making daily contributions to this blog, I’m not left with much time to study.  Having disappeared into the rabbit hole of academic benders several times in my life, I’m left at this point with examining my environment for patterns, reading the occasional book and referring to my several hundred pages of digital notes (mostly excerpts sorted by subject) and a database of mythological motifs.

During my last intellectual binge, I transcribed notes and abstracts from several hundred papers and almost two hundred books, sorting the notes by subject.  I was planning to go back to the notes while writing a book on the practical and philosophical applications of a new theory of biological evolution.  The start of that book is located at sexualselection.org.  Almost 200 pages into this blog for over six months, I’m concluding that this work is that book, having crossed a line from science into art.

A problem with an examination of my personal experiences is that once I form a hypothesis and seek support for that hypothesis with what…

Watching TV and observing media, one notes that different ideals of beauty are exposed. From the orientation of social-structure representatives of the two primary paradigms, media offer a unique perspective of matrifocal and patrifocal beauty points of view.

Neoteny is physically represented in specific facial features. A matrifocal social structure encourages the selection of males exhibiting neotenous characteristics, which would include smaller jaw, bigger eyes and possibly a more lanky build. The male would be altogether more gracile than robust. Females would tend to be less neotenous than their patrifocal counterparts, with a more square jaw and stocky presence.

In a patrifocal social structure, macho men are choosing demure women for their neotenous tendencies. Western female beauty frames are engaged. The woman has smaller jaws, seemingly bigger eyes, a more petite frame and features of the young. Blonde hair and blue eyes are often characteristics of infants that fade with time. As a neotenous feature, blue-eyed blondes are classic patrifocal female beauty markers. But for hair and eye color, Asian females exhibit many of the features of a beautiful patriarchal woman. The classic handsome patrifocal man has a square jaw and robust build, which are non-neotenous characteristics.

Media expose us…

Autism expert Simon Baron-Cohen has a theory that the autistic male shows evidence of a brain that is too male for his own good, the autistic personality being male to the extreme, evidencing exaggerated male characteristics. For example, the autistic is not just a little dissociated and abstract, but very dissociated and abstract. Baron-Cohen suggests that exposure to high levels of testosterone in the mother’s womb in combination with an absence of testosterone surges that prune early childhood synapse production that create a right-handed (as opposed to random-handed) person combine to encourage the emergence of autism.

Still enamored of natural selection, medical theorists explore the etiologies, or origins, of conditions and disorders encumbered by a theory structure that supports a narrow, patrifocal point of view. Informed by the fertile, earlier work of Norman Geschwin, Baron-Cohen has noted some of the most important clues to understanding how humans evolved and autism develops, but he is unable to see the larger picture.

Autism is an evolutionary condition. Ontogeny recapitulating phylogeny, Geschwin and Baron-Cohen’s clues are major interstate intersections on the roadmap of Homo sapien’s unfolding. When navigating across country, we look at the map and then use our eyes to read the…