Wednesday, December 23, 2009 - Ghost Ranch, Abiquiu NM
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Crosshatch v2, Ghost Ranch, Abiquiu NM, December 22, 2009
"Objective painting is not good painting unless it is good in the abstract sense. A hill or tree cannot make a good painting just because it is a hill or tree. It is lines and colors put together so that they may say something." - Georgia O'Keeffe
It snowed quietly here last night and all day today, about 4 inches. That's the most snow I've seen in 3 years, quite beautiful. Tomorrow Kate and I hope to get out for a drive around the Ranch to see how this gorgeous scenery looks under a blanket of snow. Maybe we can get some more interesting pictures.
I was going to leave Christmas day to begin my trek to Henderson NV but I've decided to stay the weekend in light of all the breakdowns I've suffered with this old rig - especially on holiday weekends! Breakdowns are no fun anytime but getting help on a holiday can be a real trial. Take last New Years eve for instance.
Staying the weekend has its own challenges. The current forecast is for temps of 5 below zero tomorrow night and Christmas night. Yikes! Anything below 20 degrees starts getting uncomfortable in this poorly insulated rig. There is serious downdrafts along the single pane windows and the floor is poorly insulated and cold. It's a good thing we like an occasional adventure.
Night camp
Ghost Ranch Campground, Abiquiu NM
- This is a basic, small campground with full hookups.
- Verizon cell phone and Broadband service are not available here.
- Locate Ghost Ranch on my Night Camps map
- Check the weather here
Genetic Determinism and Human Nature
The "implication" that seems to worry people the most is so-called genetic determinism - the notion that if human nature was shaped by evolution, then it's fixed and we're simply stuck with it; there's nothing we can do about it. We can never change the world to be the way we want; we can never institute fairer societies - policy-making and politics are pointless.
Now, that's a complete misunderstanding. It doesn't distinguish between human nature - our evolved psychology - and the behavior that results from it. Certainly, human nature is fixed. It's universal and unchanging, common to every baby that's born, down through the history of our species.But human behavior, which is generated by that nature, is endlessly variable and diverse. After all, fixed rules can give rise to an inexhaustible range of outcomes. Natural selection equipped us with the fixed rules - the rules that constitute our human nature. And it designed those rules to generate behavior that's sensitive to the environment. So the answer to genetic determinism is simple. If you want to change behavior, just change the environment.