Tuesday, January 20, 2009 - Oliver Lee Memorial State Park, Alamogordo NM
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Indian wells, Oliver Lee Memorial State Park, Alamogordo NM, January 20, 2009
Indian wells
To quote the nearby interpretive sign:
Mortar Holes
These cylindrical mortar holes were used by prehistoric people who made frequent use of Dog Canyon. Mortars are often referred to as "Indian wells" because they collect rain water, but they were actually created as a result of food processing. Hand-held pestles were used to grind wild seeds and beans into flour, creating mortars in the bedrock over many years. A total of 39 mortars have been located in this area.
I'm getting antsy.
It's time to move on and I'll probably go over to Leasburg Dam State Park, Radium Springs NM, a few miles north of Las Cruces.
On the way over I would like to stop at a Home Depot to repair my leaking fresh water tank inlet hose. I replaced that hose back when I was repairing the big water leak damage and I had trouble getting the hose pushed onto the barb fitting at the elbow into the tank. The working conditions aren't great - it's behind a drawer under the kitchen counter - and I'm not entirely sure what I messed up so making the repair in their parking lot has the big advantage of my not having to pick up my mess and drive into town every time I come up a part short.
Water tank inlet, September 23, 2007
Night camp
Site 7 - Oliver Lee Memorial State Park, Alamogordo NM
- Verizon cell phone service - good signal
- Verizon EVDO service - very good signal and access speed ( I have to qualify this - during my January 2008 visit the signal and access speed was excellent - in January 2009 it was practically non-existent during the day and slow at night with unpredictable short periods of excellent access)
- Go to Oliver Lee Memorial State Park website
- Go to Oliver Lee Memorial State Park on my Nightcamps 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.