The value of a life

How does one compare the importance of, for example, a bug's life versus a human's life? Most people would consider the human's life to be more important, but this is just a result of natural selection, our species having discovered that by helping each other survive, we increase the chance that our genes, either our's or a relative's who carries many of the same genes, will be passed to the next generation.

Other people would say that all lives are equally valuable. Still others might extend that level of importance only to mammals, reptiles, etc., but may not be so sure about bugs and bacteria. Some might argue that all lives are equal on a cosmic scale, but that, just as lions may be justified in killing a gazelle for its food, we are also justified in killing what we need to kill in order to survive.

I would like to put forth an argument that all lives are not equal on the cosmic scale, and a criteria for comparing the relative values of an individual life of a particular species.

To begin with, what do we mean when we say a life is important? Important to whom? On a truly cosmic scale, I would say that life simply isn't important at all. I guess I'm talking about a slightly modified "cosmic scale" where "whom" is anything that cares. For example, a wood rat cares about the lives of its offspring, but probably doesn't care to much about us. The value of a life is therefore determined by how much other lives care whether or not it keeps on living.

One thing that is important to all species, whether consciously or not, is the continuation of its gene pool. Therefore, we can calculate this element of a life's importance by taking the importance of the gene pool and dividing it by the number of lives in the gene pool. If we assume all gene pools are equally important, we can compare the value of a human's life with that of a bug by looking at the comparing the number of people in the world with the number of that type of bug.

Of course, that leaves open the question of how to compare the relative importance of different gene pools. Unfortunately, I hadn't really thought all that out before I started this blog, and I have to start getting ready for work, so I'll have to leave that as an excercise for the reader. :)

Another element to consider is the importance of a life to other lives. For example, a tree helps support many insects and birds, so the trees life is important not only to its own gene pool, but to the other gene pools as well.

Hail to the farmers

Having said that, the real heroes of humanity are the farmers, not the doctors. Doctors help preserve existing lives, but in doing so they create a need for birth control, preventing further births; the total number of lives on the earth must remain roughly the same. Farmers, on the other hand, have been able to increase production of food over the years, thus allowing the earth to support more human lives. Of course, this is partly at the expense of animal lives, but one must have one's priorities.

A lot of credit should also go to the develpers and manufacturers of pesticides, since they also help provide more food for the world.

Um, make that "more food for humanity". Without the pesticides, the food would still be there, it would just go to "pests" instead of to us.

Life and Death

Most people would consider death a bad thing, but I'm not so sure. Death is just the other end of life from birth. Without death there can be no new life. The earth is like a Merry-Go-'Round. Someone has to get off before anyone else can get on.

Inappropriate Language

Tonight was open house night at my kid's school. (Okay, technically it was last night because it's now 1:02 in the morning). I have three kids, two of which are in Elementary School. While we were looking over the projects that my oldest son had done, I saw one paper on which the teacher had written "Inappropriate Language" on. My son had written a paper arguing against the banning of the "Harry Potter" books. At one point, after mentioning something about people who wanted to ban the books, he had written "screw them". He claims that he didn't know that these were bad words, and he probably didn't. I know my son pretty well, and I know he knows that he's not supposed to use "inappropriate language", and even though he may occasionally use it, I know he would never knowingly use it in a school paper.

At the time, I was very embarrassed that my son had used this language on a school paper, and especially that I had found out about it with a lot of other parents around, and I gave him a hard time about it. Now I feel bad about that. Certainly my son needs to know that this language is not appropriate, but he's a good boy, and he's probably telling the truth, and I really should have stood up for him. Anyway, I wanted to get that in here, but that's not really what this post is about. What I really want to talk about is whether or not this language is really inappropriate.

I've heard a phrase before which goes "Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!". I don't know if this comes from real life or from a movie, but either way it's irrelevant as far as this argument goes. The point is that it was said in a war time situation full of bravery and such, and with a bunch of soldiers nearby. I'm pretty sure nobody whispered "Ooh, he said a bad word" after that. In this situation, the use of that word was entirely appropriate. In fact, it inspired the men to further bravado, and potentially could have saved their's and other's lives. Inspiring people can make them more effective, and "inappropriate language", in the right situation, can be very inspiring.

Now that's just one situation in which "inappropriate language" can be appropriate, but that situation is entirely different from the one in which my son used his language. Let's assume for a moment that he knew the words were inappropriate, and further that he knew what the words meant, and he understood the impact that those words would have on someone reading his paper. He was speaking out against a bunch of (I need a word here for people who try to force their ideals on other people) who were trying to force their ideals on other people. I'm not going to go into whether or not the Harry Potter books good or evil, the point is that everyone has the right to form their own opinions on the subject. If you don't like the Harry Potter books, don't read them, but don't force everyone else not to read them too. God gave men free will. These people are trying to take it away from us.

I believe that such (same word here as above, but in verb form) is truly evil, and speaking out against it often justifies a level of vehemence that normal language cannot easily convey. Does that make such language appropriate? When used well, I think it can make the delivery of your point more effective, and I think that does justify its use.

Such language can be appropriate in the right context, but matching the correct language to the current context can be difficult. If you use such language inappropriately, it can, at the very least, distract from your message. It can also turn people against you, or cause them to lose respect for your ideas. Was it appropriate in this case? What better place to learn about when such language is appropriate than in school? On the other hand, it's also important to learn when such language isn't appropriate, and it's probably not appropriate in a 5th grade paper. Certainly my son's teacher was sufficiently distracted by the language to make a note of it, and that probably didn't help his argument any. On the other hand, if it's never considered appropriate in school, then our students are robbed of an opportunity to learn how to use it appropriately, so maybe it should be considered appropriate in some cases. On the other hand, I think most people would like to keep the use of such language fairly rare, and to do that, I believe it is best to first teach our children that such language is inappropriate, and then let them learn through real-life examples when it can be used effectively.