(…) For instance, the present population of Latin America [o livro é de 1976] is around 300 million, and already many of them are under-nourished. But if the population continued to increase at the present rate, it would take less than 500 years to reach the point where the people, packed in a standing position, formed a solid human carpet over the whole area of the continent. This is so, even if we assume them to be very skinny – a not unrealistic assumption. In 1,000 years from now they would be standing on each other’s shoulders more than a million deep. By 2,000 years, the mountain of people, travelling outwards at the speed of light, would have reached the edge of the known universe.

It will not have escaped you that this is a hypothetical calculation! It will not really happen like that for some very good practical reasons. The names of some of these reasons are famine, plague, and war; or, if we are lucky, birth control. It is no use appealing to advances in agricultural science – ‘green revolutions’ and the like. Increases in food production may temporarily alleviate the problem, but it is mathematically certain that they cannot be a long-term solution; indeed, like the medical advances that have precipitated the crisis, they may well make the problem worse, by speeding up the rate of population expansion. It is a simple logical truth that, short of mass emigration into space, with rockets taking off at a rate of several million per second, uncontrolled birth-rates are bound to lead to horribly increased death-rates. It is hard to believe that this simple truth is not understood by those leaders who forbid their followers to use effective contraceptive methods. They express a preference for ‘natural’ methods of population limitation, and a natural method is exactly what they are going to get. It is called starvation.

The Selfish Gene, de Richard Dawkins. Chapter 7, Family Planning.

O negrito é meu.

Fiz a escolha certa mesmo: depois de todo aquele nhém-nhém-nhém de abraão, david, turn the other cheek, evangelhos e coisa e tal, só mesmo Dawkins pra me trazer de volta à realidade (que, não me canso de repetir, é muito, muito mais bonita):

**

There is a better reason for studying zoology than its possible ‘usefulness’, and the general likeableness of animals. This reason is that we animals are the most complicated and perfectly-designed pieces of machinery in the known universe. Put it like that, and it is hard to see why anybody studies anything else!

(“Preface to the first edition”)

If we were told that a man had lived a long and prosperous life in the world of Chicago gangsters, we would be entitled to make some guesses as to the sort of man he was. We might expect that he would have qualities such as toughness, a quick trigger finger, and the ability to attract loyal friends. These would not be infallible deductions, but you can make some inferences about a man’s character if you know something about the conditions in which he has survived and prospered. The argument of this book is that we, and all other animals, are machines created by our genes. Like successful Chicago gangsters, our genes have survived, in some cases for millions of years, in a highly competitive world. This entitles us to expect certain qualities in our genes. I shall argue that a predominant quality to be expected in a successful gene is ruthless selfishness. This gene selfishness will usually give rise to selfishness in individual behaviour. However, as we shall see, there are special circumstances in which a gene can achieve its own selfish goals best by fostering a limited form of altruism at the level of individual animals. ‘Special’ and ‘limited’ are important words in the last sentence. Much as we might wish to believe otherwise, universal love and the welfare of the species as a whole are concepts that simply do not make evolutionary sense.

(chapter 1 – Why Are People?)

The Selfish Gene – Richard Dawkins

Whoever the Beloved Disciple was – that is, the Johannine church’s original eyewitness – he had a sharp eye and a keen ear, for he picked up on details ignored by the other evangelists. In many of Jesus’s encounters, the dialogue has the quick, prickly humor of the Greek theatrical comedy. After Philip is called by Jesus, he runs into Nathaniel (to be identified perhaps with the Bartholomew of the Synoptic tradition) and exclaims:

“We’ve found the One that Moses
wrote about in the Torah and the
prophets wrote about, too – he’s
Jesus bar-Joseph from Nazareth!”

“Nazareth! Please. What good
ever came out of Nazareth?”

Desire of the Everlasting Hills, de Thomas Cahill

Adorei esse pedaço. Mas não vejo a hora de acabar; que livro chatinho. Acho que vou encarar outro Dawkins depois, pra amenizar os efeitos jesuíticos desse aqui.

Comecei Desire of the Everlasting Hills, sempre do Cahill, sobre o mundo antes e depois de Jesus. Eu, que não entendo nada dessas coisas, estou aprendendo pra burro. Mas estou achando tudo tão parcial… Meio jesuítico, sabe. Tenho a sensação de estar dentro de um livro de catequismo. Uma certa irritação. Mas conhecimento nunca é demais.

Besides the innovation of speaking the unspoken moral law aloud, one should note the lesser – but hardly unimportant – innovation of the weekend, which got its start in the Jewish Sabbath (or “Ceasing”). No ancient society before the Jews had a day of rest. The God who made the universe and rested bids us do the same, calling us to a weekly restoration of prayer, study, and recreation (or re-creation). In this study (or talmud), we have the beginnings of what Nahum Sarna has called “the universal duty of continuous self-education”, Israel being the first human society to so value education and the first to envision it as a universal pursuit – and a democratic obligation that those in power must safeguard on behalf of those in their employ. The connections to both freedom and creativity lie just beneath the surface of this commandment: leisure is appropriate to a free people, and this people so recently free find themselves quickly establishing this quiet weekly celebration of their freedom; leisure is the necessary ground of creativity, and a free people are free to imitate the creativity of God. The Sabbath is surely one of the simplest and sanest recommendations any god has ever made; and those who live without such septimanal punctuation are emptier and less resourceful.

The Gifts of the Jews, de Thomas Cahill

Nem de longe tão interessante quanto o How the Irish… Mas é porque eu tenho uma quedinha pelos celtas, eu sei.

Aproveitei que já tinha terminado uma tradução com data de entrega semana que vem, e li rapidinho, no trabalho mesmo, French Women Don’t Get Fat, de Mireille Guiliano. Una cazzaaaaaaaaaata. Sei lá, acho que eu estava esperando algo na linha dos livros de Peter Mayle, uma coisa mais culture clash, não sei. Mas o livro é cheio de francesismos, cheio da promoção do French lifestyle, mas não do modo divertentemente arrogante e resmungão dos franceses. Parece propaganda mesmo. Se você for contar quantas vezes aparece “we French women” no texto, vai dar vontade de vomitar. Mas a última gota foi mesmo “isotonic exercises are very French”. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Vale só pelas receitas.

She was a fat, jolly woman in those days, and she liked to see children pleased and happy around her. In this she was in no way exceptional, in Saint-Féliu or anywhere else, but she was exceptional for Saint-Féliu in that she succeeded – succeeded, that is, in making them pleased and happy when they were with her. It was not that she was clever – far from that. She was rather a stupid woman, and given to long spells of absence, during which she would stare in front of her like a glazed cow, thinking of nothing at all; but by some gift of being she was better at the management of a child than any woman in the quarter. It may have been her plumpness, for fat people are said to be calm of spirit, or it may have been some natural sweetness, but whatever the cause, the house never knew those screaming, tearing scenes that broke out three or four times a day somewhere along the street, those horribly commonplace rows in which a woman, dark with hatred and anger, may be seen dragging a child by the arm, flailing at its head, and screaming, screaming, screaming a great piercing flood of abuse, sarcasm and loathing right into its convulsed and wretched little face. These scenes were so ordinary in Saint-Féliu that anyone turning to stare would be known at once for a foreigner.

***

Dominique could not be shocked by what she had seen for all her life – could not react from the normal – but she was exceptional, and she remained exceptional. She did not batter her little girl about, she did not pull her hair, she did not slap her legs and shriek abuse at her – her voice did not even possess the bitter scolding note of the daily shrew. this was something so rare that it would have earned her the dislike of the street (no people are quicker to resent an implied criticism) if it had not been for the fact that Madeleine was, in general, somewhat less irritating than the other children: therefore, of course, there was no virtue in Dominique’s not beating her. Not that Madeleine was what could by any distortion of the term be called a good child, whatever the neighbors might say: she was dirty (when she was a little girl), untruthful, and dishonest. But being less battered, she was less dirty, untruthful, and dishonest than the rest. Certainly she was less irritating, for not only was she endowed with a happy, affectionate nature, but also with a mother who was protected from the smaller vexations of the world by well-ordered nerves and a high degree of mental calm: for in the matter of irritation, it is essential that there whould be two people present; the worst-bred ape of a child cannot be irritating alone in a howling wilderness, and Madeleine, even at the worst, could not provoke a mother removed by a boundless expanse of absence, sitting at her counter or leaning on it, with her eyes round, wide open, and fixed upon nothing, nothing whatever.

***

Yes, that would be his Uncle Thomas, called Menjé-Pé, a fanatical fisherman: he was fishing now. He was one of the few in the family who still had a current nick-name, Fish-eater, and who did not mind it: for most of the family the called-names had been left behind a generation ago. But Menjé-Pé was something of a throwback; was it because he always spoke Catalan or was it because he was a simple that they still called him Menjé-Pé? Not the latter, for Uncl Joseph was gaga, and he had no nickname. He was flailing about. Had he caught something? No. In all probability he had just caught up his hook and lead and lost them. Sixty years ago Menjé-Pé had started fishing; he was fourteen then, and he had the zeal and the lack of skill of his age. He still had the same zeal, but somehow he had avoided gaining any skill: he caught nothing but idiot fish.

***

‘Oh, you are not going to start your piece of democracy again, are you, Alain? Of course, I know one has to say all kinds of fine things in public, but no one really believes it, do they? Except the lower classes. They are very good people, often, astonishingly good when you consider what kind of lives they lead, bt it is just hypocritical nonsense to pretend that they are not brutish, insensitive, gross, and terribly, terribly limited. There is just as much difference between a man of an educated family that has had money for two or three generations and a laborer as there is between a white man and one of your Hottentots, as anyone knows who has lived or worked among them.’

‘Is Madeleine a Hottentot?’

‘No. But her relations are: and staying here, Xavier would of necessity marry them all. (…)’

The Catalans (Patrick O’Brian).

Fin da allora temevo come la peste chi mi chiedeva di versare sangue per purificare la mia anima. Non volevo credere alle valli di lacrime né a quelle di tenebre: ci sono altri posti più affascinanti e meno irragionevoli intorno a noi. Mio padre diceva: “Chi ti racconta ch eesiste una sinfonia più bella del respiro che ti anima, mente. Odia quanto hai di meglio: la possibilità di approfittare di ogni istante della tua vita. Se parti dal principio che il tuo peggior nemico è colui che tenta di seminare l’odio nel tuo cuore, avrai conosciuto metà della felicità. Il resto ti basterà tendere la mano per raccoglierlo. Ricorda: non c’è niente, assolutamente niente, che valga la tua vita… E la tua vita non vale quella degli altri”.

**

“Perché?” digrigno i denti, offeso dalle mie stesse parole. “Perché sacrificare gli uni per la felicità degli altri? Di solito sono i migliori, i più coraggiosi che scelgono di donare la propria vita per la salvezza di chi se ne sta rintanato al sicuro. Allora, perché privilegiare il sacrificio di quei giusti per consentire ai meno giusti di sopravvivere? Non trovi che così si deteriori la specie umana? Cosa resterà, tra qualche generazione, se sono sempre i migliori a essere chiamati ad andarsene affinché i vigliacchi, gli ipocriti, i ciarlatani e i farabutti continuino a proliferare come topi?”

**

“La vita di un uomo vale molto di più di un sacrificio, per quanto supremo possa essere” confessa sostenendo il mio sguardo. “Perché la più grande, la più giusta, la più nobile delle cause sulla Terra è il diritto alla vita…”

L’Attentatrice, de Yasmina Khadra (nom de plume de Mohammed Moulessehoul).

De hecho, escribir novelas es lo más parecido que he encontrado a enamorarme (o más bien lo único parecido), con la apreciable ventaja de que en la escritura no necesitas la colaboración di otra persona.

***

Qué hago yo aquí, me dije, en este apartamento extraño, en esta Torre absurda. Por qué me he venido con este tipo, con quien no consigo intercambiar dos frases. Peor aún, por qué demonios se habrá venido él conmigo, si en realidad no podemos entendernos, si en realidad no he podido seducirle con lo mejor de mí, que es lo que digo. No, si lo que sucede es que él se hubiera acostado con cualquiera, le hubiera dado igual una chica o otra, así son los hombres; claro, todo estaba ya previsto, desde que quedamos ya se suponía que íbamos a terminar en la cama, qué cosa más convencional y más estúpida, y él qué se habrá creído, él se debe de pensar que es irresistible porque es famoso y guapo y estrella de Hollywood, habrase visto cretino semejante. Y así, mientras el pobre M. dormitaba como un bendito junto a mí, me fui enconando con unas elucubraciones cada vez más furibundas, hasta que terminé asfixiada de ira justiciera.

Alcanzado este punto de enrabietamiento, decidí que no podía pasar ni un segundo más con semejante monstruo. Me levanté muy despacio, me vestí con un cuidado primoroso para no despertarle, recogí mis cosas y salí de puntillas de la casa con los zapatos en la mano. Recuerdo que tardé un tiempo infinito en cerrar la puerta del apartamento, para que el resbalón no restallara. Después, sintiéndome libre al fin como si me hubiera escapado de un campo de prisioneros, bajé y bajé por el vericueto de ascensores, con la cabeza greñuda, la ropa desarreglada, la boca laminada por los pitillos, los ojos despintados y corridos. Y cuando al fin alcancé la planta baja y salí a la calle, descubrí dos cosas desconcertantes: una, que era completa y cegadoramente de día (en ésas miré el reloj y comprobé que eran las diez y media de la mañana), y dos, que habían desaparecido los demás vehículos y mi coche estaba huérfano y abandonado encima de la acera, en realidad en mitad del parque, porque lo que había enfrente de la Torre era un parque lleno de señoras con carritos de niños paseando en la plácida mañana del domingo, y mi coche ahí trepado, espectacular en su color rojo y su soledad.

La Loca de la Casa, de Rosa Monteiro

Es-pe-ta-cu-lar. Se algum dia eu sentir falta de rezar pra alguém, vou fazer um altar pro meu DNA lingüístico que me permite entender coisas desse tipo assim, na língua original. Obrigada, DNA. Você é lindo e eu te amo (mas aquela parte da compulsão alimentar era mesmo necessária…?).

A mutant gene in a beaver is just a change in one letter of the billion-letter text; a change in a particular gene G. As the young beaver grows, the change is copied, together with all the other letters in the text, into the beaver’s cells. In most of the cells the gene G is not read; other genes, relevant to the workings of the other cell types, are. G is read, however, in some cells in the developing brain. It is read and transcribed into RNA copies. The RNA working copies drift around the interior of the cells, and eventually some of them bump into protein-making machines called ribosomes. The protein-making machines read the RNA working plans, and turn out new protein molecules to their specification. These protein molecules curl up into a particular shape determined by their own amino-acid sequence, which in turn is governed by the DNA code sequence of the gene G. When G mutates, the change makes a crucial difference to the amino-acid sequence normally specified by the gene G, and hence to the coiled-up shape of the protein molecule.

These slightly altered protein molecules are mass-produced by the protein-making machines inside the developing brain cells. They in turn act as enzymes, machines that manufacture other compounds in the cells, the gene products. The products of the gene G find their way into the membrane surrounding the cell, and are involved in the processes whereby the cell makes connections with other cells. Because of the slight alteration in the original DNA plans, the production-rate of certain of these membrane compounds is changed. This in turn changes the way in which certain developing brain cells connect up with one another. A subtle alteration in the wiring diagram of a particular part of the beaver’s brain has occurred, the indirect, indeed far-removed, consequence of a change in the DNA text.

Now it happens that this particular part of the beaver’s brain, because of its position in the total wiring diagram, is involved in the beaver’s dam-building behaviour. Of course, large parts of the brain are involved whenever the beaver builds a dam but, when the G mutation affects this particular part of the brain’s wiring diagram, the change has a specific effect on the behaviour. It causes the beaver to hold its head higher in the water while swimming with a log in its jaws. Higher, that is, than a beaver without the mutation. This makes it a little less likely that mud, attached to the log, will wash off during the journey. This increases the stickiness of the log, which in turn means that, when the beaver thrusts it into the dam, the log is more likely to stay there. This will tend to apply to all the logs placed by any beaver bearing this particular mutation. The increased stickiness of the logs is a consequence, again a very indirect consequence, of an alteration in the DNA text.

The increases stickiness of the logs makes the dam a sounder structure, less likely to break up. This in turn increases the size of the lake created by the dam, which makes the lodge in the centre of the lake more secure against predators. This tends to increase the number of offspring successfully reared by the beaver. If we look at the whole population of beavers, those that possess the mutated gene will, on average, tend therefore to rear more offspring than those not possessing the mutated gene. Those offspring will tend to inherit archive copies of the self-same altered gene from their parents. Therefore, in the population, this form of gene will become more numerous as the generations go by. Eventually it will  become the norm, and will no longer deserve the title “mutant”. Beaver dams in general will have improved another notch.

The fact that this particular story is hypothetical, and that the details may be wrong, is irrelevant. The beaver dam evolved by natural selection, and therefore what happened cannot be very different, except in practical details, from the story I have told. (…) You will notice that in this hypothetical story there were no fewer than 11 links in the causal chain linking altered gene to improved survival. In real life there might be even more. Every one of those links, whether it is an effect on the chemistry inside a cell, a later effect on how brain cells wire themselves together, an even later effect on behaviour, or a final effect on lake size, is correctly regarded as caused by a change in the DNA. It wouldn’t matter if there were 111 links. Any effect that a change in a gene has on its own replication probability is fair game for natural selection. It is all perfectly simple, and delightfully automatic and unpremeditated. Something like this is well-nigh inevitable, once the fundamental ingredients of cumulative selection – replication, error and power – have come into existence in the first place.(…)

The Blind Watchmaker (Richard Dawkins) – Chapter V – The power and the archives (o negrito é meu)

**

Eu acho tudo isso de uma beleza indescritível. Como é possível alguém precisar de deus sabendo de todas essas coisas? A vida é infinitamente mais bonita vista pela biologia do que pela religião. Qualquer uma. É chocante de tanto que é bonita. Chocante.