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Wednesday, September 27, 2017 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon
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Jonah
Goldberg
Letters to the Editor…
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ters to the Editor is an open forum for the community and contains unsolicited opinions not necessarily shared by the Editor.
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To the Editor:
Thank you to all the wonderful people who
joined us for the two “Journey’s Flight” book
publishing parties we had at the middle school
and at the chamber building.
It was such a wonderful time that some of
us would like to try to make this an annual
event. After all, the monarchs begin their
southern migration in mid-September of each
year. Why not hold a celebration for them
which would offer us a wonderful opportunity
to educate students and the public about the
need to help these vital pollinators survive,
which is critical to our food chain?
If you would like to help with next
year’s event, please contact me at harryand
lolabooks@gmail.com.
Jean Nave
Contributing author and publisher of
“Journey’s Flight”
s
s
s
To the Editor:
One of the first things Oregon’s Republican
Secretary of State Dennis Richardson did
after being elected in November was to form
the “Fair Redistricting Task Force.” In April,
he announced a complex plan that would give
more power to his own office in redistricting
decisions.
With Oregon due for a sixth congressio-
nal district after the 2020 census, Richardson
may get a chance to put his new plan into
action.
Indivisible: Sisters, Oregon, is worried
about this new, untested redistricting pro-
cess. If this also scares you, please join us on
Saturday, October 7 in watching the one-hour
film “Democracy for Sale” and discussing
the possible fallout. There will be two show-
ings, at 3:30 and 6 p.m. at the Sisters Library
meeting room, followed by a 30-minute
discussion.
Will the Supreme Court make new rules
to prevent gerrymandering, or will the con-
servative justices avoid this issue? Make your
reservation at EventBrite now! Seating is
limited.
Paula Surmann
Sisters Weather Forecast
Courtesy of the National Weather Service, Pendleton, Oregon
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday
Saturday
Sunday
Monday
Sunny
Sunny
Chance Rain
Chance Rain
Mostly Sunny
Chance Showers
74/38
78/44
69/41
56/37
57/39
59/38
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One of my favorite kinds
of news stories is the report
of a new scientific study
that verifies the obvious.
New research finds that het-
erosexual men are attracted
to very attractive women.
But some research that
corroborates the obvious
is exciting because some
people refuse to accept the
obvious.
Which brings me to the
work of Dr. Gregory Berns,
a neuroscientist at Emory
University and the author
of “What It’s Like to Be a
Dog.” Berns has, from what
I can tell, the best gig in
neuroscience. He spends all
day taking pictures of dog
brains. He uses magnetic
resonance imaging to study
what’s going on in Fido’s
head.
And what did Berns
discover? Something that
almost every dog owner in
the world could have told
you: Dogs aren’t faking it
when they act like they love
you.
Berns and his team con-
firmed this through a host
of tests that looked at dif-
ferent centers of the dog-
gie brain and how they
responded to different stim-
uli. In one test they alter-
nated between giving the
pooches hot dogs and offer-
ing them praise. Looking at
the pleasure centers of the
dogs’ brains, the research-
ers found that nearly all the
dogs responded to “Who’s a
good boy?! You are!” with
at least as much pleasure
as when they got a Hebrew
National. A fifth of the dogs
actually preferred praise to
food.
Berns concluded that
dogs derive as much plea-
sure from love as from food.
As almost anyone who
has come home to their dog
after an extended absence
will tell you, dogs don’t go
bonkers for missing loved
ones solely because they
think there’s a meal in it for
them.
And yet, there are people
who argue almost precisely
that. There’s what I would
call the dumb version and
the smart version of that
particular school of thought.
The dumb version, as the
label suggests, is dumb.
It can be found in people
who say things like, “Dogs
just lick you for the salt,”
or, “It’s just an animal; you
shouldn’t care about its
feelings.”
The smart version has
more merit. Evolutionary
psychologists and other sci-
entists label dogs “social
parasites” or, in the words
of some, “con artists.” They
claim that dogs evolved
from wolves to exploit our
weakness for cuteness. They
also note that dogs evolved
an ability found almost
nowhere else in the animal
world: to read human body
language and expressions.
Indeed, Berns found evi-
dence of this in his MRI
studies.
Some, rightly, reject the
term “parasitism” in favor
of “mutualism,” because
while dogs certainly ben-
efitted from the warmth of
cavemen’s campfires and
the tossed scraps from their
mastodon kills, they also
made important contribu-
tions as guard dogs and
hunters. Pat Shipman even
speculates in “The Invaders:
How Humans and Their
Dogs Drove Neanderthals
to Extinction” that dogs
gave us a competitive
advantage against our (pre-
sumably) hated rivals, the
Neanderthals. Dogs — or
proto-wolf/dogs—weren’t
so much pets as allies in
hunting big game, helping
us evolve as a cooperative
species.
I think that’s all true, or
at least quite plausible. But
what it leaves out is the
ingredient missing in almost
all discussions of evolved
behavior and genetic pro-
gramming — not just for
dogs but for people, too.
Dogs obviously evolved
to depend on humans, but
humans also evolved to
depend on dogs. From our
genes’ perspective, we
love our children to ensure
that our DNA lives to see
another day. But that’s not
how we consciously think
about it, nor does that expla-
nation diminish the experi-
ence of love or make it any
less real.
Dog genes may be
designed to con us, but the
dogs themselves aren’t in on
the caper. They just love us,
because that’s what dogs do.
© 2017 Tribune Content
Agency
Opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the writer and
are not necessarily shared by the Editor or The Nugget Newspaper.
