Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/3/84; site talcott.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!allegra!bellcore!decvax!genrad!panda!talcott!gjk From: gjk@talcott.UUCP (Greg Kuperberg) Newsgroups: net.flame Subject: Re: Re: A Question! Message-ID: <332@talcott.UUCP> Date: Thu, 7-Mar-85 11:52:03 EST Article-I.D.: talcott.332 Posted: Thu Mar 7 11:52:03 1985 Date-Received: Sun, 10-Mar-85 06:01:38 EST References: <901@decwrl.UUCP> Organization: Harvard Lines: 61 >>>Love is a *part* of nature! >>> tim sevener whuxl!orb > >Greg Kuperberg == > >>Yes, but the general rule is indifference to anything other than >>offspring. The general rule for humans on the other hand is cooperation, >>while murder is usually exceptional enough to make the headlines of the local >>papers. And war is exceptional enough to attract the attention of the whole >> world. > >I have the following counter-arguments: > >1. The general rule is indifference: socially organized animals, such as wolf >(and other canine and feline and ape) families which include adults which may >not be part of the mating pair(s) or decendants of such pairs. Also, what >about the lack of indifference between the members of a mating pair, this lack >of indifference demonstrated variously among differenct species as grief upon >death of a mate, grooming and touching and other bonding activities, defense >or added aid against a predator. I didn't say it was a strict rule. Sure, there are socially organized animals. But the question is, how many mammalian species, much less vertebrate species, are socially organized? I guess many animals also care for their mate as well as their offspring, so my statement was an overstatement. However, except for the socially organized species, and I think there are not too many of these, one member of a species simply doesn't care about almost all the other members of the same species. > 2. War attracts the attention of the whole world: only if it makes good copy, > sells lots of papers. Touch subjects like genocide may be too distasteful > to keep many readers for very long. It's true that the public has a dissappointingly short attention span. But it's remarkable that the public even considers the issue at all: Even when a war has fall from public attention, the response as to why is usually "Yes, it's bad, but I have other things to think about" rather than total indifference, as in "So what if there's a war? That's as irrelevant to me as the weather on Mars." > Generalizations about nature are usually losing things to make. Extrapolating > from a few samples doesn't guarantee that it will apply to all. Looking for > similar patterns, which is different from generalizing, can be useful, but > care must be taken that too much information is not lost in the distillation. > > L S Chabot Actually, this I agree with. However, the argument started off with "Why aren't humans as cruel as nature?", so it was a losing thing from the start. Incidentally, if anyone is curious for my non-religious reply to the original question, it is: Because humans evolved into being social animals, and because they also evolved intelligence (well, sort of :-)) and saw that cooperation is a good idea. More specifically, humans have this thing called civilization, which evolves in a Lamarckian way, and Lamarckian evolution is far more effective than Darwinian evolution. --- Greg Kuperberg harvard!talcott!gjk "2*x^5-10*x+5=0 is not solvable by radicals." -Evariste Galois.