Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site decwrl.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!allegra!bellcore!decvax!decwrl!dec-rhea!dec-miles!chabot From: chabot@miles.DEC (L. S. Chabot) Newsgroups: net.flame Subject: Re: A Question! Message-ID: <901@decwrl.UUCP> Date: Wed, 6-Mar-85 09:54:15 EST Article-I.D.: decwrl.901 Posted: Wed Mar 6 09:54:15 1985 Date-Received: Fri, 8-Mar-85 04:26:43 EST Sender: daemon@decwrl.UUCP Organization: DEC Engineering Network Lines: 38 >>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. 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. We don't notice much in the way of mass media for animals, so it isn't apparent to us what they may communicate about, say, Frank Perdue. :-) 3. The general rule for humans is cooperation: hey! what about net.flame? :-) 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 UUCP: ...decwrl!dec-rhea!dec-amber!chabot ARPA: ...chabot%amber.DEC@decwrl.ARPA USFail: DEC, LMO4/H4, 150 Locke Drive, Marlborough, MA 01752