Re: Tobias 1995

Algis wrote:

Blimey, I'd forgotten about your dark vision of human ancestry.

This 'objection' often comes from people
living in lands entirely foreign to their
recent ancestors -- who arrived within the
last few hundred years and wiped out the
local inhabitants. Their living descendants
prefer not to think about this, and a kind
of collective amnesia sets in.

It is one thing to understand the violence of recent human
history but it is another to extrapolate this back to the dawn
of humanity.

If you had first stated an awareness of
"the violence of recent human history",
this line might have some credibility.
It hasn't. You simply work within your
framework of modern liberal values --
based on a highly-civilised and well-
policed state, and ASSUME that all (or
almost all) your ancestors lived under
much the same conditions.


What are you talking about? Perth? Of course, having made
so many enemies in their ham-fisted way of dealing with the
Nyoongar people, there would have been violent reprisals
against the early British colonialists. This doesn't mean
that this must therefore be the defining characteristic of
Homo sapiens though, does it?

I had no idea you were in Perth. But the
detail of your local history are irrelevant.
ALL the 'local histories' (under those general
conditions) followed much the same pattern.
The better-armed tribe (here the British)
wiped out the worse-armed locals. In this
case, it was under a rule of law. In most
cases there is not the slightest pretence
of law.

Compared to all other mammals we are much more altruistic.
That is one of the key human characteristics to explain.
How does your "club wielding" theory explain it, by the
way?

Militarist societies (i.e. the great bulk)
require altruism. Young men are, in effect,
programmed to take huge risks, often
amounting to suicide, in defence of the
rest of their tribe. Populations with
a higher proportion of such 'altruistic'
young men, do better than the rest, and
their genes become more common.

[..]
. if all men had to carry clubs around with them at all times
- enough to be a pressure for bipedalism?

What is the problem? The proto-hominid
society required all fit males (and maybe
some females) to carry their weapons with
them at all times. That was more than
enough for bipedalism.

[..]
Well, if you think the reason humans became bipedal was
because they had to carry clubs around with them at all
times, I can only roll my eyes and put on a sickly,
patronising grin.

That's about as 'scientific' a response
as any you got from your academic peer-
reviewers. In fact, that IS the response
you got from them. You complain that
they cannot engage in rational discussion.
It's the pot calling the kettle.


Paul.
.

Quantcast