Re: Evolutionary Psychology

2. g
Feb 9, 12:32 am show options

Newsgroups: sci.bio.evolution
From: "g" <gillaw...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> - Find messages by this author
Date: Thu, 9 Feb 2006 00:32:57 -0500 (EST)
Local: Thurs, Feb 9 2006 12:32 am
Subject: Re: Evolutionary Psychology
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<whitesic...@xxxxxxx> wrote in message


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Note: There is nothing new here, at least as far as I'm concerned. I
don't see how evolutionary psychology will possibly lead to creating
less hateful social structures.



Psychology's FIRST obligation is to do observe and report accurately on
what
it observes. Mark Twain advised media reporters to do that, when he
said,
"First get the facts straight, and then twist them any way you like."

Response: In my view I wasn't twisting anything. I happen to agree with
Mr.
Waller. Try reading the article again.

The individual, unless he is like



Einstein, doesn't mean anything in the scheme of evolution.


What a person means is what he means to himself and to others. Perhaps
to
yourself you are not important and, perhaps, to your family and
friends, you
are not important. That is not true of ALL individuals, however.

Response: I was referring in the evolutionary sense, not the
individual-
personal sense.

And while



concerned about the evolutionary causes of hatred Mr. Waller makes it
clear these have also been responsible for greatness.


Anger is natural and remains useful. The trick, as one great thinker
put
it, is to feel the right anger, toward the right thing, at the right
time.
If anybody tells you anger is not a good thing, then consider the
alternative. As Jean Jaques Rousseau put it, "There can be peace in a
dungeon."

Response: I think you meant "There can be no peace in a dungeon.
Certainly on a personal-individual level and even at some group
levels aggression remains useful. On the evolutionary level, however,
it is no longer adaptive/useful.

Feel and express no "right" (justified and productive) anger and they
don't
even have to put cuffs on you or shove you into a dungeon. You just go

right in vountarily and lock the door behind you without even being
asked.
Let us hope we never evolve that marvelous characteristic.

Response: Most people who express justified and productive anger
don't have to worry about being in a dungeon. On the other hand,
those with "unjustified" and highly destructive aggression will not
voluntarily lock the door behind them.


Hatred is learned. The psychologists you seem to paint darkly with a
single
sweep of your brush have established that through carefully controlled
experiments. If you confuse hatred with anger, however, that could
confabulate you.

Response: Let's dispense with hatred shall we and just use the term
aggression. Aggression is not learned. Please go back to the article by
Waller and if you can refute what he has to say by arguing you're point
and I will chime in. It is basically an evolutionary psychology
treatment.



despite cultural advances in the last three hundred years our brains
are still essentially "stone age".


No offense intended, but this is hogwash.

Response: No, that's true.


Only genetic engineering will
possibly change us so we're not capable of genocides and widescale
destruction.


Perhaps you would benefit from that. I will pass. The problem with it
is
that SOMEBODY has to be left with personality unneutralized, to run
everything while the rest of us stare off into space and drool at the
mouth,
albeit passively and unagressively, just in case anything unexpected
comes
along that would require someone to think and react.

Response: Because we have so much to learn about ourselves and
genetic engineering of humans where traits such as aggression are
targeted is beyond our lifetimes it is really impossible to know what
"we" would be like. All I know is it has to go.

We already know how to do pre-frontal lobotomies and how to insert
electrodes into human brains. Me? I'd rather die in war than become a

vegetable or a robot, thanks. So I'll pass on this simplistic,
utopian solution.

Response: Considering the times we live in our deaths could be
quite spectacular. In a war you could become a "vegetable". It's not
a simple utopian solution. First, there is nothing simple about it. It
is not
utopian. It is absolutely necessary. In the archives there are many
posts where I explain why.


.

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