Re: A China-Sumer connection

From: Peter T. Daniels (grammatim_at_worldnet.att.net)
Date: 02/21/05 

Date: Mon, 21 Feb 2005 14:18:37 GMT

Alaca wrote:
>
> Harlan Messinger wrote in: 37s3r4F5f2tgeU1@individual.net,
> > Alaca wrote:
> >> phippsmartin in:
> >>> Well, except that animals, so the argument goes, rely more on
> >>> instinct that is passed down by artificial selection. An animal
> >>> eats an edible plant not because the animal _knows_ it is safe but
> >>> because its ancester _didn't_ die from eating it.
> >>
> >> But how does he know his ancestor didn't die,
> >> or how does he know his ancestor did die from
> >> eating another plant?
> >> More important: Is there any sense of ancestors
> >> among animals?
> >
> > That was the point of mentioning instinct--that for animals it has
> > nothing to do with knowledge. The earlier animals in a species that
> > had an instinct to eat--or lacked an instinct to avoid--certain
> > things that were poisonous died out. Later generations represented
> > the earlier ones that *did* have an instinct to avoid the poisonous
> > foods, and they carried on that instinct.
> >
> >>> You're right though: people should have known already what was
> >>> safe to eat and that it another argument against this legend
> >>> being literally true.
> >>
> >> What is the difference between man and beast in this?
> >
> > I repeat: knowledge versus instinct. Are you not familiar with these
> > concepts?
>
> Yes I am, but it seems I'm not able to express myself adequate.
> Another attempt in a difficult matter and a foreign language:
> Of course there is selection through e.g. poisoning, but I don't
> think the resulting "knowledge" is stored in the genes.
> I think your view on "instinct" makes such storage necessary.
> If that was the case there must be a gene for every possible
> plant, berrie etc. Is there any?

There is a "gene" (if you want to put it that way) that makes the brain
interpret stimulation of the "bitter" taste bud as 'unpleasant', and
that "gene" came into being because critters that spit out
bitter-tasting things had more progeny than ones that didn't. They
presumably represented a mutation with, among its effects, a correlation
of "bitter" with "unpleasant."

Of course chefs and cuisines incorporate stimulation of "bitter" into
their repertoire -- chocolate, for instance.

> That means the experience is only transferred to the next
> generation by example, teaching/learning and/or "oral history".
> Apart from the latter option, there is in my opinion no difference
> in selection mechanism between (early) man and animal.
>
> "One agrees that it is his behaviour that makes man unique.
> If one would this carry back to structural properties, then it is
> the brain which is function in an unique manner."
> Niko Tinbergen, 1964
> (with excuses for my cripple translation) 

-- 
Peter T. Daniels                       grammatim@att.net

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