Teaching Evolution Should Be Compulsory by Magonsdaughter

Freedom is Important because People are Important

Hello,

I absolutely disagree with Dawkins when he says there is harm in teaching fantasy to children. But I think he phrased his intention poorly there. More likely he meant there is harm in teaching fantasy to children while claiming it as reality.

When I was teaching my own son about the myths surrounding us during the Holidays, I was careful to use phrases like, "Some people say," or "some people think" or even "I believe" while allowing him to make up his own mind. For instance, "There is a legend that has been repeated for generations about a man called Santa Claus who brings toys to the children in the world." "Is it true, Dad?" "Well, I can't prove it either way, but it's fun to think about." "Do you believe it?" "Well, I used to when I was little, but some parts of the story don't seem right to me..."

I never did feel comfortable labeling gifts as coming from Santa, because that felt like lying to him... but he could get lost in the fantasy of Christmas if he wished, and I did nothing to dissuade him. I think it's all fun as long as I'm not lying to anybody.

Religion was a bit tougher for me, and I used phrases like "I believe" a lot. There was a long period of time when he asked me who would win in a fight, Animal X or Animal Y? The "I think" and "I believe" started there. Then he started asking me about God, till the answers bored him. "Well, I think God could win that fight. Yes, that fight too. Yes, even a dinosaur. Yes, even Godzilla. Yes, even though Godzilla has God in the name." This period of his cognitive development was at once amusing and laborious.

When he started asking me things like, "Could God kill me?" Well, that was a little touchy, because he took this possibility very seriously. "Yes, I think so, if he wanted to." "Could he kill you?" "Yes, I think so." "Could he kill everybody?" "Yes, I think so." "Will he?" "I can't see why, but I'm not God. I guess I just hope that he won't kill me." "Has God ever killed anyone before?" "It's impossible to be sure, but there's lots of stories about him doing it. There's this one story about a man named Lot..."

This inevitably led to questions like, "Is God Bad?" "Well, I don't think so, but some people do. I think if he was bad, if he really wanted to hurt us, he could do a better job of it. I'm pretty happy most of the time, and I don't think a bad God would let me be happy." "If God is good, why does he let people die?" "I don't know. That's a good question, and I hope to be able to ask him some day." "I don't want to die." "Me neither, son. I want you to live forever. But I think we all die someday. I just hope there's something else after that. I believe there is."

Consequently, I think my son got a very different picture of God and religion than I received at his age. One day soon I'll have to ask him what he believes in, because I left a lot of the reasoning of things to him. I tried to avoid stamping in programming as much as possible, and I never really discussed religion unless he brought it up. I'm curious as to what he eventually decided was true or not.

I think that age 5 is a bit too young to understand evolution. 2nd or 3rd grade feels more correct to me. I do think it can be done long before Middle School, which was the time when it was part of my actual curriculum. (Though most people are exposed to the concept long before middle school via other channels.)

--Anthony

_______________________________________________

“If you are not free to choose wrongly and irresponsibly, you are not free at all”

Jacob Hornberger

“Freedom is not worth having if it does not connote freedom to err. It passes my comprehension how human beings, be they ever so experienced and able, can delight in depriving other human beings of that precious right.”

Mahatma Gandhi

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Thursday, September 1, 2011 1:59 PM

NEWOLDBROWNCOAT

Quote:
Originally posted by AnthonyT:

I think that age 5 is a bit too young to understand evolution. 2nd or 3rd grade feels more correct to me. I do think it can be done long before Middle School, which was the time when it was part of my actual curriculum. (Though most people are exposed to the concept long before middle school via other channels.)

What age is it that so many little boys (maybe girls too.) go through that fascinated with dinosaurs phase? I know it's pre-school, I just don't remember exactly when, and lots of little kids do it. Surely there's an opportunity then for them to ask why T Rex doesn't chase them on the way to the park, and why there aren't any Brontosauruses in their neighborhood, or to explain that green fuzzy things don't really live in trash cans in New York City, and that they never see ducks with speech impediments, and dogs, mice and rabbits that talk in real life.

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Thursday, September 1, 2011 2:25 PM

I disagree.

I think evolution is one of the ten most fundamental logical principles and that understanding the way the world works is probably pretty close to impossible without it.

That said, I oppose compulsory education, which I think of as prison for children, indoctrination, and a form of propaganda, which I cannot support and am not going to let the fear that some christian extremists might teach people something that is wrong let me cower into a corner where I'll support state mandated curriculum.

Aside from the fact that much of the curriculum also teaches things which are wrong, the whole idea that kids are supposed to sit down shut up and be programmed is appalling.

Here's a much better solution IMHO: Let kids read and decide for themselves. I feel 100% confidence that any child with sufficient acumen will conclude the theory of evolution to be more or less accurate when given no guidance at all.

Furthermore, I think that mandating it aligns evolution with institutional propaganda, which is something that a large number of people will reject, and which anti-evolution groups will use as leverage to encourage rejection of the idea.

The teaching of evolution is basically mandated right now, and unquestioned, and we're producing a population of somewhere around 25% creationists for I suspect the reasons I just stated. We couldn't possibly do worse than this in an open competitive learning environment.

If you trust that evolution is the truth, and then trust that people are basically intelligent, then people will come to the right conclusion, given access to adequate information.

ETA: I had plastic dinosaurs from age 4 to 6.

That's what a ship is, you know - it's not just a keel and a hull and a deck and sails, that's what a ship needs.

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Thursday, September 1, 2011 2:33 PM

Freedom is Important because People are Important

Hello,

I think that explaining that the dinosaurs all died is easier than explaining the vagaries of natural selection and evolution to a 5 year old. But that's just my personal experience with my own son. Every child is unique. Your mileage may vary.

--Anthony

_______________________________________________

“If you are not free to choose wrongly and irresponsibly, you are not free at all”

Jacob Hornberger

“Freedom is not worth having if it does not connote freedom to err. It passes my comprehension how human beings, be they ever so experienced and able, can delight in depriving other human beings of that precious right.”

Mahatma Gandhi

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Thursday, September 1, 2011 2:45 PM

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...

Well, I guess we'd best invite Riona into this, since she doesn't believe in evolution, to see what she thinks.

My own feelings on not teaching evolution I will leave aside, everyone can probably extrapolate them easily anyway.

DT, how do you get past the fact that in some homes, the parents won't let the child decide for themselves, but will indoctrinate them? School is one thing, and if left to themselves I agree, kids would figure it out, but what happens when they get home and mom and dad tell them evolution is wrong? Or actually, BEFORE they're ever introduced to evolution, mom and dad have indoctrinated them? How can they make up their own minds that way?

NewOld, I was a dinosaur-aholic too, and given we left for Afghanistan when I was 9, and by that time I was into astronomy big time, it must have been earlier than 7 when I was into dinosaurs. That's all I know.

Anthony, you just jumped up several points in my estimation; you have a very lucky child and you're a very responsible parent. I think you're right about the author's intent when he spoke of "fantasy", he just phrased it poorly, as you said.

Hippie Operative Nikovich Nikita Nicovna Talibani,
Contracted Agent of Veritas Oilspillus, code name “Nike”,
signing off

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Thursday, September 1, 2011 3:41 PM

FREMDFIRMA

Anthony, that was vaguely my mothers style as well, except that of course having learned to read before I had fully developed speech, for reasons I've already mentioned - my mother knew I'd read just about anything I'd get my hands on, so any time I would ask her any of those "tricky" questions, her response was "you can read, go find out" and a hint or two on where to look for that information.

Which is why my response to most tough questions or being offered information I find dubious is still, and always, Go find out!.

Of course, one can imagine my wonder and delight in watching the birth and growth of the information age, from Encyclopedias (complete with multimedia presentations, YAY!) on CD-Rom, to the Internet, now the collected knowledge, information, even myth and misinformation for comparison, of all humanity is available to EVERYONE!

You've no idea how MUCH that warms my little black heart....

-Frem

I do not serve the Blind God.

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Thursday, September 1, 2011 6:10 PM

Anthony, you and I seem to have done things pretty much the same. I hope that is what Dawkins meant. Fantasy has been such an essential and enjoyable part of my son's life and he wouldn't be the wondrous creative kid he is without it. He didn't seem to have much trouble distinguishing fantasy from reality, and enjoying the difference.

When he was very small, he come home from creche full of stories from his wise teacher who 'knew everything' and proceeded to tell us how the world was really created ie creationist myth and Noah and the rest. I have to say I was quite pissed off initially, but it introduced me to how to talk about people's different beliefs, and that although we thought they were terrific stories, they didn't really happen.

He has been fascinated about evolution from pre school, of course introduced by dinosaurs and other amazing beasts that no longer roam the earth. One of his favourite series remains "Walking with Dinosaurs" and all the others.

DT, I find you so extreme about everything. I think it how you phrase things. You certainly are vehement in your views on school.

I don't think we should just say 'let kids decide for themselves' that is not how it works. You either believe myth or reality, scientific fact or fable. You really can't have a choice on such things. It's not like choosing how best to live your life, or whether you think one book is better than another.

That being said, teaching should be about encouraging an enquisitive mind and a love of learning, rather than just ramming facts down a kids neck.

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Thursday, September 1, 2011 8:02 PM

I find myself in agreement with Frem 110%, again.

Magon,

This is where we differ. I think life goes better with fantasy, and also with freedom of choice. I vote in favor of the easter bunny. As for my extreme position, nah, people are just tryin' to assassinate me, I've been saying the same thing for years here, and some folk is said them a fair bit stronger than I have.

Nothing can be mandated from the top. The "no choice" world is going to create a situation where the education system, and everything else, has little overlords who decided what is "right" and what is "wrong" and this will stifle dissent and debate, and ultimately human freedom.

ETA: Magon, your post is at war with itself. I just read your response to Anthony, and it's 180 degrees away from your response to me. The part of you that talks to Anthony appears to agree with me.

Niki,

And the education system would give kids the choice? Not from the arguments I hear recently, or any experience I have with the things. I taught for five years. Okay, I didn't really attend as a child prisoner, but I get the picture. If you really agree in exposing children to different viewpoints so they can broaden their horizons, I assume you'd support mandatory church attendence? Hmm. Didn't think so.

That's what a ship is, you know - it's not just a keel and a hull and a deck and sails, that's what a ship needs.

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Thursday, September 1, 2011 8:11 PM

When my brother was around that age, maybe four, he wrote a letter to one of the publishers of dinosaur books to correct an error they had made, It was the misidentification of a dinosaur, IIRC, diplodocus was labeled brontosaurus. The author apologized, and passed the buck to the publisher who had picked captioned the illustration.

ETA: Why is Apatosaurus still sticking around? I thought the world had agreed to keep brontosaurus. The lizard would make a thunder as he walked, but he was surely not deceptively decapitating himself and putting someone else's head atop his neck.

That's what a ship is, you know - it's not just a keel and a hull and a deck and sails, that's what a ship needs.

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Thursday, September 1, 2011 8:25 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by dreamtrove:

ETA: Magon, your post is at war with itself. I just read your response to Anthony, and it's 180 degrees away from your response to me. The part of you that talks to Anthony appears to agree with me.

Wouldn't be the first time. In my uni days I had a great knack of starting an essay one way and ending up by arguing against myself. Today I like to reframe the idea of being inconsistent with 'exploring ideas'. Works for me.

Which bits did I get all tangled on?

edit. I just looked back and can't see any inconsistency. I love the idea of fantasy and myth, as long as it is not being sold as reality. That is how we approach all ideas about gods in our family, be they Greek, Norse or the Judeo Christian one. All have really interesting stories, some have great lessons on life and living but they aren't fact.

If I have any issue with your post(s) its the extreme stance you tend to take. All schools are prisons which discourage curiosity and thoughtfulness.

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Friday, September 2, 2011 2:25 AM

Quote:
All schools are prisons which discourage curiosity and thoughtfulness.

Not all. That's like saying all armies fight wars. Most don't. But that is what an army is built for.

1. No one ever implements any rule by force which is for the good of the people, it just completely defies logic. In order for there to be a need to apply a rule by force, by definition, the people don't want it.

2. Law is the discipline of imposing rules by force. The reason we must obey them is that there are guys with guns who will come for us if we don't. We don't obey them because we want to. If we wanted to create something, it could be done without force, it would never become law.

So, we have public institutions like the railroad because there's are laws against private railroads, many of them, the same as letter carriers, but the govt. didn't invent these, nor did it invent schools. It invented the "public education" system. I strongly suspect it did so for the purpose of brainwashing the public.

In the US, one of the first amendment original applications forbids state ownership of media, but many countries have this. Here, we have slowly evolved over time towards something dangerously close to this.

Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty; power is ever stealing from the many to the few.

Compulsory education is a handover of power of this most vital tool of human development to 'that power which must by necessity become the enemy of the people,' or words to that effect, which, IIRC, is how that quote ends. It's Wendell Phillips, a prominent early abolitionist.

ETA: I don't know why no one caught me out on this, I meant he was quoting Jefferson, or rather paraphrasing him. Jefferson was dead at the time.

That's what a ship is, you know - it's not just a keel and a hull and a deck and sails, that's what a ship needs.

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Friday, September 2, 2011 2:41 AM

So there has been no rule ever that was a useful rule? I don't get it. I think people need rules, limits, consequences. We are social animals. One way or another we need to work out how to live together. It's better if the rules are not imposed by above, by a ruler or a class or worse, a non existent supernatural entity, but rules there will be. Best if people can have imput into them. But regardless of how they exist. They exist and they NEED to exist. Show me one society, one place in history without rules that functioned in an okay way.

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Friday, September 2, 2011 2:53 AM

Quote:
I think people need rules, limits, consequences. We are social animals.

Yet squirrels continue to exist without them, as does every other species on the plant. Even outside of ant hills, there are ants that live without them.

The closest species to primates, genetically, is fieldmice. There are roughly 18 trillion of them. They don't appear to have any rules, yet male mice don't rape female mice, nor do they kill each other, nor destroy the planet.

Perhaps it is just that whenever anyone tries the ruleless society, the ruled society destroys it for fear of being proven wrong, and thus, obviated.

That's what a ship is, you know - it's not just a keel and a hull and a deck and sails, that's what a ship needs.

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Friday, September 2, 2011 3:13 AM

Freedom is Important because People are Important

Hello,

I think the only societies without rules and without actions that violate the individual are societies of creatures that have the rules built-in, programmed as to be inviolable, and hence absent of choice.

--Anthony

_______________________________________________

“If you are not free to choose wrongly and irresponsibly, you are not free at all”

Jacob Hornberger

“Freedom is not worth having if it does not connote freedom to err. It passes my comprehension how human beings, be they ever so experienced and able, can delight in depriving other human beings of that precious right.”

Mahatma Gandhi

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Friday, September 2, 2011 4:12 AM

DMAANLILEILTT

But we are sentient and have learnt of perceptions of other beings.

Also a violent murder rapist would be pursued with a lot of effort, but i dont think that means that people want rape and murder to be legal.

And I thought that evolution was already a part of compulsory science.

"I really am ruggedly handsome, aren't I?"

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Friday, September 2, 2011 4:16 AM

GEEZER

Keep the Shiny side up

Quote:
Originally posted by Magonsdaughter:
Dawkins also considers the potential harm in teaching fantasy, even to very young children. "Magical transformations are anti-evolution. And anti-science. Complex things, such as horses, coaches and princes, cannot spring spontaneously into existence from nothing," Dawkins writes.

Sorry, but this sounds like the guy sitting behind you at a Star Wars movie loudly complaining that you shouldn't be able to hear explosions in space, or that the X-wings shouldn't exhibit aerodynamic flight characteristics in vacuum. As long as you understand fantasy is not real, it's just a place to play.

"Keep the Shiny side up"

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Friday, September 2, 2011 4:45 AM

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...

DT, I disagree with a lot of what you've said. But I'll only address the concept that other species do fine without rules. That's bullshit. Any SOCIAL species has rules, from apes to horses in the wild to wolves, lions, dolphins and on and on. They're not codified and written down like ours, but if you break them, you're in a helluvalot of trouble.

So we use our brains differently than they do. We "change" our environment to suit us. This gives us more power than most other species, which means we need "rules, boundaries and limitations" (as Cesar says) even more.

Hippie Operative Nikovich Nikita Nicovna Talibani,
Contracted Agent of Veritas Oilspillus, code name “Nike”,
signing off

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Friday, September 2, 2011 3:16 PM

KWICKO

"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." -- William Casey, Reagan's presidential campaign manager & CIA Director (from first staff meeting in 1981)

Quote:
Originally posted by Geezer:
Quote:
Originally posted by Magonsdaughter:
Dawkins also considers the potential harm in teaching fantasy, even to very young children. "Magical transformations are anti-evolution. And anti-science. Complex things, such as horses, coaches and princes, cannot spring spontaneously into existence from nothing," Dawkins writes.

Sorry, but this sounds like the guy sitting behind you at a Star Wars movie loudly complaining that you shouldn't be able to hear explosions in space, or that the X-wings shouldn't exhibit aerodynamic flight characteristics in vacuum. As long as you understand fantasy is not real, it's just a place to play.

"Keep the Shiny side up"

Or, if you're a Republican in this day and age, you believe that fantasy should be taught as science.

"Although it is not true that all conservatives are stupid people, it is true that most stupid people are conservatives." - John Stuart Mill

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Friday, September 2, 2011 3:36 PM

Freedom is Important because People are Important

"Sorry, but this sounds like the guy sitting behind you at a Star Wars movie loudly complaining that you shouldn't be able to hear explosions in space, or that the X-wings shouldn't exhibit aerodynamic flight characteristics in vacuum. As long as you understand fantasy is not real, it's just a place to play."

Hello,

Oh my God. That's me. Sorry for ruining the movie, Geezer. :-(

;-)

--Anthony

_______________________________________________

“If you are not free to choose wrongly and irresponsibly, you are not free at all”

Jacob Hornberger

“Freedom is not worth having if it does not connote freedom to err. It passes my comprehension how human beings, be they ever so experienced and able, can delight in depriving other human beings of that precious right.”

Mahatma Gandhi

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Friday, September 2, 2011 4:52 PM

I do not accept the postulation that mice and squirrels are fundamentally different then humans as a sound argument because I think it lacks essentially any science to back it up. The notion that humans are uniquely sentient or possessed of free will or that other creatures are programmed and purely instinct in their behavior seem to me not only off kilter and out of touch with the reality in which we live, but addresses the core topic of this thread: the lack of understanding of evolution.

Ironically, it's a better argument for teaching evolution than any deliberate arguments for that case I see here. For anyone who has studied evolution in any depth, this completely falls apart. Humans are not that different from our ancestors, and we are by no means the only species with a legal system, nor is the existence of a legal system or crime within the animal kingdom in any connection to the intelligence of the species, and the only connection which seems to arise is that those with a legal system seem more prone towards intra-species violence, but we could go back and forth on chicken and egg all day with that. What I'm basically hearing is "but, humans have a soul!" (Okay, except for Niki, but I hope she would concede that most animal species do not have a police force, or a structure hierarchical government, or any at all.)

What prevents murder is fear of retribution. What prevents rape and murder in society is not law, but the combination of retribution and evolution. Mice don't rape because it wouldn't gain them anything, female mice spontaneously abort non-lasting unions, the male pheromones are necessary to maintain the pregnancy. This is not true of humans, but as I said before, there is an obvious evolutionary trend in favor of stable unions for child rearing. Sure, there will be individual glitches, but they will be subject the collective wrath of society.

I don't think legal systems have a positive effect on human behavior, I think they just legitimize mass abuses by a selected elite. A normal lawless society would not tolerate DSK or Bill Clinton, they are aberrations protected by the system.

For those who don't like animal models, there are countless aeons of human history, and remote tribes, who manage not to create holocausts in spite of their lack of a highly structured power hierarchy. Contrarily, if you look at the most structured legal systems in human history, those with humanitarian catastrophes and basically devoid of individual liberties tend towards the more heavily ordered end of the spectrum.

ETA: Niki, I said mice and squirrels. Maybe squirrels have rules, but they do not have a government, taxation system and police force.

Curiously, also, no one is regulating their birth-rate, or genetically testing to ensure that no flawed squirrels are born.

Ecologically, squirrels appear to be a net benefit. They've done a fine job of turning my lawn into a forest. They've actually planted some endangered plant species.

Also, there is remarkably little tension between the squirrel ethnic groups, four of whom live in my lawn, totaling probably a couple hundred members of the species.

As for mice, a similar situation evolves, though I find human interactions in some ways more similar to those of squirrels, there are c. 10,000 mice or so here, of numerous ethnics, mostly field mice, but a couple of other species as well.

The most complex political system in the yard is the ants, though the birds have collectively fallen into one political system I call the "small bird" political system, which is different from the large bird one. At the moment, the large birds are kept more or less at bay. Blue Jays and cat birds came in as part of the large bird system, but now have found their place in the small bird system, and distanced themselves from large birds, particularly the jays, which is ironic because they're actually quite large.

That's what a ship is, you know - it's not just a keel and a hull and a deck and sails, that's what a ship needs.

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Saturday, September 3, 2011 4:10 AM

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...

My argument was with your statement "Yet squirrels continue to exist without them {rules}, as does every other species on the plant." That is patently fase, as I wrote; all social species have rules, boundaries and limitations. And you did say "every other species on the planet" (at least I think you meant "planet"). Beyond that I'm not disputing anything, just that one statement.

Hippie Operative Nikovich Nikita Nicovna Talibani,
Contracted Agent of Veritas Oilspillus, code name “Nike”,
signing off

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Saturday, September 3, 2011 4:13 AM

Freedom is Important because People are Important

"Curiously, also, no one is regulating their birth-rate"

Hello,

Birth rate is regulated by starvation rather than careful planning. When a population of animals outstrips the available food supply, they find a new food supply or they die.

I don't think this is a preferable system.

--Anthony

_______________________________________________

“If you are not free to choose wrongly and irresponsibly, you are not free at all”

Jacob Hornberger

“Freedom is not worth having if it does not connote freedom to err. It passes my comprehension how human beings, be they ever so experienced and able, can delight in depriving other human beings of that precious right.”

Mahatma Gandhi

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Saturday, September 3, 2011 4:58 AM

Freedom is Important because People are Important

"Mice don't rape because it wouldn't gain them anything"

Hello,

I am not an animal expert, but I am dubious of this claim. I have never known rape to be about producing offspring. I have known it to be about urge, gratification, and power.

I should also note that mice and other animals fight one another. Possibly for dominance? Possibly to control access to women or other resources? I am not an animal expert. But this again is not an ideal living situation to my mind.

--Anthony

_______________________________________________

“If you are not free to choose wrongly and irresponsibly, you are not free at all”

Jacob Hornberger

“Freedom is not worth having if it does not connote freedom to err. It passes my comprehension how human beings, be they ever so experienced and able, can delight in depriving other human beings of that precious right.”

Mahatma Gandhi

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Saturday, September 3, 2011 5:00 AM

Freedom is Important because People are Important

"there are countless aeons of human history, and remote tribes, who manage not to create holocausts in spite of their lack of a highly structured power hierarchy."

Hello,

I think it's true that larger, structured societies are more able to accomplish anything monumental, including holocausts.

Small, disordered societies are only able to violate individual persons or small groups of people. Perhaps, at most, a single sex.

--Anthony

_______________________________________________

“If you are not free to choose wrongly and irresponsibly, you are not free at all”

Jacob Hornberger

“Freedom is not worth having if it does not connote freedom to err. It passes my comprehension how human beings, be they ever so experienced and able, can delight in depriving other human beings of that precious right.”

Mahatma Gandhi

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Saturday, September 3, 2011 5:02 AM

Freedom is Important because People are Important

"A normal lawless society would not tolerate DSK or Bill Clinton, they are aberrations protected by the system."

Hello,

This is a curious statement. But anyway, law and order does not spring up like magic. Lawless, disordered societies created lawful, ordered societies. Somewhere, an aberration surfaced and created them. This aberration was not stamped out.

--Anthony

_______________________________________________

“If you are not free to choose wrongly and irresponsibly, you are not free at all”

Jacob Hornberger

“Freedom is not worth having if it does not connote freedom to err. It passes my comprehension how human beings, be they ever so experienced and able, can delight in depriving other human beings of that precious right.”

Mahatma Gandhi

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Saturday, September 3, 2011 9:56 AM

GEEZER

Keep the Shiny side up

Quote:
Originally posted by AnthonyT:
"Curiously, also, no one is regulating their birth-rate"

Hello,

Birth rate is regulated by starvation rather than careful planning. When a population of animals outstrips the available food supply, they find a new food supply or they die.

I don't think this is a preferable system.

--Anthony

I was gonna say. Also, around here, foxes, hawks, cats, and cars regulate their population.

"Keep the Shiny side up"

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Saturday, September 3, 2011 3:01 PM

DMAANLILEILTT

Quote:
Originally posted by dreamtrove:
and we are by no means the only species with a legal system,

I'm sorry but I've got to make the joke: I agree, I've been to a kangaroo court and they work great!

And you're arguing against the point that there's little to no understanding of evolution and other species but you only postulate. You state several things beginning with "I don't" or "I think". You're entitled to your own opinion but why is it you say others should have evidence while you just come up with grand statements?

"I really am ruggedly handsome, aren't I?"

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Saturday, September 3, 2011 3:48 PM

This conversation has taken an odd turn because of my late night rant on rules.

I say this to you DT, put a room full of any species of animal and chaos will result, possibly ending in death and/or maiming, whereas we regularly find ourselves jammed packing in together and no violence results. We observe a whole host of spoken and unspoken and sometimes written laws when we ineract with one another, which means we are able to live in huge colonies. The only other species that seem to be able to manage it are hive insects, who communicate heirarchies and behaviours in complex ways ie pheremones.

I think we have some uniquesness as a species, perhaps not as much as was initially thought over the ages, because we certainly are an animal but a combination of our complex language capacity, our brain structure and our completely helpless premature offspring, plus our nifty opposable thumbs has led to us being environment shapers in a way that no other animal has achieved. I'm not saying its superior, as most likely we'll be extinct long before cockroaches, but we are what we are.

So we are a social species, that communcates with abstractions, and is able to change our environment to suit us. We also need to have pretty good parenting skills and be able to parent infants intensively for long periods of time. Because we live in social groups, we have hierarchies and rules of behaviour. That pretty much defines human existence. The larger and more complex the social groups become, the more complex the rules (and implementing them) become.

So whatever society you pick in whatever time, to be functioning they'll have a number of rules. Some may have the basics, such as 'don't kill, don't steal, be good to your parents, don't stare at your neighbour's wifes ass

and some will be complex, 'on the thirteenth day of the the third month, all boys under sixteen that have a name beginning with H must collect a rock from the third hillock over the stream' etc

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Saturday, September 3, 2011 4:01 PM

Anthony, Geezer,

Only if a species has been around a very long time. Many species are on the new species exponential growth chart, it's nothing particularly unusual. It's not the growth of human population that is putting a strain on the planet: we're still a footnote of biomass consumption; it's the destructive application of our technology through our flawed design, not the level of our technology, we abused the ability to heard cattle and sheep.

re: mouse-rape, I don't know, I haven't seen it in any of the forest creatures. I see it in pet dogs, but I was arguing against this as a justification for the police state, which is what it is right now.

re-power, the larger the power, the harder it is to overthrow and the less competition it has. I'm dubious of the fashionable claim that primitive societies are about oppressing women. This is supported by a companion myth, that modern native societies are not primitive. They are, and they don't oppress women, because if they do, the women leave, to a neighboring tribe. It takes a high level society to oppress.

re-law: It is the interests of law society to stamp out lawless society, and it is evolutionarily efficient in doing so. However, any even cursory glance at the subject shows that law derives in many way ways from religion, which is its core.

Dmaan,

A joke is not helped by being prefaced with "here comes the joke" [queues music] loherngrin?

So, by extension, it is not logical that my thoughts should be preceded with "I think." They are my thoughts, which is why they appear in green. If they were facts, there would be no need for me to post them. You have access to the internet, ergo, you know more than I.

Niki,

That's absurd. There are still no squirrel police, no govt. of squirrels.

Sometimes I think people have never seen a squirrel.

That's what a ship is, you know - it's not just a keel and a hull and a deck and sails, that's what a ship needs.

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Saturday, September 3, 2011 7:51 PM

1KIKI

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

"there are countless aeons of human history, and remote tribes, who manage not to create holocausts in spite of their lack of a highly structured power hierarchy."

But they DID manage to kill off all of Easter Island, exterminate various fauna like horses in N. America and the megafauna of Australia and Tasmania, AND even drive THEMSELVES extinct!

Quite impressive in spite of their lack of a highly structured power hierarchy.

Remember when teachers, public employees, Planned Parenthood, NPR and PBS crashed the stock market, wiped out half of our 401Ks, took trillions in taxpayer funded bailouts, spilled oil in the Gulf of Mexico, gave themselves billions in bonuses, and paid no taxes?

Yeah, me neither....

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Saturday, September 3, 2011 9:12 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by dreamtrove:

1. No one ever implements any rule by force which is for the good of the people, it just completely defies logic. In order for there to be a need to apply a rule by force, by definition, the people don't want it.

Laws against murder, rape, torture, stealing, child abuse? None of those are good laws?

Quote:
2. Law is the discipline of imposing rules by force. The reason we must obey them is that there are guys with guns who will come for us if we don't. We don't obey them because we want to. If we wanted to create something, it could be done without force, it would never become law.

Complex societies again. The ideal would be that we could all participate in deciding what laws there should be and how they should be implemented or enforced. I giess that was what democracy was trying to aim for, a system where people participate in decisions that affect their lives. But regardless of how you do it, there will always be laws, and probably laws that someone is going to complain about. A murderer may see laws against murder as impacting on his or her right to do what they want. Still, the majority are going to support that law.

Quote:
So, we have public institutions like the railroad because there's are laws against private railroads, many of them, the same as letter carriers, but the govt. didn't invent these, nor did it invent schools. It invented the "public education" system. I strongly suspect it did so for the purpose of brainwashing the public.

I don't remember ever seeing anywhere that government invented those things. It is just that in some places, it was considered okay for government to own utilities. I grew up with a government system that owned the railways and the telephone company, and the gas and electricity. And you know what, it all worked fine. I long for those days because everything was CHEAP. And no competition to bring down prices either. And we were not any less free that the US as far as I can see. Privatisation has not brought us more freedom, that is for sure.

Quote:
In the US, one of the first amendment original applications forbids state ownership of media, but many countries have this. Here, we have slowly evolved over time towards something dangerously close to this.

I thank god for our government run tv stations, because they are the only ones that show anything that I care to watch. The rest, pretty much divided up between the media moghuls.

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Sunday, September 4, 2011 1:36 AM

Kiki,

Almost. Check out the film Rapa Nui, on the collapse of Easter Island, or read around about it. The power structure was pretty rigid. Also, the melanesians were a pretty advanced society, they had boats, after all, and an empire covering half the globe.

By primitive I meant hunter gatherers, like Amazon tribes or African Bushmen, not tribes of Afghanistan.

You have a point that even primitive humans with limited technology and social organization are highly destructive, which I allowed for above with my comment on technology as simple as "herding sheep and cattle" and said the level of sophistication was not all that important. Bear in mind the rate at which the British international agricultural trade, particular non-food, which is commodity capitalism, was able to destroy N. America, as Texas is now doing to S. America.

Magon,

The question is, how realistic is that fear, and how much police state would you accept to allay them. My guess is that in the absence of them, the individual murderer and rapist would not be tolerated. The real problem you would have would be gangs; but then again, a gang is a form of hierarchical social order.

Quote:
The ideal would be that we could all participate in deciding what laws there should be and how they should be implemented or enforced.

I agree. I was actually headed there; specifically that the decisions should be local. Local law, home rule, has two major advantages that come to mind:

1) It provides competition of the law, so if the laws are too draconian, people can always move to the neighboring state where laws are better. This actually plays a role in the collapse of Rome, because Italy was losing people to Germany on this detail.

Despite the impression that "states rights" created racism, a close look reveals the opposite. The USA was founded with rules like only land owners can vote; blacks should be enslaved; and indians should be killed and enslaved. Also, people of Irish and Italian descent were considered strictly inferior to those of English. A competitive environment of states rights created a situation where some states had radically better civil rights than that. Arguably, this led us to the civil war; I just wanted to knock down the idea that the US fed govt. created equality and states created slavery and genocide.

2) The larger your empire, the more likely it is that you will have a situation where one population is making rules for another. Sure, German rules might be great for Germany, but they're bad for Poland. Oh, and no, I wasn't talking about WWII, I meant today, through the EU, Germans are drafting laws for Poles, and that is having some bad effects; but any situation like this is going to result in bad effects: The Ndebele would be much better off if they were not ruled by the Shona.

The smaller the home rule units, the better, as long as they can defend themselves.

Quote:
I guess that was what democracy was trying to aim for, a system where people participate in decisions that affect their lives.

It failed. I think there will always be social cultural rules, but I also think it's a justification for a nightmare society. What we don't need is police. If a rule would not be enforced by the people, directly, then it probably doesn't need to exist.

To say that you need an enforcement agency that will punish those who do not abide by a set of rules made by some govt., whether it's an elite star chamber or some actual theoretical representative body, is to say two things:

1) the laws are unpopular, so should be forced on the people, who therefore are wrong.

2) the people need to be protected from themselves, ie. white man's burden.

Quote:
But regardless of how you do it, there will always be laws, and probably laws that someone is going to complain about. A murderer may see laws against murder as impacting on his or her right to do what they want. Still, the majority are going to support that law.

Who cares? The people, collectively, are not going to defend that right. The only law you really need is one against forming a higher social order. That goes from gangs to empires. And, yes, some recognition of the spirit of the law: your right to swing your arms ends where my nose begins; but you don't need an advanced social order to introduce that concept, you can just make it the first commandment of your society.

Really, I think squirrel society would do just fine. I suspect govt. acts to uphold the indefensible right of those who abuse the power they have, and to do things that are so unpopular no one would let them get away with it otherwise, and that such people make sure that govt. stays in power, because it's in their best interests to sell that idea to well meaning people.

I have to leave for a week of chemo and tests, so I'll leave this one to Frem if he wants it, as he can much better defend the idea of anarchy than I can.

That's what a ship is, you know - it's not just a keel and a hull and a deck and sails, that's what a ship needs.

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Sunday, September 4, 2011 6:00 AM

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...

Quote:
put a room full of any species of animal and chaos will result, possibly ending in death and/or maiming, whereas we regularly find ourselves jammed packing in together and no violence results.

Excellent point. Ever heard of the experiment where they put a bunch of mice in an enclosed space, and gave them enough food, etc., for their population, then left 'em alone? They reproduced to the point where it was mass chaos, definitely ending in death for most of 'em. Yes, we are on that road now to an extent, and who knows what happens when we out-populate the earth's resources, but what you say IS the case, to a point.

DT, I'm always fascinated by your propensity to twist and mischaracterize things; do you truly misunderstand things people say, or is it a deliberate attempt to "win"? I contested your statement that

Quote:
Yet squirrels continue to exist without them {rules}, as does every other species on the plan{e}t

You come back with

Quote:
That's absurd. There are still no squirrel police, no govt. of squirrels

Nobody ever said anything about police; you stated neither squirrels nor any other species on the planet had rules. To say so is absurd; all social species have rules, including squirrels (tho' they're not as social a species as many others, such as lions, wolves, etc.). To say that is to ignore ALL the rules of, for example, wolf packs, which have highly-evolved rules. No police; the group either enforces the rules or one of the rules is which member of the group enforces a particular rule. Nobody said a SINGLE WORD about police, only rules. Why do you do that?

Quote:
the rate at which the British international agricultural trade, particular non-food, which is commodity capitalism, was able to destroy N. America, as Texas is now doing to S. America.

I won't even touch that one. Your mind is weird, in my opinion, and you form some really strange, and equally firm, beliefs.

Hippie Operative Nikovich Nikita Nicovna Talibani,
Contracted Agent of Veritas Oilspillus, code name “Nike”,
signing off

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Sunday, September 4, 2011 6:03 AM

1KIKI

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

"By primitive I meant hunter gatherers, like Amazon tribes or African Bushmen ..."

Or Australian aborigines? ... or early Asian settlers to N America? Both were hunter-gatherers yet they managed to entirely kill off whole species over 40,000 years ago despite their lack of technology AND primitive social structure.

And may I point out that many of those primitive tribes silently extinguished themselves as well. How do we know this? By the simple fact that they no longer exist. For example, some left sacrificial arrow point offerings in a cave 80,000 years ago then vanished without a trace.

Even EXTREMELY primitive technology and social development is no barrier to extreme destructiveness or self-extinction.

Remember when teachers, public employees, Planned Parenthood, NPR and PBS crashed the stock market, wiped out half of our 401Ks, took trillions in taxpayer funded bailouts, spilled oil in the Gulf of Mexico, gave themselves billions in bonuses, and paid no taxes?

Yeah, me neither....

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Sunday, September 4, 2011 6:12 AM

1KIKI

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

"And, yes, some recognition of the spirit of the law: your right to swing your arms ends where my nose begins; but you don't need an advanced social order to introduce that concept, you can just make it the first commandment of your society."

And yet when we look at common chimps (Pan troglodytes) we see rule by individuals who, if it is their personality, terrorize, ostracize and deny important resources (meat) to both individuals and categories (females and young).

Common chimps are pre-higher technology and pre-language. As humans, you can't get any more primitive than that.

The idea that primitive man is some sort of noble savage incapable of brutality or destructiveness is a pleasant fantasy, but not backed up by observation.

Remember when teachers, public employees, Planned Parenthood, NPR and PBS crashed the stock market, wiped out half of our 401Ks, took trillions in taxpayer funded bailouts, spilled oil in the Gulf of Mexico, gave themselves billions in bonuses, and paid no taxes?

Yeah, me neither....

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Sunday, September 4, 2011 1:41 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by dreamtrove:
Almost. Check out the film Rapa Nui, on the collapse of Easter Island, or read around about it. The power structure was pretty rigid. Also, the melanesians were a pretty advanced society, they had boats, after all, and an empire covering half the globe.

My understanding is that Easter Island functioned fine until resources ran out, and then the social structure collapsed and the anarchy that resulted wasn't your pleasant 'collective anarchy’ but chaos and cannibalism. I guess the rule of law depends on society functioning enough for people to care to implement it.
Quote:
The question is, how realistic is that fear, and how much police state would you accept to allay them.

Well now that is a different argument altogether. I do accept some rules and I don’t want enough to create a police state. I think if we tried to discuss that topic we might get a bit clearer. But you have stated that all law is bad ie. No one ever implements any rule by force which is for the good of the people, it just completely defies logic.
Quote:
My guess is that in the absence of them, the individual murderer and rapist would not be tolerated. The real problem you would have would be gangs; but then again, a gang is a form of hierarchical social order.

In the absence of what exactly? Are you saying that Hunter Gatherer societies don’t have laws and don’t enforce them, because they do. Australian Aboriginals had/have a very strict set of laws which can include harsh retribution. And they don’t sit around and discuss what laws they agree on it. They don’t live by participatory democracy, or they didn’t. Laws were handed down to each generation, no arguments. Once again, no society exists without law. The argument is or should really be about what are the limit to lawmaking ie do you support the philosophy of ‘do no harm’ or do you think laws can be more far reaching.
Quote:
I agree. I was actually headed there; specifically that the decisions should be local. Local law, home rule, has two major advantages that come to mind:
1) It provides competition of the law, so if the laws are too draconian, people can always move to the neighboring state where laws are better. This actually plays a role in the collapse of Rome, because Italy was losing people to Germany on this detail.
Despite the impression that "states rights" created racism, a close look reveals the opposite. The USA was founded with rules like only land owners can vote; blacks should be enslaved; and indians should be killed and enslaved. Also, people of Irish and Italian descent were considered strictly inferior to those of English. A competitive environment of states rights created a situation where some states had radically better civil rights than that. Arguably, this led us to the civil war; I just wanted to knock down the idea that the US fed govt. created equality and states created slavery and genocide.

Yet state laws can look inefficient and kind of chaotic and pretty unfair. I know the US is a bit more used to it, but it seems to create a whole host of issues that could be avoided by more central laws on things. Why should one crime be a crime in one place and cross the border and it isn’t? One should one state execute people for a crime and the next one doesn’t? How unfair are these on either the victim or the perpetrator (whichever you choose).
It seems to me that the more local issues are decided the more replication of courts, legislators, and so on, the more costly and inefficient it would become.
I have to admit from the outside state laws look pretty bizarre for some circumstances. That being said, I think some things should be decided locally, just not everything.
Quote:
2) The larger your empire, the more likely it is that you will have a situation where one population is making rules for another. Sure, German rules might be great for Germany, but they're bad for Poland. Oh, and no, I wasn't talking about WWII, I meant today, through the EU, Germans are drafting laws for Poles, and that is having some bad effects; but any situation like this is going to result in bad effects: The Ndebele would be much better off if they were not ruled by the Shona.

You could say that the big winners in the EU were actually the poorer countries, whose population was free to go where they could have a better standard of living. For a long time, the EU meant boom times for a lot of its previously poverty stricken nations. I guess now they are seeing that sharing and caring also applies in the bad times and that aint as much fun. Ironically, the EU formed largely so that it could actually have some chance of competing with that super Empire, the US, who previously had so much clout because of its enormous market size.
Interestingly, along side of all the super EU stuff, heaps of devolution took place as well in Europe. You think of countries such as USSR and Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia even Belgium, and the UK where individual ethnic groups began demanding and receiving their independence.
Frankly, I don’t know how things should happen, but I know that it seems that countries/states/principalities tend to make alliances or merge with others in order to gain strength and power.
Quote:
It failed. I think there will always be social cultural rules, but I also think it's a justification for a nightmare society. What we don't need is police. If a rule would not be enforced by the people, directly, then it probably doesn't need to exist.

I’d probably say that it has its failings rather than it failed. Actually it is proving to be a very stable and successful (on some levels) form of governing, if you consider things like prosperity and stability to be signs of success. I guess I probably go along with the Churchill in that it is the worst form of government except for all the others that have been tried. I’d rather live in democracy than communism, or feudalism, or a theocracy or a dictatorship or absolute monarchy.

Quote:
To say that you need an enforcement agency that will punish those who do not abide by a set of rules made by some govt., whether it's an elite star chamber or some actual theoretical representative body, is to say two things:

1) the laws are unpopular, so should be forced on the people, who therefore are wrong.

2) the people need to be protected from themselves, ie. white man's burden.

In the end, government is just a set of people who actually do represent some their constituents. Laws are passed because people want them to be. Police have their uses, I had to call on them a couple of times for assistance, but they need to have limits to their powers and really, really careful monitoring and they need to be publically accountable. I’d say that probably in too many countries they are too heavily armed and hold too much power. American police are renowned for being particularly aggressive, but a force doesn’t have to be that way.

Quote:
Who cares? The people, collectively, are not going to defend that right. The only law you really need is one against forming a higher social order. That goes from gangs to empires. And, yes, some recognition of the spirit of the law: your right to swing your arms ends where my nose begins; but you don't need an advanced social order to introduce that concept, you can just make it the first commandment of your society.

What do you mean who cares? How would a law that prevented forming higher social orders look like? Would that infringe on my right to live as I see fit? How would you enforce such a law? I don’t get what you are trying to say.
Quote:
Really, I think squirrel society would do just fine. I suspect govt. acts to uphold the indefensible right of those who abuse the power they have, and to do things that are so unpopular no one would let them get away with it otherwise, and that such people make sure that govt. stays in power, because it's in their best interests to sell that idea to well meaning people.

Speaking in all absolutes once again. It doesn’t help your argument. All governments act in that way? Does that include state governments? Local governments? Governing bodies of schools and kindergartens? Collective governments? Has no government EVER done anything good in your mind? In the end, as far as I can see it, governments at its most fundamental level is a group of people with decision making capacity, who may or may not be answerable to the general population. There is nothing inherently bad in that.
Quote:
I have to leave for a week of chemo and tests, so I'll leave this one to Frem if he wants it, as he can much better defend the idea of anarchy than I can.

Is that for you, DT? Hope all goes well.

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Sunday, September 4, 2011 1:47 PM

Niki,

On that last point: Familiar at all with the history of your country, or the present of your continent?

This is ecological stuff far more important than, well, anything else, ever. If you're me.

Kiki

You have a point about chimps, otoh, that's worst case, chimps are more violent than humans, or our ancestors. A better parallel for us would be bonobo, with whom we are more closely related.

To understand the aborigine situation, you have to look at their history. They were not initially one ethnic group, but three, the last being melanesian. The first was around 80,000 bc, but the collapse didn't really begin until 15,000, after the migration of a more advanced herder, primitive ag culture, which began around 18,000.

Humans become destructive with a little bit of know how, not a lot, but not so much with none. I agree that a sophisticated society could be green, but it would need a very different political and economic system than the current one.

ETA: re cancer, kiki, no, my sister, if you missed it she has a very serious issue stemming from a massive chemical contamination. Wed. Is the big test day that will tell if this is going to be a rapidly recurring tumor.

That's what a ship is, you know - it's not just a keel and a hull and a deck and sails, that's what a ship needs.

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Sunday, September 4, 2011 2:23 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by dreamtrove:
Niki,

To understand the aborigine situation, you have to look at their history. They were not initially one ethnic group, but three, the last being melanesian. The first was around 80,000 bc, but the collapse didn't really begin until 15,000, after the migration of a more advanced herder, primitive ag culture, which began around 18,000.

I'm not sure where you are getting your data if you are talking about Australian Aboriginals. This is a contentious topic with lots of different theories about the migration of early Australians. Estimates vary from 60,000 years ago to 40,000 years based on archeological evidence. Although there may have been waves of migration, there is no evidence to suggest that they were different ethnic groups. Melanesions settled in the Torres Strait Islands around 10,000 years ago and are a distance racial group from mainland Aboriginals.

When white settler arrived, this vast continent had been lived by people who had been here for so long and so georgraphically separated from each other than there were hundreds of distinct languages spoken.

I am not sure what collapse you are referring to, these people were prospering 200 years ago. Apart from possibly wiping out the megafauna, and that is just a possibility, there is not evidence to suggest that they were a particularly destructive people, being mainly hunter gatherer for the most part, their impact on the environment in comparison to farming or industrial people was minimal. The one exception to that was shaping the environment by fire.

H

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Sunday, September 4, 2011 4:34 PM

Back to the topic at hand, I suppose Dawkins is talking in the context of the English system where there is a national curriculum. So if Maths, Reading and comparative religion are all taught from 5, then so should evolution. I don't see it as too young. It strikes at the heart of something I believe, but is rarely followed in the current education climate, which like many aspects of public policy, relies on the publics gut instinct, often ill informed rather than research. That is, despite what parents might like to see, kids can learn holistically. That is - you don't have to just learn maths, or reading as stand alone subjects, you can learn both those building blocks while you learn something else that contextualises them. For exampple, you can learn reading and writing while studying evolution. You can learn maths - measuring time etc. You can learn history, you can learn some fundamentals about science, biology etc etc etc.

Instead, we are back to the boring basics, chanting tables and doing 'descriptive writing' and boring the shit out of the brighter kids. Ah well, it pleases the parents.

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Sunday, September 4, 2011 5:23 PM

I wasn't sure that distinction was recognized by everyone, also, I don't know where 1kiki is from. It would be logical that the melanesians would be distinct, as they had a trade empire as recently as 500 years ago. I don't know which practiced they introduced.

My information came from a something I watched that detailed it, so I should have done more research. Venting what you know is always a bad idea.

Anyway, we were talking about the prehistoric ecological decline of Australia. I had a link somewhere dating the destruction to much more recent than previously thought. Considering the rapidity with which New Zealand was devastated, it's possible that Australia collapsed suddenly, but I'm tempted to concede Kiki's point about the aborigines.

I think that they must have had some technology to implement widespread destruction.

That's what a ship is, you know - it's not just a keel and a hull and a deck and sails, that's what a ship needs.

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Sunday, September 4, 2011 6:14 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by dreamtrove:
I wasn't sure that distinction was recognized by everyone, also, I don't know where 1kiki is from. It would be logical that the melanesians would be distinct, as they had a trade empire as recently as 500 years ago. I don't know which practiced they introduced.

My information came from a something I watched that detailed it, so I should have done more research. Venting what you know is always a bad idea.

Anyway, we were talking about the prehistoric ecological decline of Australia. I had a link somewhere dating the destruction to much more recent than previously thought. Considering the rapidity with which New Zealand was devastated, it's possible that Australia collapsed suddenly, but I'm tempted to concede Kiki's point about the aborigines.

I think that they must have had some technology to implement widespread destruction.

That's what a ship is, you know - it's not just a keel and a hull and a deck and sails, that's what a ship needs.

I wasn't aware that Australia had suffered any collapse. I haven't heard of any such theories, certainly none that linked catastrophic change to human habitation, apart from the megafauna which I spoke about earlier. Australia was and remains perfectly habitable. There is no evidence that Australian Aboriginals had any technology greater than fire and lived as Hunter Gatherers.

Melanesians and Australian Aboriginals have distinct cultures and live distinctively from one another. Melanesians occupy Papua New Guinea, the Torres Strait Islands, Solomon Islands, Fiji et al. Australian Aboriginals occupy mainland Australia and the southern Islands such as Tasmania. while there may be some links between Melanesians and Aboriginal groups who live on the northern most tips, and include intermarriage, it would hardly be called a wave.

New Zealand's first people are Polynesian in origin and arrived very recently, 1000 years ago at most. They had a different culture altogether, farmers, builders, and warriors. Much more akin to adapt to European culture. In the few hundred years they had adramatic impact on the land , wiping out the moas quite, introducing species such as the rat and the dog. The impact they had was on a par with the impact of any agrarian culture on an area.

I guess I'm pointing all this out, because your facts seem a little iffy on these things, not because it has anything to do with the argument at hand.

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Sunday, September 4, 2011 6:29 PM

Apatosaurus: Because the guy who only saw a foot bone got his name out first, which took precedence over the more descriptive name, and also probably for alphabetical reasons.

But yeah, I like brontosaurus better myself.

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Sunday, September 4, 2011 6:39 PM

Quote:
female mice spontaneously abort non-lasting unions, the male pheromones are necessary to maintain the pregnancy. This is not true of humans

Dang. Is it weird if I were to say I kinda wish it was? Would solve a lot of problems and anxieties.

The best proof of evolution is how flawed our biology is. Stuff is just messed up.

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Sunday, September 4, 2011 6:42 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by dreamtrove:
Kiki,

Almost. Check out the film Rapa Nui, on the collapse of Easter Island,

Just saw this ^ That would have to go down as one of the worst films i have ever seen. So bad it was funny.

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Sunday, September 4, 2011 6:50 PM

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exterminate various fauna like horses in N. America

...I've never seen anything to suggest the paleo-horses were hunted to extinction. I'd blame the ice ages first. But I haven't studied this much.

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Sunday, September 4, 2011 6:55 PM

Sorry, DT, I feel in the mood for a bicker, and you are so deliciously bickerable.

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Originally posted by dreamtrove:

That said, I oppose compulsory education, which I think of as prison for children, indoctrination, and a form of propaganda, which I cannot support and am not going to let the fear that some christian extremists might teach people something that is wrong let me cower into a corner where I'll support state mandated curriculum.

Aside from the fact that much of the curriculum also teaches things which are wrong, the whole idea that kids are supposed to sit down shut up and be programmed is appalling.

Again with the absolutes. All education is bad. All of it is about mind control. Well here's a thought, I think television and facebook are more about indoctrination and mind control than education. And here is another thing. What is to stop your kids from thinking outside the box and being educated, so long as they have parents who encourage curiosity and reading and discussion. I consider the education my son gets to be pretty second rate really, but he learns the stuff that would bore me to teach him. So that leaves more time for us to explore some really fun learning together. I don't rely on school to give him every bit of his education. Most parents who care and have the capacity would be the same. And for those who don't, well their kids would be 10X more stuffed if they didn't have any external education at all.

People fought for the right to have universal education, much like health care because they know they are the big factors in enabling people to improve their lot in life (along with job opportunity).

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Here's a much better solution IMHO: Let kids read and decide for themselves.

Do you give choices to believe in gravity, in maths? Is air really made up of hydrogen and oxygen or is it magical fairy dust? You decide kiddo? To quote Tim Minchin - is knowledge is so loose-weave?

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Furthermore, I think that mandating it aligns evolution with institutional propaganda, which is something that a large number of people will reject, and which anti-evolution groups will use as leverage to encourage rejection of the idea.

Maybe. Or maybe it will give their kids a chance to move out of the ignorance imposed by their family's flawed beliefs.

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Sunday, September 4, 2011 6:56 PM

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Laws against murder, rape, torture, stealing, child abuse? None of those are good laws?

I'd argue that those are natural laws, more than they are government derived laws. You couldn't have a society in the first place if those rules weren't already ingrained into most (maybe even all? Even sociopaths seem to understand this one to some degree) humans.

These are laws you tend to see with very little exception across all human societies and culture, because if the society DIDN'T have them, it would quickly self-destruct. Civilization also follows evolutionary principles.

The problem comes in when you introduce the concept of "the other," because then a society might rule then it's okay to go to war against that other society, which then makes that society okay all of the other bad things so long as it's directed at the right people. The good news is, it seems most societies are nowadays moving towards more tolerant, which means they identify other people as human instead of subhuman other. But it does still happen, often with the help of propaganda.

But generally, humans tend to be frightened and disturbed by murder and rape or even the idea of committing either one. They shy away from it. So I would guess those are actually fairly unnatural, or at least not anything that is evolutionarily selected for. And if they're not behaviours that are evolutionarily selected for, my thinking is you can eventually expect them to die out, unless something prolongs the incidence of the behaviour.

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Sunday, September 4, 2011 7:11 PM