RE: virus: Strange attractors and meta-religions (was God and
Wright, James 7929 (Jwright@phelpsd.com)
Mon, 07 Apr 97 12:22:00 EDT
Martz wrote:
>Don't forget to bear the family circumstance in mind before you decide
>how to group the behaviour. A bird with three young may let the weakest
>die of starvation if food is short in order to improve the chances of
>survival for the others. Is this negligent parentage?<
No.
> In times of plenty the same bird would feed *all* her chicks. Same
bird, different
>circumstance. It's more difficult to make these comparisons in humans as
>our nurturing periods are so much longer but can you say that the
>examples of negligence that you have in mind are not normal reactions to
>the situation that parent finds themselves in?<
Sort of a "Sophie's Choice" forced on people in their daily lives?
Please consider the post I sent to Tony. I would suspect that the best
examples of parental neglect I can devise are not a result of extreme
circumstances, but of individual deviant behavior. Were parental neglect
a normal occurrence, the race itself would be in danger of dying out
through low birthrate.
The existence of parental neglect is not proof that "care for your
young" is not hard-wired; but since human sexuality is a learned
behavior, as is language and most other human social behavior, I would
contend that "care for your young" is also a learned behavior. We border
on a discussion of "instinct versus learned behavior", which I lean
heavily on the "most behavior is learned in humans" side of.
What do you think?
james