Michael Ragland wrote:

PR wrote:
> Absolutely. No argument. Its just that in nature's most rational species
> it has been exapted to perform a new function for which it is poorly
> suited. Why do you think this amounts to "denying the biological roots
> of aggression"? 
> 
> PR
> 
> Just a slight correction. I think you mean "adapted" instead of
> "exapted". I looked up "exapt" and the only
references I found for it
> stated it meant a subset of apartments or a computer system of sorts. I
> think I understand your points. 

I'm sorry.  I should have explained.  Exaptation is a term coined by
Gould and Lewontin in a now famous paper entitled 'The Spandrels of
St. Marco'.  G + S's introduced the term 'panadaptionism' to refer
to the penchent most e theorists have to assume everything has to
be adaptive, a point on which Dawkins is also in total agreement
by the way:

    As an enthusiastic Darwinian, I have been dissatisfied with
    explanations which my fellow-enthusiasts have offered for human
    behavior.  They have tried to look for 'biological advantages' in
    various attributes of human civilization.......  The argument I shall
    advance, surprising as it may seem coming from the author of the
    earlier chapters, is that, for an understanding of the evolution of
    modern man, we must begin by throwing out the gene as the sole
    basis of our ideas on evolution.  I am an enthusiastic Darwinian,
    but I think Darwinism is too big a theory to be confined to the
    narrow context of the gene....


As an example of maladaptiveness, they simply pointed to the manner in
which many organs are obviously jury rigged from organs that served
a totally different function, and as such resulting in designs that
are far from optimal.  For example, there is a nerve in the giraffs
neck that goes from between its shoulder blades all the way up to
its neck and back down to a location only a half an inch away from
its origin.  Anothe exmpla might be the five finger like bones in
a whales flipper.  This bone structure is not presenet because it
represents and ideal, but simply because that what nature had to
work with.  The bone structure in a whale's flipper has been
"exapted" from the bone structure employed in land mammals, but
is far from optimal.


> However, I would disagree with you we
> are necessarily nature's most rational species. 

Yipes!!   How do engage in dialogue with someone who thinks animals
are more rational than man.  You don't.

Bye

PR
---
þ RIMEGate(tm)/RGXPost V1.14 at BBSWORLD * Info{at}bbsworld.com

---
 * RIMEGate(tm)V10.2áÿ* RelayNet(tm) NNTP Gateway * MoonDog BBS
 * RgateImp.MoonDog.BBS at 5/22/03 3:20:16 PM