Sadly, I think war, terror and genocide have survived the coming of the atomic bomb.

They have but as a result of institutional survival, not DNA. So you're stuck with the alternatives that either a) DNA originated behaviors are not always expressed or b) war is not in the DNA. Otherwise the rates would not decrease after WWII and Switzerland would be knocking over France.

I appreciate the desire to make the human species pristine and special but I do agree on one thing for sure with the author of this book that started this discussion, we are just animals!

As to Micky being cuter than Davy or Davy being cuter than the Mickster. I never could decide. So I chose both...

Do you ever wonder how far we might wander?

well yeah, i get what you are sayin'...but try not to dis animals too much

now that is logic



all the time



you mean all animals or just the cute ones like davy and the mickster

One of the recurring themes in DNA and Behavior is the evidence for behavior being heritable. The author uses a plausible example...How does the wasp know to leave a stunned insect behind as food for it's soon to hatch young? Innate behavior is a conundrum? I mean, this suggests that a wasp is either as capable of a logic stream as fully developed as say Cheryl Harrell that allows it to think of the future need to feed its young or does the DNA in the wasp actually in someway code for, translate and transmit to the wasp a plan to meet the future need of it's darling little baby wasps?

Eileen, the only description of environment is that of pre-civilization "hunter / gatherer" type resource limited and cyclical (periods of feast or famine) that all cute little animals are exposed to in the wild. However, one of the first activities associated with man's ability to produce and store food thus minimizing the periods of famine and creating the wealth, power and institutions that Len is so fond of, that rise of civilization, is metallurgy. Of course, as a result of metallurgy, man began concentrating metalloids in his collective body. This has increased over the millenia and our exposure has logarithmically increased over the 60 years as we have progressed ourselves into the computer age.

The other "raging theory" I find interesting is the "Hygienic" theory. This theory suggests that we have modified our biology significantly in the past 100 years by the elimination of common parasites and the over use of disinfectants and antibiotics to the point where we have created immune syndromes. Candidate syndromes that are directly caused by or at least predisposed to by this increase in hygiene include stuff like autism, multiple sclerosis, asthma and crohnes. Autism is particularly interesting because there is meta=analysis data that suggests that kids that are treated for chronic ear infection with antibiotics for the first year of their life have a significantly greater risk of developing autism. (drug companies don't want to hear that one I bet!) This is more plausible to me than the theory of mercury exposure from vaccination (they had mercury in the vaccines when I was a kid and autism is fairly rare in my generation).

Just wandering in wonder.

Time will come when this country needs a helping hand and they want Arlo's, he will tell them buddy just get in line.

Individuals don't go to war. Elites go to war.

the book didn't say anything about politics or economics. strictly about the individual. it did go into considerable length about dehumanization. as is always the case, Jane Goodall's observations of civil war resulting in chimp genocide within a chimp community being evidence that dechimpization is a conserved trait from the primate past. then the question of the bonobo's comes up. somehow reading this book is kind of like deja vu all over again.

you mean all animals or just the cute ones like davy and the mickster