Except insofar as I've read on the topic, bonobos aren't our ancestors. They are familial cousins many many times removed. We share the '42 means of relief'.

What would you say if I can spin you a yarn that 'fits the facts uncomfortably closely' but which would be instantly rejected by any 'serious' scientist, that our current culture and our genetic characteristics are the result of two separate arrivals of space travelers approximately 14k to 15k years ago in the Andes and the Himmlayas who went down different paths and means to shaping the environment to suit their own survival needs on a planet where they could live very uncomfortably but better than they had in the ships?

You'd say I was nuts but you'd have a difficult time proving me wrong.

Let me rephrase that,

we share many of the same traits...as (in my opinion) we share common ancestors...You can believe we are spacemen if you want.

I didn't say we are spacemen. I said I can spin a yarn you'd have a hard time disproving. In that yarn, we are 'cows' educated well enough to grow our own feed.

Data is data. The problem is the interpretation.

You lost me man! Don't know where you are going with this?

Nesmith has his own vidoe and record co called Video Ranch. It used to be Pacific Arts records...

In the end, we are space(wo)men that came to this planet to establish an Elite and a not Elite, the Elite has wars and promotes cute Monkees and a not so cute business Monkee who had to or chose to change the name of the business from Pacific to Video Ranch. OK, I got a question....how do the not Elite fit in to the picture? Do they just get pushed around and pissed on and duped by the Elite, fight their wars, build their toys and buy their Monkee crap while praying to an institutional fantasy that when they die they will live in a better place where there are no Elites around?

Epiphany, I now feel as a drop of water, just one of many, caught up in the flow of the stream of time

I have another question though..you don't think Polar bears are cute?
Are there not coke commercials and animated feature films with cute Polar Bears?

i do think they are cute...when they are sleeping! i also think possums are cute (i know, not everyone does) and bats, and lizards (ever see them blue tailed lizards).....and even bunnies! but i wouldn't want to cross an "unfriendly" cobra...or get one cross at me!

All animals have a defense mechanism, humans just happen to have an overactive offense mechanism to go along with it.

And apparently so do some bears in Montana.

The point, H., is it is easy to string together anecdotal evidence and justify any claims one wishes to make. Anecdotes that we are a "dangerous animal" are easy to come by and so are anecdotes that we are intelligent, compassionate, tolerant and capable of living prosperously and peacefully. To do otherwise is to surrender to despair and the violence to self and other that follows when by failing to practice tolerance, compassion and self-restraint we seek stimulation by any ruse possible. Why would one choose such stories if in the end all they do is create despair and loneliness?

Do you have elderly relatives or friends or have you ever spent time in homes for them? What do they crave most? Touch. Human touch. Just like babies and if left without it for too long, they die. If we are only dangerous animals, why do we crave human touch so deeply that we die without it?

I will not surrender to the darkness. I will sing until someone comes. I will shout until someone hears. I will wait until an outstretched hand meets another and in that embrace celebrate that which raises me above the animal instincts, above the sounds of crying, up to where the light of my Savior shines, and on to that harvest promised to any who will sew love, compassion and simple decency.

Oh, you are questioning the methods. Is it just this particular case as presented by David Livingston Smith, is it Cognitive Science and Evolutionary Psychology in general or is it just a general anti-intellectualism?

I thought you were serious about that spacemen crap!

What was that line in that movie..."do you think my methods are unsound?"

It's knowing the difference between speculative theory and provable facts, then what is chosen based on what one wants or needs to believe.

1. Recent work on people living in the Himalayas shows that evolution is not always glacial. Adaptation to very high altitudes resulted in provable changes in the physiology. Evolution is non-linear. It is bursty.

2. There are no satisfactory explanations for the 180 ton single piece smoothly polished tool-worked granite pieces at Puma Punku in Tiawanku in the Bolivian Andes. Why is it that in other sites the further back we go, the more primitive the civilization but in some sites such as mezo-america and the ruins on the harrapan plains of India, the deeper we dig, the more advanced the civilization? Why is ritual blood letting pervasive in mezo-america?

3. Until Thor Heyerdahl proved it possible, western intellectuals pronounced pre-columbian ocean voyages of discovery and acquisition to be impossible.

The list goes on. We know less and less the more we discover because we peel away the layers of what we claim and replace them with what we know we can prove. So again, it's not difficult to create theory that will stand up to peer review and still be shown to be completely wrong.

Meanwhile it's of little value to believe a theory that claims we are a warring animal by genetic inheritance when in fact no genetic evidence for that can be shown. And cognitive psychology isn't capable of offering such proof. Only theory. Meanwhile behavioral shaping using the SR paradigm has been shown over and over again to work and the examples I've given of human, not simply primate behavior, proves that we can do better. Better that than to slide into the 'oh well it's in our genes so pillage on' thinking. There is no upside to that.

it's a big ol' goofy world

Lots of big words in this thread. What if we all just got along? Would that be truth? I think so.

My feeling, after having posted on these pages 1276 times, is that we all do get along.......like a family. I consider all of you on here my family. We have shared moments of grief, laughter, hope and sometimes conflict, just like any healthy family does and should. There has been incredible support given and received in times of crisis, and plenty of information and ideas shared. The Folkslinger has provided the Grail which binds our Camelot.......and I, for one, wouldn't have missed this ride for the world. There is more I could and would say if I thought those feelings could be expressed adequately with words. I consider this place, this family, one of the greatest gifts I have ever received. Peace to all, Kevin

Amen Brother! And even if we have differing opinions, we're all still family...