NetNews Usenet Archive 1993 #3/NN_1993_3.iso/spool/soc/singles/37322

Internet Message Format | 1993-01-21 | 3.5 KB

Path: sparky!uunet!gatech!concert!borg.cs.unc.edu!news_server!martinc
From: [e-mail] (Charles R. Martin)
Newsgroups: soc.singles
Subject: Re: Meeting women in clubs
Date: 21 Jan 93 09:52:16
Organization: UNC Department of Computer Science
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Distribution: usa
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In-reply-to: [e-mail]'s message of 20 Jan 93 19:11:37 GMT

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Josh Diamond) writes:

   In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Herb Huston) writes:

      }Yes.  But we are not gorillas.

      Genetically the difference between humans and gorillas is less
      than 2%.  This is more than a merely interesting fact.  It implies
      among other things many shared behaviors.  It keeps researchers in
      primate centers, university psychology departments, and "the
      field" busy.

   It's nice that genetically the difference between humans and gorillas
   is less than 2%.  And there are some shared behaviors.  But socially,
   experiencially, and intellectually we are as different as night and
   day.  When was the last time you saw a gorilla write a computer
   program?  For that matter, when was the last time you saw a gorilla
   start a war?

Josh, you're not keeping up.  It isn't that we've got "some" shared
behaviors: we've got "some" shared behaviors with *cats*.  But if you
read Dian Fossey or Jane Goodall [do I have that last name right?  It
looks wrong somehow] you'll find that the behaviors of gorillas,
chimpanzees, and bonobos over and over look *amazingly* like behaviors
of humans in similar situations.  Sure there are differences, but is
building a computer program really QUALITATIVELY different from trying
to figure out how to make a twig tool that efficiently digs juicy grubs
out of a termite hill?  (Oh, and re: wars: Chimps have inter-tribal wars
on a regular basis.)

      }Staring is a threatening gesture only because we have defined it as
      }such.

      No, Mr. Creationist, you've got it backwards.  Our cultures have deemed
      staring to be "rude" because it's biologically threatening.  Threats and
      counter-threats between overcrowded strangers are too disruptive of the
      social fabric.

   Creationist?  Surely you jest.  There is _NOTHING_ which says that we
   must interpret eye contact as a threat.  I'd rather define it as a
   form of intimacy -- a way of creating connecting with others.  Eye
   contact may be defined as threatening in the gorilla world, but does
   not mean that it must be in the human world.

It reads crypto-creationist to me as well.  You seem to be starting from
the (to me clearly unwarrented) assumption that there is some break,
some discontinuity between the "natural world" and "us".  But every time
someone proposes a distinction that is particularly "human" -- language
use, tool making, "war", sexual behavior -- there is a primate that has
the same behavior, or the clear capability.
--
        Charles R. Martin/(Charlie)/[e-mail]
     Dept. of Computer Science/CB #3175 UNC-CH/Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3175
        3611 University Dr #13M/Durham, NC 27707/[phone]
     "Oh God, please help me be civil in tongue, pure in thought, and able
      to resist the temptation to laugh uncontrollably.  Amen." -- Rob T