Oŝo-Jabe:

darkweasel:Amn't(*)

(*) Why isn't this word standard English, btw?

It was, then it turned into "ain't", then people expanded its meaning, and some claimed it was bad grammar. They ruined it for everyone! Now we have to live with "Aren't I?" for "I am not." instead of the far more logical "Ain't I?"

On the upside, the increasing proliferation of "are" in all forms of the copula is something I see as a good thing, and keeps in line with similar developments in the Scandinavian languages. Although, I can imagine some south africans and americans (and probably later on many more English dialects) having trouble saying "I are going" (ah ah going?)

Alciona:His statement that 'civilised races' would exterminate and replace 'savage races' and that 'anthropomorphous apes' would be wiped out is an observation, not a wish

That's what I thought as well, that it was an observation and that it tends to be misinterpreted as a wish - however, anyone can see parallels in many areas of the animal kingdom.

Generally, the more powerful (or so-perceived) creature will go and wipe out lesser-able creatures by accident. Feral cats don't WANT to wipe out bilbies, it just happens that way. Of course, the more a species THINKS it understands the way the world works, the more serious and often more intentional the wiping-outs become. Another reason to regard humans as being the stupidest species on the planet

It's even more embarrassing when we remember that humans are, at heart, frugivores, and the "second" most intelligent species on Earth so far, Dolphins, are totally carnivorous, and yet which one is more aggressive? Maybe we're eating too much Kentucky fried chook and it's making us more and more predatory (provided our food sits itself down on our plate and cooks itself...)

andogigi:Therefore, the way to counter and fight against them is to understand their origins, recognize any of their permutations that have infected modern thought, and develop reasoned arguments to counter them. To this end, he encourages people to read all of the books that he lists to accomplish this goal.

I concur with him - hiding away from uncomfortable issues is how we DON'T learn and go and repeat our mistakes. Probably why history should be part of any schools standard curriculum (preferably retooled to focus of the "whys" more than just dates and regurgitating facts).

ceigered:It's even more embarrassing when we remember that humans are, at heart, frugivores, and the "second" most intelligent species on Earth so far, Dolphins, are totally carnivorous, and yet which one is more aggressive?

But dolphins don't have opposable thumbs.

Dolphins or Bonobos?

ceigered:Dolphins, are totally carnivorous, and yet which one is more aggressive?

Don't let dolphins off so lightly! They have great PR agents in the New Age movement, but at heart they're nasty little buggers. If they weren't confined to the deep they would have cut our throats and deposed us long ago.

Machiavellins of the Deep?
Dophins killing on porpoise

Hahaha! Maybe it's a godsend that we have the opposable thumbs and they don't

It is interesting though - it does show similarities in our species behaviour - a tendency to kill off those closely related to us. But yeah, if they had opposable thumbs and lived on land too we might have a few... issues... *loads harpoon*

Speaking of Bonobos, apparently they've been caught out cannibalising their own young.

ceigered:
Speaking of Bonobos, apparently they've been caught out cannibalising their own young.

I only know that they make love a lot (for social cohesion ).

I study Hitler and I read a lot of book about Hitler.
I discover that Hitler always hated anything without German element.

About the earlier discussion: I think some of you have a much to simple idea about genetics, evolution ...

Everybody has some gene variants that would, if homozygous, lead to the death of the person (recessive genes). The important thing should be, that 2 people with the same homozygous mutation (that would lead to a severe illness) do not have children together. This is one (the main?) reason why siblings or cousins should not have children together, because the likelihood of such rare illnesses being found in both partners would be much higher.

Also, intellectual fitness as measured by IQ tests do not reliably show whether a person is really very clever or intellectually successful. You can train these tests like everything else and also a lot of the capabilities to solve certain problems is just a result of experience (I say that as a member of Mensa).

The same is true for physical fitness. Just because you are overweight and don't do any sports does not mean that your children are not able to become champions in many sports. Physical fitness also depends strongly on the environment. If the environment changes, the fittest guy from yesterday might be doomed to die (e.g. if you have no problem with a cold climate but die in the heat or vice versa).

Also, the fitness of children is only very roughly correlating with the fitness of the parents. First, we are a mixture of 2 parents, and the combination of 2 alleles for every gene might lead to a phenotype that is different from both parents. Otherwise, all children (i.e. all male or all female) would look exactly the same and also have the same abilities.

In classical breeding it is also known that a certain degree of inbreeding might lead to advantages in certain aspects. However, if the inbreeding is too strong, the negative features get stronger (e.g. also infertility).

So even if one thinks that the selection of the intelligent and physically fit people would be an advantage, this would be a very complex thing. And then again, there are certainly a lot of ethical issues...

Gerald

I agree with what you've said, Gerald. The topic's hard to talk about at times, because of how complex the issues are.

This is actually interesting and reminds me of an article I once read (like.. a day ago, but I forgot where it was ), where apparently there's some evidence that evolution does not always lead to survival of the fittest, but rather, something more like "survival of bonŝancemuloj" - for example, an entire species could be the most successful in its environment simply because all the possible predators simply didn't care for some reason (in regards to what was said about IQ tests and fitness etc).

(humans probably wouldn't fit so much into "bonŝancemuloj", rather, "bonŝancemuloj kun bazukoj" is much more fitting for humans )

Very true, Gerald. Another interesting point is that genes we consider faulty can sometimes aid in survival. For instance, the gene that causes sickle cell anaemia protects against malaria. The very gene that can cause people to be sick (where there are two defective genes) is the gene that enabled the person's ancestors to survive via natural selection (where there was one defective and one healthy gene).

Until we understand the positive as well as negative aspects of all genes it could be counterproductive to try to eradicate any of them.