Charles:
I'm not sure if I understand your placement of the explanation as "biological" or "cultural", but isn't Levi-Strauss' explanation cultural in _The Elementary Structures of Kinship_ ?
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I meant to say that if the tabu is universal, it stands to reason that it is probably biologically based, biological commonality being the one thing all social groups have (beyond being social groups).
Come to think of it, sociality itself is probably generally biologically predetermined. There may be occasional hermits or sociopaths, but we're not cats.
(Which brings me to a tangential sci-fi-type thought -- think of all the things underlying human beings' ability to be "civilized" "technological" beings beyond just raw intelligence. If we were asocial animals, we would never have gotten anywhere. Or no opposable thumbs. Or no speech. Or a lifespan too short to acquire meaningful experience. Or even aquatic like dolphins -- no fire. This whole technological civilization thing seems like more and more of a fluke cosmically speaking. The hypothetical Gasbags of Jupiter could never have gotten anywhere. No non-land-based entity could.)
Nu, zayats, pogodi!
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