^^^^ Yes that is your "position". A dogmatic definition of kinship structures which proves your point by definition.
Of course the pragmatic evidence is against you, but nowhere do you deal with the evidence because you want to gratify yourself with "winning" an argument, without even mentioning the evidence. Not once have you dealt with any of the evidence I have presented, you have simply repeated your definition, nothing else. Why? Because the evidence is against you and you can only maintain your view "by definition".
But more you won't even present a justification for your "definition". Why should any primatologist or any anthropologist (such as Jim Moore) accept the definition that you prefer. In this thread, your way of arguing is simply to "Yes it is or No it isn't". Why? Because it is that way by definition.
So any detailed evidence that I present, is never answered, or confronted. You never explain why I am wrong, or try to find common ground either in the evidence or in the way we use definitions. I have tried to present a hierarchy of definitions. If you even took a look at what I wrote you might have realized it as an attempt to find common ground somewhere. I have tried to present my doubts. But that is not for you. All you can say is "This is my definition and I am right, by definition."
I should have known better to express any doubts about my position in a thread in which you participate, because then you will pull that quote about my doubts and simply use it against me out of context. You will do this instead of trying to trying to engage in a conversation or even trying to educate me. Why? Because by definition you are right.
If some anthropologists (Jim Moore, Maurice Godelier) and many primatologists (de Waal, Barbara J. King, Sarah Hrdy) find that the their uses of the notions of kinship structure and incest avoidance is useful, and yours is not, then why should they bind themselves with definitions that you or any of your pals use? Further, you make no attempt to try to understand their point of views. Why not? Because obviously your definition is right by definition. Why not just say, "I am right, and I know it!" and have done with it? After all there is no reason why you should express doubts. Why? Because on this subject, "by definition," you are right.
You define kinship structures with a dogmatic preciseness and if, in so doing, you can reduce your anxiety of having (maybe) to change your mind, or see the potential in the research of someone like Jim Moore, or Sarah Hrdy, and in the end avoid admitting that chimpanzees practice incest avoidance and have worked out kinship structures. Then you have done your work. You have defined kinship structures in such a way as to make yourself right. It is what you call "your position," Charles being right, "by definition."
So let me concede a point. If you can convince me that chimpanzees can't have "recognition" of kinship relations, without symbolic representation of kinship relations, then I will be convinced that there is something to your definition. But since the actual evidence is that there are complex kinship structures in many primate groups and further that to some greater or lesser degrees these kinship relations are "recognized" by individuals in the group, you will have to go a long way to convince me that an anthropologist such as Jim Moore or Sarah Hrdy would be better off using your restrictive definition, instead of their looser definition. At least in their definitions they try not to "define" reality before confronting reality. But unlike you, Moore and Hrdy do not need to be right only 'by definition.'
This exchange is very weird. There is no primatologist that I know of that doesn't use some notion of kinship structure and worked out kinship relations to study primates and especially apes. Their are experimental studies of how apes recognize kinship relations and what it means when they do. The evidence of incest avoidance is irrefutable. But you will just take anything written on these subjects out of context, clip little snippets and make flip little answers and make sure you are right "by definition."
So Charles, as far as I am concerned I give up on writing to you on a topic where you can't even mention the evidence but must maintain everything by definition.
You can have the last word here if you like. I will only reply to you if you actually decide that it is better to have a conversation and think things through than to "win" by definition. And only if you deal with things I actually say in my posts, instead of pulling little quotes out of context will it be worth answering you on anything. Only if you stop insisting that you are right "by definition."
Jerry Monaco