On Mon, Apr 6, 2009 at 10:10 AM, Philip Pilkington <pilkingtonphil at gmail.com
> wrote:
> On Mon, Apr 6, 2009 at 2:59 PM, Chris Doss <lookoverhere1 at yahoo.com>
> wrote:
>
> >
> > This list is full of false statements. Almost all of them are false. Here
> > are some big ones:
> >
> > Natural selection completely determines the traits of animals (but not
> > humans, because of culture). (FALSE -- see cultural variation among
> > chimpanzees)
>
>
> I dunno about this, but I'd be suspicious.
>
>
> >
> >
> > Natural selection doesn’t endow animals with superfluous traits. (FALSE.
> > Male nipple, anyone?)
>
>
>
> Badly stated, I'll grant. But I think he means that they tend not to be
> endowed with traits which would be regressive to their evolution. The male
> nipple may be a "hangover", but its not regressive.
>
> Also, although he doesn't go into this. If we allow for humans'
> consciousness to have physiological effects over their bodies but not
> animals (since they are purported not to have consciousness) then humans
> would be exempt from this rule anyway.
>
>
>
> >
> >
> > Arguments 4-6 seem to depend on the clearly false assumption that animals
> > do not have memory (!!!!)
> >
> >
> >
> I think he means "memory" in the human sense of the term. The idea here is
> that animals have something akin to computer or machine memory whereas
> human
> memory is more like that exemplified by Freud and Proust. Multi layered,
> temporalised and far from mechanical.
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