Behavior and attitude of modern teens, particularly girls

R. Steve Walz wrote:

Rowley wrote:

Bob LeChevalier wrote:

snippage
At the risk of spoiling this little argument,

Yawn, it has been getting a bit stale anyway.

Martin

---------------------
Oh well, if I'm boring you...

No - it's more the discussion, it's gotten to be a bit circular don't
you think - with you basically saying "Uh huh" and me saying "Un Un" ad
infinitum. I'm not going to change my mind and yours seem pretty set too.

Martin


Steve

"R. Steve Walz" wrote:
Bob LeChevalier wrote:

At the risk of spoiling this little argument, there is evidence that
biology has built into us an imperfect biological incest taboo that
makes sexual attraction between siblings much less likely. The
Westermarck Effect,
------------------
Previously discussed and dismissed, this thread.

It's simply not a very isolatable phenomenon. The Israeli Kibbutzim
saw it, but they had all sorts of dishonoring childrearing practices,
simple humiliation together could breed that contempt! Anyway, it just
is NOT shown that we have an anti-incest reflex, or there would never
have ever had to be any incest taboos and laws, they would be unneeed!!

That does not follow. Many biological tendencies are not absolute,
but are environmentally triggered. Sometimes the trigger fails.
Evolution tends not to make failsafe systems, because the most
failsafe ones (like keeping your heart beating for many years) have to
use lots of resources to ensure that they don't fail.

Since incestuous offspring are not always fatal, there would not be
sufficient evolutionary pressure to make a biological incest taboo
failsafe, or even necessarily robust. (Indeed, there are
circumstances where survival might necessitate overriding the incest
taboo - as when only your close relatives have survived a disaster).

That proves the effect is trivial or mistaken.

No. It is consistent with the fact that incestuous offspring have
considerable likelihood to be disadvantaged, but aren't absolutely
counter to survival.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imprinting_(psychology)
------------------------
Except that humans have no documentable "imprinting" phenomenon.

Of course we do. That's how we learn our native language.

The "womb-learning" theory has been discredited by experiment.

So?

Since Islam considers literacy to be an individual religious
obligation, I question Steve's assertion.
---------------------------
And do you actually believe that the Taliban are in any meaningful
sense, "literate"???

If they can read and write, they are "literate". That is the
definition of the term. As far as I am concerned, that is the ONLY
definition of the term.

Any other sense is not correct, even if "meaningful" (I am one of
those who considers "functional literacy" to be a misuse of the word).

lojbab

Rowley wrote:

R. Steve Walz wrote:
Oh well, if I'm boring you...

No - it's more the discussion, it's gotten to be a bit circular don't
you think - with you basically saying "Uh huh" and me saying "Un Un"
ad infinitum. I'm not going to change my mind and yours seem pretty
set too.
Martin
-------------------
We're not merely contradicting one another, we're explaining our
reasons for what we believe. If you don't think your beliefs are
actually logically supportable, well then you can withdraw if you
want.
Steve

Bob LeChevalier wrote:

"R. Steve Walz" wrote:
Bob LeChevalier wrote:

At the risk of spoiling this little argument, there is evidence that
biology has built into us an imperfect biological incest taboo that
makes sexual attraction between siblings much less likely. The
Westermarck Effect,
------------------
Previously discussed and dismissed, this thread.

It's simply not a very isolatable phenomenon. The Israeli Kibbutzim
saw it, but they had all sorts of dishonoring childrearing practices,
simple humiliation together could breed that contempt! Anyway, it just
is NOT shown that we have an anti-incest reflex, or there would never
have ever had to be any incest taboos and laws, they would be unneeed!!

That does not follow. Many biological tendencies are not absolute,
but are environmentally triggered.
-------------------
Well, "triggered" makes them sound almost autonomic, when they are not
at all, and they are not even evolved, and just make situational sense.


Sometimes the trigger fails.
-------------------
You have to distinguish between lower animal "instinct" and cognitive
human response based on motivation. If there is no reason for kids
in the same household not to have sex, and there aren't any or else
we would never even HAVE laws against incest, or parental efforts to
suppress it, then you'll need to look for other reasons in the case of
the Kibbutzim children, because other sibling groups DO play around
sexually.

Now if you're claiming that they avoided marrying, admitted, but
while that may be true, it must be distinguished from whether they
are sexually interested in one another versus whether they saw each
other as marriage material. If their culture had a strong taboo
against incest, and Judaism does, then the taboo would translate
into the adults trying to prevent the kids from sex with each other
early on, that is, it would inculcate in the children the awareness
of the parental disapproval of that sexuality, even if the parents
would have been glad to see them mate as adults, and that cannot be
dismissed as an influence!

But also, the dynamics of the Kibbutz movement are different than
most, and if the kids didn't LIKE being an experiment, like the
Kibbutzim children were, sociologically, then they would seek a mate
elsewhere, intentionally intending to leave Kibbutz life, which was
typically frontier and isolated from city culture and all the things
that attract young people going out to found their own lives.

This is undoubtedly seen in small towns where we know most children
do NOT remain in the isolated town of their parents, and they seem to
avoid marrying into the community of their origin, simply because the
prospect of another 50 years of that environment sounds obnoxious and
annoying to them. Now you can see this as some kind of exogamy instinct,
or you can see this as plain old good sense on the part of a kid who
wants more advanture in their life.

THAT story is as old as Luke Skywalker.


Evolution tends not to make failsafe systems, because the most
failsafe ones (like keeping your heart beating for many years) have to
use lots of resources to ensure that they don't fail.
------------------------
Sure, admitted, but you have to remember, we have NEVER detected the
activity of ANY instinct in the human that was not a simple reflex,
like the rooting reflex, and that instinct for higher behaviors is
only seen in lower mammals where there can be no complex cognitive
motivation of the sophistication required to form such complicated
behaviors. If we have any such they are totally subsumed, overwhelmed
and voided by our cognitive motivational facility.


Since incestuous offspring are not always fatal, there would not be
sufficient evolutionary pressure to make a biological incest taboo
failsafe, or even necessarily robust. (Indeed, there are
circumstances where survival might necessitate overriding the incest
taboo - as when only your close relatives have survived a disaster).
-------------------
What you say is correct, but still, we do NOT see human behaviors that
are both instinctive AND so behaviorally complex. There are notions
that we respond to pheromones, but again, no evidence that they ever
block sexual behavior, only that they stimulate it. The human pheromones
that HAVE been detected are the same from person to person, by sex,
and are not different enough to use for the avoidance of sex with
parents or siblings. Smell may be related in some way, but even that
is not evidenced, it is merely hypothesized.


That proves the effect is trivial or mistaken.

No. It is consistent with the fact that incestuous offspring have
considerable likelihood to be disadvantaged, but aren't absolutely
counter to survival.
-----------------------------
While that is true, it is not something that costs us much. Defective
young before modern times were simply killed. And while the pregnancy
was a cost, it is specious how a reflex could learn to avoid it without
avoiding sex or conception generally! People smell alike a lot, they
don't differ that much, and people don't actually have a hell of a lot
of choice who they breed with! Mostly, people marry whoever says yes
after they have both become so desperate for a reliable source of sex
and affectiion that they will settle for whoever is handy and amenable!
It's not like we get to sort through the whole bunch and get the one
we want the most! Your asking for far too much complexity in a simple
reflex.

It is simply not seen in other "instincts". Squirrels bury nuts, but
it is shown that they cannot remember where they are, they have to
smell them in the ground! They aren't planning and remembering. And
birds that migrate are now shown to be quite inaccurate where they
wind up, they do NOT mate with the same partner as used to be thought,
and they do NOT come back to the same nest year after year. And this
is sensible, a mate can die, and individuals can get lost on the
flyways. It would be stupid to based reproduction on mere fortune!


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imprinting_(psychology)
------------------------
Except that humans have no documentable "imprinting" phenomenon.

Of course we do. That's how we learn our native language.
--------------------------------
Yes, we learn to make and hear certain sounds, but we are not limited
to them if we learn enough of them early on. The requirement to
learn some foundational skill early doesn't mean that we are
"imprinting" like a baby duck. And baby ducks have long been known
to follow practically anything, doesn't sound so bright to me!
Much of this crap is merely pop predjudice and an effort to ascribe
purpose to Nature to support and fraudulently backstop religious
notions.


The "womb-learning" theory has been discredited by experiment.
So?
---------------------------
One more "imprinting" type notion that doesn't withstand examination.


Since Islam considers literacy to be an individual religious
obligation, I question Steve's assertion.
---------------------------
And do you actually believe that the Taliban are in any meaningful
sense, "literate"???

If they can read and write, they are "literate". That is the
definition of the term. As far as I am concerned, that is the ONLY
definition of the term.
--------------------------
If you teach a child to recite a child's book from memory, and they
know it by heart, when they do so with the book in front of them as
a prompt to memory, are they "reading", or not?


Any other sense is not correct, even if "meaningful" (I am one of
those who considers "functional literacy" to be a misuse of the word).
lojbab
------------------------------
If someone "only" learns to read the bible, everything either looks
like the bible, or it looks like the devil. That isn't literacy
in any meaningful sense.
Steve