Re: the G- word, reply to Whitehead

Harriet Whitehead (whitehea@WSUAIX.CSC.WSU.EDU)
Sat, 17 Dec 1994 08:13:46 -31802

with Eve that the human species is by all reckoning less diverse than the
highly genetically manipulated canine species, nonetheless I concede that
if "learning biases" at the species level submit to genetic
interpretations, there's no reason same couldn't be true within the
species. My suggesting otherwise was a bit of a cop out. The evolution of
mind crowd keeps stressing (to stave off people's nervousness) all the
evolutionary and population level reasons why the human species would not
have attained high levels of intra-species diversification. I suspect
here we're getting into a glass half-empty/half-full kind of debate. For
some people any suggestion of meaningful intra-species diversity in
humans is too dangerous to contemplate. For others some diversity (which
logically and empirically is there) is fine, just don't blow it all out
of (political) proportion. I guess I fall into the latter camp.



Harriet Whitehead
Anthro, WSU