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Re: "Family"
mike shupp (ms44278@HUEY.CSUN.EDU)
Sat, 20 Jul 1996 14:12:39 -0700
On Fri, 19 Jul 1996, Robert Snower wrote:
> At 03:32 AM 7/19/96 +0000, Dwight W. Read wrote:
>
> >When we consider humans, the matter becomes much more complex because of a
> >cultural overlay which (a) can serve to ensure that paternity is known and
> >(b) its ability to elicit behaviors whose origin need not have a biological
> >basis, hence need not have their origin via natural selection.
> >
> >D. Read
> >dread@anthro.ucla.edu
>
>
> If you will pardon an esoteric remark before I go to work:
>
> A cultural overlay does not have the ability to elicit transgenerational
> parenting behaviors whose origin need not have a biological basis anymore
> than it is possible to write an imaginary number without presupposing the
> real number.
>
> Best wishes. rs222@worldnet.att.net
>
(Where did I read this? Dennett's DARWIN'S DANGEROUS IDEA, perhaps,
or Matt Ridley's THE RED QUEEN'S RACE or....) Anyhow, back in
the 60's or 70's, a group of researchers posing as medical men
managed to get blood samples from every single resident of several
blocks of some English city, eventually concluding that roughly
one child in three in the community was _not_ the offspring of
both legally wed "parents."
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ms44278@huey.csun.edu
Mike Shupp
California State University, Northridge
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